What's a better choice...2nd hd to use in raid OR to use as external backup drive?

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dude_56013

New Member
Ok so im sick of waking up sometimes and seeing my computer crapped out with a virus (or any other error) that involves a complete reinstallation or otherwise...i just got done working out a virus for the last 10 hours and its just really getting to me, the day before that a dll errored out...so i've come to this conclusion but idk which is the best since im not experience in using either.....

buy an identical hdd to the one i have (320GB seagate) and run the RAID setup (the one that mirrors your regular hd...maybe raid 1?) OR get a larger hdd (probably a 500GB seagate) and buy and external exclosure and be able to back up computer files on all my computers instead of just one.....

another thing i just thought of which makes me want to lean towards the external is that if you get a virus, its going to place itself on both hdd in the raid setup correct?

anyways..help me out and weigh opinions..would like to decide by black friday..tomorrow..because newegg has some specials on external exclosures...

thanks a ton guys..you are always a load of help!!!
 
to avoid virus problems, the external hdd is your best bet, but i suggest you look more closely into your anti virus issues rather than jumping ship and goign straight to backup, not syaing backing up your stuff isnt a bad thing, just saying dont forget about everything else
 
oh yeah, and RAID 1 is just waht you think, copies a direct duplicate of your hdd to another, thus transfering the virus with it
 
well, like i noted its not just virus's its just random errors and stuff too....i do quite a bit of downloading and installing new software, so it would just be nice to have something to revert to i guess....i have had many AV programs and none seem to be a good fix no matter what...currently i have kaspersky, spy bot and ad adware and i have previously had norton and avast...none to the greatest avail....
 
AVG and sophos work best for me, but yeah, external backup is your best bet, and watch what you download, or scan things before you download/unzip/execute them
 
oh yes well i always scan things...i encounter more system errors when downloading stuff than anything...more errors than viruses...so i guess thats where the backup would come in to play....it seems like the viruses i get are the stupid ones that no AV's seem to catch..lately its been the Virtumonde....sad
 
What OS do you run? Shouldn't Windows XP's System Restore app work fine for download errors? That's usually my first option whenever I download/install something that screws up something I care about.

My other tactic is to completely reformat my drive every 6 months or so. The only large-ish data set I need to save on here is my music collection, and I keep a permanent CD backup of that.
 
im sorry i wasn't very specific when i said downloads...i meant like downloading things and installing various apps....and if there happens to be one that screws up my system it sucks to fiddle with things to get it working again...like earlier today i installed an ISO app and my xp wouldn't even boot...it took me 10 hours to find and fix the problem...PAIN!.....I store all of my apps and their installer files..but even when my computer completely crashes, it still takes a full day or two to install all 30+ apps that i use on a day-to-day basis.....so basically i think i am looking at getting an external drive...probably getting a 500gb (180GB bigger than my internal) so that i can partition and mirror my main computer and have room left to store other data...plus i think it will come in handy because i will soon be dual booting xp AND vista, and if either causes problems it will be nice to easily fix problems.....
 
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