Some more backup questions...

I know, I know, this is like the 3rd topic I've made on this. But I had something come to mind... I REALLY want to make a complete, full mirror for a backup. Then I want to take that and just stick it in a safe, only updating it if I do something that can't be backed up conventionally, like if I install a knew program or something other that just data. So, I basically have two options for mirroring. Either use raid, or use mirroring software.

Of course, with raid, you don't take the second drive out. So here is the question on that... Instead of spending $30-50+ on mirroring software, why couldn't I just buy a cheap raid card($20-30), use it to mirror two drives, and then just take the extra drive and raid card out and stick them in the safe? I mean, wouldn't that be just about as easy as going through the process of adding a slave drive, booting from a disk, and going through that mirror process? Or I could get two extra hard drives, and swap them out in the secondary spot. Say, stick one in, let it mirror, shut down, stick that one in the safe, then stick the other one in, leave it in for the day or week or whatever, and then swap it out with the one in the safe. That way I'd always have one no more than a week old in the safe, and also have a current one in the computer in case, say, only one was knocked out.

Secondly, there is the software. Here's the question with this one... Is there any software that is able to "mirror" a drive to a cd or dvd? Seems as though the obvious answer would be no... the disk being mirrored to would have to be the same size as or larger than the disk being mirrored. But I was told that some programs take the mirror image and compress it to a size that fits on a cd or dvd and also makes that cd or dvd bootable so that you can restore that image to a HD, so, while it wouldn't actually be a mirror per se, it would accomplish backing up the entire system completely including the OS and all. Anyone know of software that does this?

 

The RAID idea is good, except that removing the 2nd drive is unnecessary and may actually be more of a pain in the a** than it's worth. I may be mistaken, but with a mirrored RAID, the 2nd drive gets updated more-or-less in real time. So, if you remove the 2nd drive and re-install it from time to time to update it (or swap it out with another 2nd drive) you'd have to go through the entire mirroring and RAID setup process each time, as if it were a brand new 2nd drive. In other words, it would not update the 2nd drive from where you left off. So, you'd either leave the drive installed in RAID configuration, or you'd leave the drive installed in RAID long enough to completely re-create the 2nd drive then remove it (maybe not physically remove it from the tower but at least remove it from the data/power cables and 'de-RAID' it), and leave it out, and maybe re-install it, format it, and mirror it via RAID once a month or whatever. But that once a month would be a pain. If you're only doing it once a month (or less often), I'd personally use imaging software and mirror the main drive to a USB external. There's free apps for this and you don't necessarily need to pay $30-$50 for it, but it may be worth it to do so, as the paid apps are generally faster and have more features than the paid versions. However- there is a FREE full version of Acronis 8 that you can download directly from Acronis and it's totally legal and totally functional. A search of the Major Geeks software forum should provide a link and the needed how-to info to get it. I have it, and I can tell you: it's free, it's easy to use, it's great.

Good luck!

 

Thanks a bunch. I have never set up raid before but for some reason in my mind I thought it was almost a plug any play type deal with very little configuration required, I have no idea why I thought that. Anyway, I think I will go with the mirroring solution and mirror to USB hard drive. Of course, I'll make data backups to a flash drive or dvd, and only mirror if I install a new program or something else that can't be backed up simply by copying files. Looks like I've got my plan now, thanks for the help. I hope it's compatible with Vista

 

It is not compatible with Vista. Did a quick google search and thought that I had read that it was compatible. Got it installed and everything, went to run it, and Vista gave a notification that it had known compatibility issues. So I went back to google and found that it in fact is not. I'll have to find something else...