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| quote: | Originally posted by malek
Best option is RAID mirroring, this is done by using two exact hard drives. Both will have the same data at any time, if one of them fails, then all is not lost. |
No, no, no, no.
RAID is not a substitute for backups. The purpose of RAID mirroring on a server is to guarantee uptime, not to protect data integrity. There are all sorts of events which could simultaneously fry both drives (power supply problems, overheating, etc.). You'll also be incurring a performance penalty this way, and of course, you have no protection whatsoever against worms, malware, or the well-known "oops!".
If the host controller/computer finds that the data is inconsistent, then it might also guess wrong when trying to figure out which set is correct - this is actually fairly common with the el-cheapo desktop SATA RAID products. That's why you're supposed to replace a failed drive immediately in a RAID configuration - it's actually dangerous to leave it in there.
No business with competent IT staff ever relies on a RAID configuration without making actual backups - and this is with business-class servers running in a controlled environment. It's far worse for people to play with RAID at home because ordinary home users typically do not fully understand how it's really working under the covers and therefore often make poor decisions following a drive failure or RAID error (i.e. they may think they're protected and wait 2 weeks to replace the failed drive, not realizing that they are actually at a much higher risk than having just one single working drive). And as I mentioned, desktop RAID components are simply garbage compared to their server equivalents; they're getting better but they still suck donkey balls.
It's completely fine if you want to set up a backup server and use RAID mirroring on the backup server, assuming you know how to administer it properly. But do not, I repeat do not try to use RAID, especially the awful built-in RAID that comes on so many mobos today, as a safeguard against data loss. It will NOT protect you in over 50% of common desktop drive failure scenarios.
Back up your data. It's that simple. Back up your data. Back up your data. Shall I repeat it again? Back up your data!
| quote: | Originally posted by Ania_xox
Wow that's so helpful |
Yeah, and taking it to future shop will work wonders I'm sure... I was just there the other day listening to one of their super-knowledgeable staff talk about how hardcore gamers buy AMD laptops because they have much better performance than the Intel Core Duos, and how you should always be able to install Windows XP on an Intel computer because Intel makes all the drivers.
Look, no offense, but the self-styled experts at Future Shop / Best Buy are only good if you're not very tech-savvy and did something stupid that you don't know how to undo - and even then, it's a little risky. If you just hosed your OS or some application, then maybe you'll get lucky and one of their lackeys will know how to use a LiveCD or slap the disk into another machine. If there's actually a real problem with the hardware, though... you're better off taking it to the church and praying for its mechanical soul.
Fact is that there's not much help available once your disk is gone, save for (a) taking it to an expensive data recovery shop, which he already knows how to do, or (b) taking the entire disk apart yourself and very carefully cleaning the platters and replacing them on the same enclosure or a different one, noting that this is extremely dangerous for a layperson to try and is just as likely to irrecoverably destroy all the data as it is to get it back.
Yeah, it sucks. Nobody likes to lose shit. Best thing to do is learn from the experience and don't make the same mistake again. All the sympathy in the world isn't going to bring that drive back to life.
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