RAID Backup Questions - Mac Pro
When my machine shows up I plan on an internal striped (0) RAID between two 300gb Velociraptors. The other two bays would be used for video storage. My questions/concerns have to do with backup of the RAID in case of failure.
First, can these two drives be backed up to a single 640gb drive (kind of like a virtual 0+1)?
Can this be set up at the same time I set up the RAID? In-other-words can those two drives be Mirrored to a single internal drive?
If Mirroring isn't an option, can TM be used for backing up the RAID to a single drive? BTW, would SuperDuper or other be a better choice?
If TM can be used for the RAID backup, can I also use it for backing up (externally) my two video drives? Or is TM limited to just one drive to one drive?
Side note: Is there actually room (internally) for a fifth hdd, say where a second optical drive would live? What would be used for power and SATA connectors? If there is room and connectors I'd place the 640gb drive there.
Thanks for any help or suggestions.
First, can these two drives be backed up to a single 640gb drive (kind of like a virtual 0+1)?
Can this be set up at the same time I set up the RAID? In-other-words can those two drives be Mirrored to a single internal drive?
If Mirroring isn't an option, can TM be used for backing up the RAID to a single drive? BTW, would SuperDuper or other be a better choice?
If TM can be used for the RAID backup, can I also use it for backing up (externally) my two video drives? Or is TM limited to just one drive to one drive?
Side note: Is there actually room (internally) for a fifth hdd, say where a second optical drive would live? What would be used for power and SATA connectors? If there is room and connectors I'd place the 640gb drive there.
Thanks for any help or suggestions.
Comments
TM or super duper would be an alternative to dump it on the 640gb. super duper is pretty good from what i hear. carbon copy cloner is free, but has limited automation I think.
the 640gb, you can shove that into an external fw800 case... just a thought
I'm not sure on the mounting yet in the new pros, but if you have a braket kit for a 3.5 to 5.25 mounting, it would probably work. i have some brackets like that, so they are available.
the power & data cables would be the same, but may need to buy longer ones or different orientations for the plugs. not sure if the cables are there if you buy only 1 dvd drive, but they should be, everything is SATA now from what I've seen.
check out newegg.com, great site for this stuff. cooldrives.com has some stuff too.
you want to RAID 0+1 or 10 (considered the same I think) like drives. so you would want to buy 2 more of what you have, make 2 striped pairs & then mirror the resulting 600GB volumes.
TM or super duper would be an alternative to dump it on the 640gb. super duper is pretty good from what i hear. carbon copy cloner is free, but has limited automation I think.
the 640gb, you can shove that into an external fw800 case... just a thought
I'm not sure on the mounting yet in the new pros, but if you have a braket kit for a 3.5 to 5.25 mounting, it would probably work. i have some brackets like that, so they are available.
the power & data cables would be the same, but may need to buy longer ones or different orientations for the plugs. not sure if the cables are there if you buy only 1 dvd drive, but they should be, everything is SATA now from what I've seen.
check out newegg.com, great site for this stuff. cooldrives.com has some stuff too.
So TM, SD or other would work instead of buying 2 additional drives? Two more drives and that set up would be great, but I'm just about tapping out my budget. Also, I'm trying to limit external drives as much as possible, but I know that I'll have at-least one from OWC. It houses 2 drives and I'll be using that for my video files backup.
Thanks for the reply.
doing a stripe like this to run the OS is kinda risky. usually work drives are striped 0...
I got older hardware, so a stripe hasn't been much benefit speed wise to me. I do mirrors (2 drives) & it works fine. But I'm not running final cut studio on that machine either.
if you do a stripe 0 now & get 2 drives down the road, but you would still have to build the raid from scratch, so backups are strongly recommended in either case.
good luck.