RAID vs Copy and Paste

[grangervoldemort]

On 9/30/2018 at 7:49 AM, Lady Fitzgerald said:

@grangervoldemort I glanced through this thread and it appears what you want is to just protect your data and no kind of RAID will do that for you so, unless continuous operation should a drive fail is essential for you, I would forget using RAID. Making and maintaining backups doesn't have to be rocket science (leave that to Elon Musk).

 

For data to be reasonably safe, it needs to exist in three, different places. For most people, this is on the computer, on an onsite backup drive, and on an offsite backup drive. For a drive to be a backup drive, it needs to be kept disconnected from the computer and powered down except when updating the backup.

 

An onsite backup is one that is stored in the general vicinity of the computer but not in sight of the computer, such as in a drawer or closet several feet from the computer or in nother room.

 

An offsite backup is stored somewhere other than the building the computer is in. The further away, the better (up to a point; you don't want to have to spend hours getting to it). I recommend using a safe deposit box at a bank but, if that isn't possible, then a trusted friend or relative's house would be an alternative.

 

Onsite and offsite backups should be swapped out as frequently as practical to keep both as up to date as possible.

 

I recommend keeping the OS and programs on their own drive or separate partition and data on its own drive(s) or partition to simplify backups.

 

Imaging is the best method of backing up the OS and programs drive or partition. An image is similar to a poto negative and is used to retore your OS and programs to the state they were in when the image was taken. For imaging, I recommend using Macrium Reflect Free.

 

While imaging is necessary for backing up and restoring the OS and programs (cloning can also be done but it's slower and wastes far too much space), it's too inefficient and cumbersome for backing up data. For that, I recommend folder/file syncing. When set to Mirror mode (not the same as RAID 1), a folder/file syncing program will copy and data on the source drive (the oine in your computer) that isn't on the destination drive (aka the backup drive) to the destination drive and any data on the destination drive that isn't on the source drive will be deleted from the destination drive. The source drive is never touched. The result is essentially an exact copy of the source drive on the destination drive.

 

Unlike imaging, folder/file syncing can be very fast because only data added, changed, or deleted are involved in an update.

 

For folder/file syncing, I recommend FreeFileSync. It also has a feature called Versioning. When enabled (which I strongly recommend), Versioning will send deleted files to a user designated versioning folder or drive. This feature will protect you from accidental deletions or enable recovering files that become corrupted. 

Hello?

[grangervoldemort]

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[grangervoldemort]

????

[SSD Sean]

On 9/30/2018 at 12:13 PM, grangervoldemort said:

Can you please explain how file syncing is different from RAID? I Googled it but couldn't find answers.

20

Read what RAID is: 

 

Read what synchronize means: https://www.bing.com/search?q=syncrhonize&PC=U316&FORM=CHROMN

• computing
  cause (a set of data or files) to remain identical in more than one location.
  "you can synchronize your calendar with your GPS device and be alerted when you need to leave for an appointment"
• coordinate; combine.
  "both media synchronize national interests with multinational scope"

 

So basically, when you read or write to a RAID volume you read and write to multiple drives at once. When you synchronize your data as a batch job as https://freefilesync.org/ does, it compares folders on the drives you configure it to, then it will find any differences between them and make sure the folders are synchronized or updated, as you set it to. 

 

What I would suggest you do is get a backup drive 8TB or so. Set up/organize your data so you can easily configure freefilesync to backup/sync them to the new 8TB+ drive. If you want the data on the other drives to appear as if it is on a single drive, you can use drive pool: https://stablebit.com/ I use it in my server and it works great with over 24 drive. 

 

[grangervoldemort]

hello? 

[SSD Sean]

On 11/17/2018 at 10:45 PM, grangervoldemort said:

hello? 

Hi,

 

What do you need to know now?

[grangervoldemort]

What should I do? 

 

External drives are inferior unless you spend a lot. Especially SMR drives, and there's no way of telling what drive is inside without opening it up thus voiding warranty. 

External drive designs can be awful. Example, I bought a western digital 4tb drive and later found out that it has a custom PCB with no SATA TO USB card.

The USB port is all there is. 

So in the event that port breaks, which apparently it does a fair bit as its only soldered onto the board, then you have no easy way.. Or even on way to retrieve the data and continue using the drive. 

I found that information by accident while looking at user uploaded photos on Amazon reviews for this product. 

 

Buying an internal drive and an external enclosure doesn't work, due to all external enclosures being of cheap quality, and the 'better' ones costing more than £35 each. Total cost is crazy for internal drive and enclosure of rubbish quality compared to external drives you can buy. 

 

As per ladyfitz, RAID in my situation is pointless. 

 

I have nowhere I can store drives as I have no one and banks in my country don't offer safety deposit boxes. 

 

So what I do? 

 

Please read this entire thread to understand.

 

Thank you 

 

[W-L]

And this has gone completely off the rails from the original topic. 

 

 

-Locked-