Backup, RAID, Mirror confusion...

[Peter G]

New machine (Dell) with 3 160gb "non raided" hard drives about to be
delivered.

Old machines system disk (Windows XPPro and apps) has about 15gb used. (C
drive)

Seems that on the new computer it would be a good idea if my system (boot)
disc (C drive partition?) had an exact copy made at the same time
(mirrored?) onto a (seperate partition?) on one of the other drives (say E
drive) so that if the C drive goes down I can press a magic switch and
everything is restored from E drive without having to reload Windows (XPPRO)
and all the apps.

Totally confused with RAID and Mirroring and things like Ghost and Drive
Image. Should I get back to Dell and ask for some sort of RAID - or other
advice gratefully received....

cheers

 

[R. McCarty]

Using RAID mirroring in the context you describe for a
desktop is not really necessary.

Three 160 Gigabyte drives, how do you intend to partition
& use those drives ? The way you segment your drives and
what data you place on each determines how to create a
backup & recovery plan.

Imaging is probably the best solution. Create an Image of the
XP drive to a secondary physical drive. Then "Burn" the image
to removable media for safety/storage.

 

[Peter G]

Thanks very much for that R McCathy -

How would you partition this new machine and what what you use to create an
Image?
BTW The main use is for Graphics and Video. (Adobe Photoshop, Premiere Pro,
After Effects etc.). I have a number of other external firewire drives and
DVD writing hardware.

I really appreciate your reply in helping me to devise a backup and recovery
plan

cheers

 

[R. McCarty]

For Imaging I would probably use Acronis True Image, even though I
personally use an older version of PowerQuest Drive Image. Symantec
bought PowerQuest and replaced their "Ghost" line with Drive Image.
Just being a "Stubborn-Old Guy", I won't be spending money to buy
or use Symantec/Norton branded software.

One criteria for the Physical drives is how they are connected - are
they traditional PATA/IDE or SATA (Serial ATA). A big consideration
is what simultaneous programs will be running. Third, Graphics &
video work require huge amounts of Workspace (Temporary files).
You would probably want the 3 drives configured something like this:

Drive 0: Windows XP & primary applications
Single 160 Gig is too large, but not sure how to allocate. I
would personally use a much smaller, fast drive for XP, like
a SATA-II 150 10,000 RPM 7.0 mS or faster drive
You would want to try and keep this drive as lean as
possible
by moving things like DllCache/DriverCache/i386 to another
physical drive (Drive 2)
Drive 1: User data
(a.) Partition for Mail, Docs, Favorites
(b.) Partition for Video
(c.) Partition for Graphics files
Drive 2: Workspace, Pagefile, Temp folders, Backup Storage
(a.) Partition for Pagefile, Temp folders
(b.) System Maintenance (DllCache,i386....)
(c.) Partition to store Images (for Recovery)

This is just "Guesswork" on my part - but you want to segment things to
maximize performance and keep data isolated. You want to make sure
each physical drive is handling a different section of the code. (XP, App
and Data files).

If you're doing Video & Graphics work I hope you purchased a
machine with 1.0+ Gigabytes of RAM.

 

[DanS]

New machine (Dell) with 3 160gb "non raided" hard drives about to be
delivered.

Old machines system disk (Windows XPPro and apps) has about 15gb used.
(C drive)

Seems that on the new computer it would be a good idea if my system
(boot) disc (C drive partition?) had an exact copy made at the same
time (mirrored?) onto a (seperate partition?) on one of the other
drives (say E drive) so that if the C drive goes down I can press a
magic switch and everything is restored from E drive without having to
reload Windows (XPPRO) and all the apps.

Totally confused with RAID and Mirroring and things like Ghost and
Drive Image. Should I get back to Dell and ask for some sort of RAID -
or other advice gratefully received....

cheers

I've read the other repies, and see that you mainly do graphics and
video.

If the video work involves capture, meaning a high speed HD is required
as this is disk intensive, RAID 0 is an option. RAID 0 stores the data
across the drives, but with no redundancy. It offer's much faster thruput
to and from the disk's, up to 80 or 85%.

RAID 1 takes 2 HD's and make's them mirror's of each other. This is the
'magic switch' you speak of. The caveat here is that two 160 Gig drive's
appear as 1 single 160 Gig drive. Also, every disk write has to be made
2, to each individual drive, therefore there is some loss of performance.

It's been my intention's to do a certain procedure when I get a new
machine or do a clean install of Windows (which hasn't been since '00, I
upgraded this PC to XP from 98 then). So if I was getting a new DELL PC
with 3 160 Gig HD's used mainly for video editing, I would do the
following.....

1) Receive the new PC
2) Set it up to be sure it works
3) Gather all the required driver's for the hardware and any programs I
use.
4) Format C: (it is a pre-loaded DELL afterall)
5) Install a 'real' copy of XP on 'C'
6) Set up D: & E: as NTFS RAID0, which will then become only D:
7) Install ALL the applications I use, including some type of automatic
backup to an external drive, 'smartly scheduled'.

At this time, theoretically, the system is in a pristine state EXACTLY as
YOU want it, with all of YOUR application's that you want/need.

8) Do a backup of the system drive, with Ghost or something similar. If
at any time a re-installation is necesary, you can restore from the newly
created 'restore' disks. (The thing here is that we all install new s/w
from time to time, so at some point you may need to create another
'restore' set).

I would then use the D: drive as the data drive only. Smartly backed up.

