RAID without RAID?
I would like to have a backup solution that I call "RAID without RAID". For various reasons, I would prefer not to run my drives on a RAID setup. My operating system is Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit.
First of all, unless I'm mistaken, RAID is a one-way street and once created, a RAID volume cannot be un-created without losing all of your data. I avoid non-reversible actions like the plague whenever possible.
Secondly, my MOBO has a 6GB/s SATA III controller in addition to the usual 3GB/s SATA II controller. However, the 6GB/s controller is not a RAID controller, so if I ever want to clone my SATA II drive to a SATA III drive and take advantage of the higher transfer rate, I can't because the SATA III controller won't support RAID. Buying a good SATA III RAID controller right now is very expensive and if I decide to do it later after creating a RAID volume on the 3GB/s controller, the new 6GB/s controller will more than likely not be compatible with the old controller's RAID volume.
I have an external eSata hard drive enclosure with a hard drive which is identical to the SATA drive in my system. My system can be set to boot from either the internal SATA or the external eSATA drive.
The first part of my plan was to clone the internal drive to the external drive using the Acronis TrueImage Home 2011 clone function and then be able to select which drive to boot from in case of a drive failure. I have done all that, tested it and was successful.
The second part of my plan was to hopefully use TrueImage's "Continuous Backup" to continuously update the changed files to the cloned external eSATA drive. Apparently, Continuous Backup doesn't work like that. There are two partitions (C: and D:) on the internal drive and the external drive, of course, has identical partitions. Continuous Backup will let me select both partitions on the internal drive as the source, but only one partition on the external drive as the destination. That was my first big clue that this program won't do what I want it to do in the way I want to do it.
Any ideas, anyone? Is what I want to do even possible with any program (i.e., continuous backup of changed files from a primary boot drive to a cloned drive)?
Patrick Carey:
Your situation sounds like enough to mine for me to throw in my 2 penn'orth.
For my DATA only (1) , I have two internal HD of 1.5TB in RAID 1, mirror mode, soft configured in Disk Management as Pat L mentioned. If I want to break the RAID set, I can just unplug one and continue, or I can put another (identical) in, and the software will re-synchronise them. I have checked it has no hidden downside by removing one disc. When I put it back, it settled down to re-synching the 'new' disc. No problems with this, and I backup at periods to an external 2TB eSATA external drive (WD MyBook Studio Ed II).
However, as Pat L points out, and I would like to reinforce: this provides PHYSICAL backup only. If a drive fails, all will be well. However, it provides no logical, time-frozen, backup. If you screw up and delete an important file(s) then they are deleted!! That is why I back up to the external HD.
I have been playing around with the NSB (ATI2010) but apart from the fact it seems a bit buggy in the setting-up, I have decided that once-a-day is enough for me. If I do mess up, getting back to as close as yesterday will be good enough.
(1) I tried a RAID 1 on my system disk, but found that I could not reliably restore from an ATI backup. Not prepared to argue the point, as it is history, and closed book for me.