Internal, External, Raid

[toshiyori]

Building a new Desktop, what method of backup is most usefull? 2nd internal HD, extrenal HD or RAID? As I believe, any HD connected to the MB by IDE or SATA will become "Married" to the MB then if the MB fails the data is lost, unless of course you use a adapter drive, another computer and download the contents. Using "External HD", the data can go to any computer with a USB connector. The above shows my limited knowledge of the systems. I have time to spend researching the most usefull method, thats why I'm asking the "Expert's" world wide.

 

[Ethan3.14159]

As far as my experience goes... Let's say at my work for example: Our Terminal Server and Exchange server all have RAID 10 arrays. However, there is still a dedicated external backup disk for each day, and everyday everything is backed up to those external disks. So even if by some random chance that all of the drives in the RAID array fail there's still a backup far away.

I would never use an internal disk as backup. Let's say your computer is stolen. Your main data drive and your backup is gone! What was the point in backing up?

I'm quite fussy about my backup, personally. I have my small external drive doing incremental backups once a week. At the same time I have a NAS drive hidden away from sight in case my computer is stolen. But I have contacts and files both personal and work related I can't afford to lose, so that's why I go that far.

So for an average user, external backup will always be the best method. For enterprise users a combination of RAID plus external backup is essential.

As a side note, I would never recommend RAID without using Enterprise level drives. Standard consumer drives in a mirrored array essentially make the RAID redundant. No pun intended.

 

[toshiyori]

Thanks for your input, I'll stick with the external hard drives.
I have in the past used "Nortons Ghost", I could never get the data trasfered to another hard drive so I gave up.

 

[dm76]

I too was wondering about using a second internal drive or an external. I never thought about the computer being stolen though, just more for if the drive fails. I was leaning toward the second internal because I thought that might last longer as it is better cooled than an external. Right now I have an external and just turn it on once a week to do backups. Do you leave your external off when it is not in use?