really need some help from the poeple with RAID-1

[SiDiX007]

heres what i have -

3x320gb HDD's
1x2 Bay hot swappable RAID-1 enclosure inside the case

heres what i am doing with it -

2 of the drives are in the system working fine, at the end of the day i remove the second drive and replace it with a 3rd, letting the raid rebuild. i then take the removed HDD home with me so i have a backup off-site incase something happens in the office.

Is it bad to rebuild a raid on a daily basis?

[death_hawk]

I wouldn't say it's "bad" but what are you gonna do if (for example) the RAID1 array gets stolen?

You can't just plug the HDD into a machine and copy files off. You'd have to have an identical unit set up the same way as the old unit.


As for rebuilding every day, it's not the best solution IMO.
I'd rather have one of those one touch backup things (on the simple side).

On the complicated side, I'd do something like automatic RSYNC.

[JD]

Sounds fine to do, but it probably adds some extra wear and tear to the drives.

And as for not being able to read data if you plug in the off-site drive into a computer, I don't see why this would be the case. With RAID1 all drives are just mirrored, so if you plugged it in elsewhere, you could read data off it just fine. It's not like RAID1 or 5 where bits are spread across disks.

Though I think a better way to do this would be with an external USB enclosure to put the 3rd drive in and just run some kind of backup software to incrementally back up to it daily. Saves you from having to write the whole disk each day.

[Squeetard]

Don't use usb though too friggin slow, go Esata these days. I have one client thats running raid1 between an internal drive and an Esata that's in a fireproof safe in the crawlspace under the server. Does a weekly image and takes it home too.