Raid Setup Questions

Hello Guys & Gals,

I need a bit of knowledge with raid and can't really find answer using search here, google and youtube.

So I have a windows 8.1 system with 6 internal (3 hdd, 1 ssd, and 1 dvd and 1 bdrw) sata drives, 4 external drive hdd.

Now i am going to be adding a new system card for more drive support and here is my questions.

Is there a way to use a pci card for more sata drives and have one of those drives as a raid drive to raid 1 my c: drive? I want a mirror of drive c: (ssd) just in case. I have a copy/clone of c: currently but I want a active mirror of it.I really do not want to move drives around if at all possible.
I simply want to add a card and a new drive to that card to mirror c:.

That brings me to question 2 which is if it can be done can the raid drive be of different type and size? Meaning my c: is (ssd 512gb) and I want to use a hdd of 1gb or more. I know the space is lost and wasted but I do not want another ssd as raid/mirror.

Last question, If both my questions above can be done how the heck do I do it?
I am good with basic stuff and some advanced but have never used or tried raid in my life.
I just recently cloned c: drive from 120ssd to the 512ssd which was easy and the 512gb ssd run great now as c: drive and the 120 is in storage now.

So if anyone could answer my questions i would greatly appreciate it.
Thanks in advance
Gren

 

1) An actual intelligent raid card that would be worth Sh*t would cost more than another 512GB SSD (a lot more!!!!)
2) If you went that route, you'd have a nightmare getting the boot drivers loaded onto your existing Windows because you would HAVE to move the boot drive's connection to the raid card.
3) A Raid mirror replicates the changes on one drive so that the second drive is as close to identical, in real time, as possible. No matter what, using a traditional drive as the second drive in a mirror would cripple the speed of the SSD. (Does a 4-5 times slower storage subsystem make you want to rethink that?)
4) One HUGE weakness of a raid one (mirror) is that, if one drive gets infected or corrupted, the mirror is too, faster than you can blink your eyes.

Since name brand SSD's now have a 10 year life and are not prone to the hardware failures that traditional hard disk drives are, why do you want a mirror?

Do you want to be able to add more storage?
Are those external drives using USB 3.0? (its ten times faster than USB 2)

 

Hello Davismccarn,

Thanks for the fast reply to my questions.

1) It is not a cost issue I just did not want an ssd for raid as my system.

As for your other points I just need a way to have a working copy of drive c: for safety.
My external drive are all using USB3 except 3 extra drives using Esata hotswap bay.

I had tried Acronis to clone drive but it kept crashing system.
Then I tried EaseUs and it also caused problems. (screwed up bios settings)
So I took out c: drive and used hardware clone, but that is a pain in the butt to do everyday.

If you know of a way to have a complete clone done everyday of drive c: I am all ears.
But as said I do not really want to move drives around.

So how would you create a complete c: drive clone every day?

Thanks in advance
Gren

 

You need to create a Recovery CD/DVD or this is useless; but, Windows has the ability built-in:
http://www.windowscentral.com/how-make-full-backup-windows-pc

 

Hello,

thanks for the information and help, I do appreciate it.

The option to create recovery partition is greyed out.
I called the manufacturer and they said I must have created one, Thou I know I did
not create one. They told me there is a recovery partition on my drive to recover windows.

So will the info on the link you sent me be any good with a recovery cd/dvd?
Or how do I make a recovery cd/dvd if option is greyed out?

Thanks in advance
Gren

 

Sorry, I miswrote; you need a System Repair disk so you can restore the backup should you need to:
https://www.winhelp.us/create-a-recovery-drive-in-windows-8.html