RAID question, backing up.

[slane]

Hi there.

I will have a 2 hdd bay with 500gb each drive. I want to back up my internal hdd (1tb), can I configure this to raid 0, have combined space of 1tb and backup my data to it. My plan is to just plug it when I need to create a fresh backup and unplug again to help protect against viruses. If I have to format my main hdd will I be able to boot up with both hdd and my bay plugged in and copy backup to main hdd (with boot order set appropriately)? The bay is an edge10 edgestore DAS200 and allows for selection of mode on it (i would select striping right?), so this means that the raid is handled by the hardware and I won't need to configure my mobo or anything right, my comp will recognise it as just a normal hdd?

Also, can anyone suggest good freeware to create and update my backup, or can I use windows 7 to do this?

Thanks for reading and thanks for any advice.

[vanthus]

Not sure about the RAID question,but I can recommend windows7 own backup program.I use Windows7 own program in "backup and restore" to make a system image backup,
I've recovered my system twice with no problems after two hard drive failures.

[slane]

Cheers.

[Rakk]

I'm just curious as to why you think you'd need it to be RAID'ed just to do a copy, unless your edge10 edgestore DAS200 requires itself to be raided to allow you to copy stuff onto it (but that would be a bit odd in my opinion), generally raiding is used with 2 drives are always both connected, striping for speed, mirroring to keep a very up to date backup.

Unless your drive has some odd requirements you should just be able to plug it in, make your system image, copy it to your drive and unplug, no raiding required.

Or have I missed something here?

In fact, I don't think temporary raiding of drives would work at all, I think Windows may throw a complete hissy fit if you tried it (I could be wrong).

[slane]

Well the two drives are only 500gb each and im using just over that now so I them to be raid in order to match my 1tb drive. I believe that the raid is handled on board the bay so as far as the comp is concerned it's just a regular 1tb hdd. I'm looking forwards to seeing how much faster striping is.

Im considering though having the two 500s as primary in raid and my 1tb as backup. How much faster is raid 0 than single hdd (all drives are 7200rpm)?