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Pastimes : Computer Learning -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: shadowman who wrote (74375)	3/3/2011 12:12:55 AM
From: Sexton O Blake	Respond to of 110645

Oh absolutely. My dad rarely gives me a "go here and be done with it" instead it is a "well you could do this ... but you could do that" with benefits of each. I am not running out tomorrow and creating a RAID 1 desktop. But I see 100% value when requiring a solid offline storage. Let me add this - the fact that I offload data to a HDD and turn it off should at the very least keep those drives going far longer than if they were both sitting in my case running 24/7. So one would say, in that case, why even bother mirroring? Quite true indeed. By buying the drive case I did - I could either (a) run with RAID 1 or (b) run as merely a USB/eSATA enclosure with independent 2GB drives for a total of 4GB. And in either case - the drive is still off and the life hopefully extended. At 2GB and with what I need to offload, it has been filling for a while and I still only have used half. Had I had 4GB, that would be 1/4. To me having it run in RAID 1 just offers that little bit of reassurance that I know I don't have to bother offloading to DVD at the moment or care to do it at all. The costs are negligible and the configuration can be flipped anytime -- in fact I do believe I did flip the internal toggles, after mirroring, then it came up as two independent drives with double data (nothing lost). For most - yes I agree (and don't disagree at all with the article) RAID 1 is overkill. However, I will add, I bet you now more than ever RAID 1 will start to grow in popularity with people adding MEDIA centers. My TV shows record at a reasonable quality - but are still in MPEG2 - so 1/2 hour = 1GB. So for a 1HR show, that is 2GB, 4GB for 2HRS. I want that accessible (eventually) anytime anywhere in the home - and if I want to move to a model where my main PC is off (not required) then I will need a 24/7 media server with a few TBs constantly going. Further, as a focal point for our viewing, I would want to ensure it stays up and doesn't crash with a HDD failure - there is where RAID 1 (or a flavor there in) would be required. Western Digital has been selling the MyBook World Edition "drives" for a while and they are mirrored. At any rate, hear you loud and clear and yes we are talking about all the possibilities and pros and cons. RAID 1 is mostly used I would bet in offices where they cannot afford downtime. For me and my desktop - backups are number one and constant. But as stated above, I do have a couple of cases where RAID 1 would work perfectly for me. Cheers! Blake