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"RAID:" The Only Backup Solution! Written by: Dan Daily
Hi Gang! Glad you all could make it! Everyone talks about backup; how important it is, and the way to do it. While 1 million people will give you 1 million different answers on what the best backup method is, there is only one; "RAID." What's RAID? Let's find out! .
The Most Common Form of Backup Today Is None! Face it, it's none! How many of you actually back up your system? C'mon, be honest... The main reason you don't backup is the major hassle it is! But, if your computer gave up the ghost tomorrow, what would you lose? Do you do any online banking? Do you make any payments on-line? Do you have passwords auto-saved on your system? Do you do your Taxes on your PC? Have family Photos on your PC? How about email address books? Internet favorite places? Word processor documents? If your computer is truly integrated into your life, you answered yes to some or ALL of the above. If you did, YOU NEED TO BACKUP! In my case, it's yes to all of the above and add about 25 gigs of data to support The Dan Daily Sites. You begin to see why this issue is so important to me. If I lost that support data for the sites, it could never be replaced and the web site would be gone quite quickly. I'd lose all of you just by losing the address books!
Now That We've Agreed We All Need to Backup; What Solutions Are Out There? Let's assume for the sake of argument that you have 20 gigs of data. Including your windows files. Some have much more then that, some less, but we'll go with 20 gigs. Floppy Disk: The oldest form of backup in the book. Each is cheap, but only holds 1.4 megs of data. It would take 14,286 of them to backup your 20 gigs. Obviously, out of the question. A gig, is a meg x 1000 Iomega Zip Drives: About 100 bucks for the drive, each disk is expensive and holds about 450 megs of data. It would take 445 of them to back up your 20 gigs. Also out of the question. CD Burners: Most all computers come with them. Most CD's hold up to 700 megs of data and it would take 29 of them to backup your 20 gigs. For me? Still out of the question! DVD Burners: Perhaps, if you didn't have much data. They are very expensive as are the blank disks. But still, even 7 minutes is a long time if you can have backup in real time. Like duh? The problem with any of these "solutions:" You have to manually do the disk shuffling and it takes forever. Additionally, tomorrow when you start working away, your brand new backup is now old and inaccurate. This forces you to backup at least once a week. Even once a week, you could still lose one whole weeks worth of data in the event of a major hard drive crash. Remember: There are two types of computer users: Those that have had a hard drive crash, and those who haven't, yet... I'm in the former. Many guru's out there push "Disk Ghosting" to CD's. This copies the complete working system to CD. But again: How often do you have to do this? Then they talk about incremental backups on top of it. (backup up only what's changed since the last "Ghosting") This creates tons of disks laying around that you have keep sorted. Then you have to throw the old obsolete CD's away! Great for the landfills. I say BAH HUMBUG! I want my backup to be completely automatic, running in the background in real time, all the time. I Don't Even Want to Know it's There! That's My Version of Backup...
Well Gang? That's Exactly What My Backup Solution Provides, and More! RAID: "Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks," first began way back in the old old days. The problem was, the setups were extremely expensive. So expensive, the word "Inexpensive" was changed to "Independent" and all the dreams of a quick, easy, cheap backup method were dashed. It could only be afforded by major corporations. That is, Until Now... There are various flavors of RAID but today, we'll discuss PCI RAID 1 on an IDE system. PCI is the slot that all your computers cards sit in. Like your modem, sound, your video etc. RAID 1 means disk mirroring. IDE is the controller and protocol on your Motherboard that actually controls your hard drive and CD ROM drives. In other words, PCI RAID 1 on IDE applies to most all of you and: That's What I Use. In it's simplest form, RAID 1 is both effective and cheap! It takes a second hard drive and mirrors it to the first in real time. Because it's a mirror, it's always up to date and fully bootable! If one of the drives crash, the other takes over automatically. You get a little popup to tell you it happened. Other then that popup; you wouldn't even know a drive crashed at all! I defy any geek out there to tell me that this isn't the cat's meow and the ultimate backup solution.
And it's Cheap! How Cheap? How does 110 dollars sound? The only time that cost goes up, is if one of your drives actually crashes. You'd have to go to the store and buy another one. That's the total cost! The end! Finished!!! From your existing computer, all it takes to build a RAID 1 system, is a new, second hard drive, an empty PCI slot in your computer and the RAID controller card. With the cost of hard drives falling so low, RAID has finally seen the potential we were all so excited about 20 years ago. A RAID card costs about 50 dollars and even comes with the new connection ribbons! If you take your time and shop, you can get a 40 gig hard drive on sale for $60.00. That's it gang, that's ALL you need!
It's The ONLY Way To Go!
Inner Circle Extra: What should you buy? What do you need to know? Let's find out: RAID, like anything, has it's requirements and it's quirks. As far as the actual card goes: I use the Siig Ultra 133 Raid card. I bought it online at Comp USA for 49 dollars. It works fine, but, at the time, none of the stores carried RAID cards. Best Buy now carries them. I recommend the Siig only because it's what I use and I've never had any trouble with it. I actually read and followed the directions. Guess what? It worked the first time! Yeah, it did!!! And as you can imagine, I was shocked and quite pleasantly surprised. The Drive: The thing about RAID is the speed and size is regulated by the slowest weakest link. Ideally you want a drive exactly the same size as the one you have and the same speed. If you get a larger drive, the RAID will make it as small as the smallest. If you get a faster drive, the RAID will slow it down to match the slower one in the system. If you can't get an exact match, buy a larger faster one. I upgraded both drives to faster drives.
RAID IS NOT VIRUS PROTECTION! If you catch a virus, by RAID's very nature, you'll screw up both drives! You can, and I do, use a third hot spare. The Siig card supports this. I have a third drive in the system that I update once a week. In the event that I might catch a virus, the third drive is still safe. How do I update it? Simple, I simulate a hard drive crash by unplugging one of the others and the RAID card automatically switches to the third and mirrors it. When it's done, I turn the other on and it goes back to it. It's neat to watch it do it's thing!
Check This Here's what you need: You need to make sure you have an open PCI slot and space for a second hard drive. (most computers support this)
If some of you are interested in this, let me know and I'll do more specific articles on it. I have a whole series of them. I hope this helps you on your road. Your Road? Yes, Your Road To Computer Sanity Danny
I am not an ignorant man, but there are times when a person just does not foresee the obvious despite what common sense tells us. I speak of Thermaltake's Volcano 6 CPU fan and Heatsink. During testing of my new temperature alert program; my original intention, as I reached blindly toward the Volcano, was to slow the CPU fan below the rpm speed that would trigger the audible warning system. I failed to realize that the average speed of the little fan was turning at 7,000 rpm. Amazing what a little piece of plastic can do to a fingertip. Yes, it hurt. No, the bleeding has not yet stopped. Yes, I learned what I had already knew. No, I'll not do that again. In closing, I say ... Do not stick your finger in the Volcano!
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