Disk Mirroring

whitey

whitey

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6,252
Name
Steven
Edit My Images
No
hello,

i am looking into some kind of software to do this.

what i have no is 4 HDD's (one external)

one runs Vista and all my programs one as said is external for my laptop when going away

the other two are 500GB SATA drives i store pics on

now at present i have around 115GB Pics, what i want to do is mirror the drives, i currently copy from one disk to another once every few weeks or so which isn't very good

i've looked at this software but does anyone know if its worth while or is there are any other things to look out for?

http://www.handybackup.net/backup_terms/hard_disk_mirroring.shtml

i have a big IT background working in it but i've not had this to look into before and it will be very very useful

thanks
 
I tried Retropsect some time ago, and the biggest problem I found was the time it took to check for changes in the files before backing up. I've also tried backup software that came with a couple of portable hard drives I purchased. Same problem, checks every file. OK now if it's some word files that may not take to long but like you it could be ( and is ) over 200Gb of data and this seems to take fore ever.

I know back up manually all my RAW files. OK you've got to do it yourself but as part of my archiving routine it's not a problem.

My workflow is as follows.
Import from card
Edit if possible
Copy to external drive
Burn DVD
now erase card if necessary

( After editing re copy to external drive. Leave DVD with originals)

This way it's always done at one session and the images are backed up straight away. The processed RAW to jpeg files aren't backed up, but the Lightroom directory that has the adjustments is. ( what me paranoid??)

If you find a better and quicker system that doesn't cost the earth , let me know
 
i was thinking about that software but unsure as to what it may work like, but like you say may run slowly with the amount of data to copy over
 
I believe you can get a RAID controller to link all of your internal drives to one array (or just link the ones you want mirrored). Everything is updated realtime. I have a similar setup on my home PC. Two 500gb drives mirrored through a RAID controller. Works pretty well so far.

The bad part is you have to format the drives in order to link them ( I think that's the only route anyway, I had to do it to mine).
 
that looks like the option i am after, just looking about for cards at present, looking at 4 or 6 port ones so i can upgrade in the future

any recommendations?

last question to lol, is there any software needed or does the cards come with the software?

thanks
 
Hi Whitey,
Usually the RAID controller will come with necessary drivers for the operating system you have.

As you are considering a RAID controller, the two drives that will be connected to the RAID controller can usually be configured through the RAID controller bios's to create a RAID array. This RAID array is then presented to the operating system and will appear to be a single drive.

IF you have any other questions, please don't hesitate to contact me....
 
On another note regarding my RAID setup...

My wife HATES the mirroring. lol. She thought it was more of a backup and if she accidentally deleted a file, she could go get it. I explained the mirror process to her and I will be buying an external as well for backup purposes.... And to make the missus happy. :D
 
Thanks to those that have answered the questions, just ordered my RAID Controller now, should be here in a few days so let the fun commence lol

once i have it up and working i will buy a second one for future upgrades, this means i will be able to run two raid drives and it will run nice and fast and i keep the same software running on my machine which keeps it simple

thanks again
 
if I put my two 500gb in to raid lets say Raid1, can i connect my other 2 drives or they will be changed into raid as well ?
 
it depends on whether you will be connecting them to you're RAID controller or not

i will only be connecting my storage drives and not my OS drive
 
A nice, free, simple to use utility from Microsoft called robocopy is all you need really. Its a command line utility that you can execute once a day (or as often as you like - it can run in the background permanently) to copy files from one location to another. Be carefull with the /MIR option if you get the target directory wrong it will erase whats there... Apart from that - its very good.
 
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