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RAID 5 using only WinXP


My3Cents
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After much research on this subject I have found what I believe it todays BEST and most SIMPLE backup solution. It is Arco's DupliDisk Raid case.

RaidCase

After using it for a year I have found little to complain about.

Pros:

Unlike typical Raid this is just like using ONE hard drive. It hooks up to one IDE cable just like you were installing a single hard drive. Internal, fits in two drive bays.

It backs up (constantly mirrors) one drive to the other constantly, 24/7 just like Raid 1. Unlike Raid 1 it supports dissimilar or even different sized drives. (Weakest link principle applies, however.)

What sets it apart is there is no special hardware, drivers or software needed. It just does what it does within its self contained.

Doesn't matter which operating system you are using because it is strictly a hardware solution.

One of the best benefits is that you can easily remove one or both drives to take them off site. Think of a tape backups situation only it is a completely bootable hard drive. You can have rotating hard drives that just slide right in the case with the turn of a key. Hot swappable!

In the event of a failure, or disaster simply put your backup drive in any modern computer and turn it on. Your computer boots up perfectly along with all your data. There might be slight adjustments to be made with differences in hardware such as differing video cards or sound cards or network cards if you use your backup on a different computer, but this is true of any backup scenario.

Cons:

A bit expensive.

The mirroring process can sometimes fail for no reason. It is a bit sensitive. Happens to me a few times a year. However it alerts you audibly and visually when this happens. And it is simply a push of a button to rebuild the mirror again. No data is lost. It simply stops mirroring until you fix it. (I am not sure if this happens on typical Raid systems or not because I have never used standard Raid.)

Conclusion:

If you need mirrored, off site backup that is RELIABLE and easy check out this solution.

Does anyone know of a better solution? Please post it here if you do. Personally I do not know of anything better unless you need the speed of RAID 0 But that is a different story entirely. Then a person might want to go with Raid 0+1. But then can you easily take your redundant backups off site as you can with this Raid Case?

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