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shaq_mobile
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Joined: Wed Jul 16, 2008 2:33 pm

Raid 1 Setup

Thu Feb 16, 2017 1:34 am

Hey Gerbils,

I've actually never done a raid setup in the 20 years I've been building machines. I recently started working on an Unreal Engine project that I recognize the important of daily (or more!) backups with a real file history. I've already had a few scary moments with corrupted projects. I need good performance and I'm tired of the hacky work arounds to get my 50gb OneDrive to backup a symbolically linked folde, and I'd like to have more backups than my bandwidth max and upload will probably allow (or at least I'd be heavily taxing it).

If all goes well with Ryzen, I was just going to grab two OS SSDs and set them up in raid 1. What is the verdict? Is this practical? Is it simpler to just use Windows 10 backup and just have the extra drive backup up the one folder? What's the quick rundown on how to do this, starting from a fresh windows 10 install on a brand new machine?

Thank you :)
Sidenote: The project will be anywhere from 3-5gb at most. I'd like backups at least every six hours for a month, so I'll probably need at least a 1tb ssd.
 
Noinoi
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Re: Raid 1 Setup

Thu Feb 16, 2017 1:55 am

Do not treat RAID1 as a backup!

RAID1 will do nothing to accidental deletion, malware, that kind of thing. RAID1 will only protect you against drive failures.

Though you could say that RAID1 would also allow you to have minimal downtime when a drive fails - just replace it with a similarly sized drive and get on with your work or something, and you can wing it with 1 drive while you get your replacement drive.

If I were you I'd probably rather use a single, larger SSD + an external drive to back up to using Windows' own file history feature. Something that you can disconnect once you're done.
[email protected] | Patriot 2x16GB | Asus GTX 970 | Aorus Z390 Pro Wifi | Intel 660p 512GB + Kingston Fury 240GB + 2x4TB WD HDDs | Win 10
 
Aether
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Joined: Sat Dec 20, 2014 8:50 pm

Re: Raid 1 Setup

Thu Feb 16, 2017 9:15 am

Noinoi wrote:
Do not treat RAID1 as a backup!

RAID1 will do nothing to accidental deletion, malware, that kind of thing. RAID1 will only protect you against drive failures.

Though you could say that RAID1 would also allow you to have minimal downtime when a drive fails - just replace it with a similarly sized drive and get on with your work or something, and you can wing it with 1 drive while you get your replacement drive.

If I were you I'd probably rather use a single, larger SSD + an external drive to back up to using Windows' own file history feature. Something that you can disconnect once you're done.

My thoughts exactly. Windows File History sounds like the best solution for what you have described.
 
cheesyking
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Re: Raid 1 Setup

Thu Feb 16, 2017 10:11 am

Noinoi wrote:
Do not treat RAID1 as a backup!

RAID1 will do nothing to accidental deletion, malware, that kind of thing. RAID1 will only protect you against drive failures.

Though you could say that RAID1 would also allow you to have minimal downtime when a drive fails - just replace it with a similarly sized drive and get on with your work or something, and you can wing it with 1 drive while you get your replacement drive.

If I were you I'd probably rather use a single, larger SSD + an external drive to back up to using Windows' own file history feature. Something that you can disconnect once you're done.

Exactly. 
RAID is about avoiding downtime not protecting data.

With the addition that if this is code rather than artwork then you should be using source control and backing that up.
I'd also use more than one external backup drive.
Fernando!
Your mother ate my dog!
 
shaq_mobile
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Topic Author
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Joined: Wed Jul 16, 2008 2:33 pm

Re: Raid 1 Setup

Thu Feb 16, 2017 1:00 pm

Thank you for the help! I'll just run with your suggestion. The windows 10 file backup looks pretty nifty and a decently large SSD isn't that expensive. I appreciate your time! :)

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