RAID SETUP

[Paras2304]

I wanted to create a raid1 configuration with 2 high capacity hdd to store information safely on my desktop computer. I am confused by the amount of hard drives in the market. I want to know which hdd to use for home raid configuration and how often you should take backups to save data if running a raid configuration. i also want to know the ways i can take hard backup and how to do it.

Also what are the downsides of running a nas drive in your desktop as a regular hdd. I would appreciate someone informed anwsering this and would appreciate other knowledge related to this that i didn't mention like compatibility etc.

[tkitch]

for 2 drives, you can use most anything that's reasonably decent.  Don't cheap out, but you don't need high price NAS Drives, either.

 

Most Desktop PCs offer basic RAID Support in the BIOS, or you can do it with windows Storage Spaces easily enough.

 

As for backups, that's a whole different animal.

 

What are you planning to backup to?

[Paras2304]

3 minutes ago, tkitch said:

for 2 drives, you can use most anything that's reasonably decent.  Don't cheap out, but you don't need high price NAS Drives, either.

 

Most Desktop PCs offer basic RAID Support in the BIOS, or you can do it with windows Storage Spaces easily enough.

 

As for backups, that's a whole different animal.

 

What are you planning to backup to?

I am looking to backup to a external source like an external hdd that i can access if something bad happens. since its mostly personal data i would not want to use a cloud service for this as it would cost more in the long run (i think) and is not that reliable.

[tkitch]

23 minutes ago, Paras2304 said:

I am looking to backup to a external source like an external hdd that i can access if something bad happens. since its mostly personal data i would not want to use a cloud service for this as it would cost more in the long run (i think) and is not that reliable.

So, you can use built in windows backup to backup to a USB Drive on any schedule you want.

 

As for online?  A reputable service is dramatically more reliable than your local USB Disk will be.  Yes, it will have a monthly cost, but how much data are you actually backing up?

 

[wseaton]

Several points here.

 

First, there's no such thing as a NAS drive. Just Western Digital marketing nonsense. Most reliable conventional HD's I've used still seem to be HGST. At least they last the longest.

 

Most modern motherboards have RAID 1 capability built in, but it needs to be enabled in the BIOS. Not advisable to do this with Sata SSD, but it works fine with regular HDs.

 

While Windows desktops have built in backup capabilities that do work, they are limited and a bit inflexible. Considering tools like Macrium Reflect and competitors have free versions for home users I strongly advise using them because they are a lot more intuitive and flexible. All these tools work on top of Windows Volume Shadow copy anyways.

 

The cloud is a place, not a method. For backing up desktop systems in their entirety I advise sticking to a local USB drive or NAS. Why? Because if you make a backup of your computer it creates an image of that computer. That image is stored as a file, and that file can be huge. If you do nightly backups you are backing up that large image file nightly. Good luck backing up a compressed 200GB VHD nightly on a 40/10 cable connection.

 

So, you just can't say "use an online backup" without knowing the size of data in play and internet connection. With a local USB drive you just boot your recovery USB and pull the image back from your external drive.