Mirror a Drive to another?

[Vishvas Sudarshan]

I have a 120GB SSD and a 500GB HDD.

 

My aim is to partition the HDD into 120GB and use this to mirror my SSD.

 

Once set, this should be automatic, i.e. it should automatically 'update' the HDD once every few days or so.

 

How do I achieve this?

 

Thanks!

[SCHISCHKA]

sounds like you just need a backup script. What is your operating system? Windows has backup built in now.

[Pample]

I think what you are trying to acheive is creating a RAID drive, specifically RAID 1. You really need to have 2 identical drives for this to be viable.

 

To be honnest I think your most sensible option is going to be to set automatic backups. If you are using Windows, you can do this using the built in utility. This will be a lot easier for you and will keep a copy of your drive as per every 'Few Days'.

[Vishvas Sudarshan]

3 minutes ago, SCHISCHKA said:

sounds like you just need a backup script. What is your operating system? Windows has backup built in now.

Windows 10.

 

@Pample

I've seen guides where they have 1 partition on their HDD and use the whole thing. My plan is to have 2 partitions on the HDD and use only one of them for backup. Is it possible?

[SCHISCHKA]

Just now, Vishvas Sudarshan said:

Windows 10.

I've seen guides where they have 1 partition on their HDD and use the whole thing. My plan is to have 2 partitions on the HDD and use only one of them for backup. Is it possible?

yes just go to 'back up and restore' or whatever its called under control panel and tell it to use that partition. It is a good idea to give backup its own partition

[Vishvas Sudarshan]

2 minutes ago, SCHISCHKA said:

yes just go to 'back up and restore' or whatever its called under control panel and tell it to use that partition. It is a good idea to give backup its own partition

Thanks. I know about backup and restore. That's why I said 'Mirror' my SSD. Like every single file on my SSD and HDD partition should be the same. What about that?

[Pample]

3 minutes ago, Vishvas Sudarshan said:

Windows 10.

 

@Pample

I've seen guides where they have 1 partition on their HDD and use the whole thing. My plan is to have 2 partitions on the HDD and use only one of them for backup. Is it possible?

It's completely possible, just a bit messy. It certinally would work, just go to Disk Managment by right clicking on the windows icon. You will then be able to setup a custom partition on that drive. You will then be able to assign that partition as the backup partition.

[Pample]

1 minute ago, Vishvas Sudarshan said:

Thanks. I know about backup and restore. That's why I said 'Mirror' my SSD. Like every single file on my SSD and HDD partition should be the same. What about that?

If you want to do that, you really should be going down the route of a RAID 1 setup.

[SCHISCHKA]

6 minutes ago, Vishvas Sudarshan said:

Thanks. I know about backup and restore. That's why I said 'Mirror' my SSD. Like every single file on my SSD and HDD partition should be the same. What about that?

yes it is possible. Most people who raid under windows setup the RAID via bios which uses the whole drive. You will need to setup software mirroring which is a bit messy because it is also your boot drive. I don't know what you would gain by mirroring a SSD to a mechanical drive. It is possible it might run slower.

[Pample]

1 minute ago, SCHISCHKA said:

yes it is possible. Most people who raid under windows setup the RAID via bios which uses the whole drive. You will need to setup software mirroring which is a bit messy because it is also your boot drive. I don't know what you would gain by mirroring a SSD to a mechanical drive. It is possible it might run slower.

I would have thought it would deffinatly run slower. Particularly if you use the raminder of the drive for general storage, I have a feeling if you do this you might actually make the PC basically grind to a halt.

[SCHISCHKA]

2 minutes ago, Pample said:

I would have thought it would deffinatly run slower. Particularly if you use the raminder of the drive for general storage, I have a feeling if you do this you might actually make the PC basically grind to a halt.

its mirroring so writes will go as slow as the slowest drive. Reads might not be affected but that depends on what ever algorithm MS uses to determine which disk data is retrieved from.

[Pample]

1 minute ago, SCHISCHKA said:

its mirroring so writes will go as slow as the slowest drive. Reads might not be affected but that depends on what ever algorithm MS uses to determine which disk data is retrieved from.

This is where my experiance is going to end. I've never gone down the route of mismatched drives for a RAID array.

[SCHISCHKA]

Just now, Pample said:

This is where my experiance is going to end. I've never gone down the route of mismatched drives for a RAID array.

i see no reason to test it. Just like i see no logical reason why anyone should put a redundancy array in a desktop PC

[Pample]

1 minute ago, SCHISCHKA said:

i see no reason to test it. Just like i see no logical reason why anyone should put a redundancy array in a desktop PC

I'll admit that I do run a RAID 1 array in my desktop. I agree that it's completely useless in terms of most people. I mainly did it to see what kind of speed boost it would give me as a secondary drive.

[SCHISCHKA]

Just now, Pample said:

I'll admit that I do run a RAID 1 array in my desktop. I agree that it's completely useless in terms of most people. I mainly did it to see what kind of speed boost it would give me as a secondary drive.

does it make maps load faster? I tried RAID 1+0 on a bunch of old drives once but they werent proper raid drives so they kept dropping out of the array. I can see a use for rendering a movie scene but I wouldnt class that as desktop use if it takes some time to do its work.

[Pample]

1 minute ago, SCHISCHKA said:

does it make maps load faster? I tried RAID 1+0 on a bunch of old drives once but they werent proper raid drives so they kept dropping out of the array. I can see a use for rendering a movie scene but I wouldnt class that as desktop use if it takes some time to do its work.

Ha, it's kind of subjective to be honnest. I've been ultra lazy so haven't actually benchmarked it. I think it does but like I say, this is just my opinion.

 

It also happens to be cool when your annoying students say "What kind of rig are you running sir?" and I reply with SSD and a RAID 1 array.