RAID enclosure: What is it?

[frldyz]

I'm currently piecing together my 2nd build.

This 2nd build is going to be very basic. Not a gaming PC or even a web browsing PC.

It will be a PC dedicated and only dedicated to to pictures and videos.
Why you ask? Why not.

I have never done a RAID set-up before. I would like to try my 1st RAID. I would like to get a couple of internal HDD's and run a RAID 1.
I currently stumbled on RAID enclosures. From the little I know these is an alternative place to store your HDD's in RAID vs inside your PC tower. Is that right?
Do these RAID enclosures set up the RAID for the HDD's? Or do I still need to go into bios?
I'm looking for the simpliest way to set up my HDD's in RAID 1.

Before anyone gives me a hard time about buying an external hard drives, HDD, flash drives, optical discs, cloud storage etc. Hear me out.

My family and I take 1000's of pictures of our family with our phone. Now that I am a father these pictures are priceless to me. I currently have all of the above for storage. But I would like a PC dedicated to this and only this. Waste of money to some. Investment to me.


Thanks everyone

 

[Laquer Head]

Have you considered a NAS connected to your home network.

You can get some pretty slick NAS enclosures, 2-bay, 4-bay...etc and many have there own CPU and RAM and then you can manage your photos/folders via your current computer.

You can grab a couple of 2TB, 4TB..etc drives and run those in RAID... this might be an ideal solution for your needs?

 

[JaredDM]

I'm with Laquer Head here, a NAS is definitely the way to go.

As to the RAID enclosures you ask about, it all depends on what you're looking at. Some require a RAID controller card inside the computer to manage the drives, others handle it internally and then provide a connection via USB or thunderbolt. There's endless variety for endless applications.