You should also do a google search on RAID to see what the differences
are between the different levels to see if that would be a good thing for
you.

Regards,

Dans





Recommended Uses: Non-critical data (or data that changes infrequently
and is backed up regularly) requiring high speed, particularly write
speed, and low cost of implementation. Audio and video streaming and
editing; web servers; graphic design; high-end gaming or hobbyist
systems; temporary or "scratch" disks on larger machines.

 

[Peter G]

Thanks again - just a few clarifications if you have the time...

For Imaging I would probably use Acronis True Image, >

yes research agrees!

One criteria for the Physical drives is how they are connected - are
they traditional PATA/IDE or SATA (Serial ATA).

They are SATA so I think I'm OK. My needs are modest!

You would probably want the 3 drives configured something like this:

Drive 0: Windows XP & primary applications
Single 160 Gig is too large, but not sure how to allocate.
I
would personally use a much smaller, fast drive for XP,
like
a SATA-II 150 10,000 RPM 7.0 mS or faster drive>

I think I'm stuck for the minute with the 160gb - would it still be better
to partition or leave as one big?

You would want to try and keep this drive as lean as
possible by moving things like DllCache/DriverCache/i386 to another
physical drive (Drive 2)

If I have a partitioned system drive as above would these things be OK on
seperate partition or probably makes no difference?

Drive 1: User data
(a.) Partition for Mail, Docs, Favorites
(b.) Partition for Video
(c.) Partition for Graphics files

That makes sense...

Drive 2: Workspace, Pagefile, Temp folders, Backup Storage
(a.) Partition for Pagefile, Temp folders
(b.) System Maintenance (DllCache,i386....)>

How do you do (a.) and (b.) - they always seem to end up on the system drive
and work their way back if you try and move them...

(c.) Partition to store Images (for Recovery)>

Just a little confused with semantics here - item (c.) is the mirror? of
Drive C, created by Acronis? Does this stay synchronised automatically so
that changes to system, apps and registry are written twice on, or do you
need to set a maintenance routine?

If you're doing Video & Graphics work I hope you purchased a
machine with 1.0+ Gigabytes of RAM.>

yes! 2 gigs of fast RAM which is all, I'm told, that After Effects can
handle at the moment.

cheers

 

[R. McCarty]

On partitioning Drive 0 (Windows XP), I would probably take up
to 80 Gigabytes of that for C: and maybe leave the remainder as
"Unallocated" space. You may have future needs that require a new
partition. (Dual-Boot, Linux....)

The "Lean" consideration, was in imaging the Windows partition.
You would want it as small as possible to facilitate quick Image
creation and recovery. If you make C: 80Gig+ then moving those
to another partition on a secondary physical drive is not necessary.

Redirection of the Pagefile and Temp variables (Folders) are done
from System Properties, Advanced (TAB).

The imaging philosophy isn't a "Mirror". An image is a compressed
complete copy of the drive. If a recovery or restoration is needed,
you simply boot to the CD and restore your C: partition from the
image file stored on the secondary drive. Recovery from a Disk drive
is significantly faster than from Optical media. But you still want to
burn the image to CD/DVD-R(W) to have that extra layer of safety.

The overall reason to segment data, is so you can better manage
it. That includes different backup schedules and the like. The main
thing is to always keep fairly recent images of Windows. Personal
data should be burned in readable format and other backups can
be done as you feel are required.

 

[Kerry Brown]

I've read the other repies, and see that you mainly do graphics and
video.

If the video work involves capture, meaning a high speed HD is required
as this is disk intensive, RAID 0 is an option. RAID 0 stores the data
across the drives, but with no redundancy. It offer's much faster thruput
to and from the disk's, up to 80 or 85%.

<snip>

Can you point me to a link that shows proof of what you say? In my own
admittedly informal testing I have found most onboard SATA RAID controllers
offer little or no performance advantage. With a 3rd party card ($$$$) there
are some speed advantages but I haven't seen this with any of the built in
controllers that I have used. It would be nice to see some impartial test
results.

Kerry

 

[Peter G]

Thanks for the alternative input Dans,

I really appreciate the tip for doing a new XP installation to get rid of
Dell excesses!

Still some confusion on:

7) Install ALL the applications I use, including some type of automatic
backup to an external drive, 'smartly scheduled'.>

So - install all apps to Drive "C" then backup to external drive - is that
belt and braces? Won't the Drive Image/Ghost do that?

6) Set up D: & E: as NTFS RAID0, which will then become only D:>

I understand the concept but not the how! Do I phone Dell and tell them to
include some sort of RAID cable or find something in XP that lets me do
same? It seems that RAID5 is popular but feel very under tutored. Sorry for
ignorance - spent the last 20 years hardly backing up anything - now
getting nervous!

cheers

 

[Guest]

I have a Dell that came with two 160s RAIDED together in a RAID 0 config.
About 6 months after I got it, one HD crashed and I lost everything because
the 'stripe process' of the Level 0. There are pros and cons associated with
each RAID level: two 160s in a RAID0 makes ~ 320 gb which is cool until you
lose everything. Two 160s RAIDED together in a RAID 1 will give you the
mirroring capability which is good for data preservation in the event of a HD
failure, but you don't get the large storage - two 160s in a RAID 1 only
gives you 160gb but you'll still have all of your data if you lose a HD.

There are other RAID levels available but you'll need a special adapter
card. www.acnc.com has a fairly good RAID educational page.

Personally, I'm going with a RAID 5 however I'm looking at a RAID 0+1 which
requires 4 HDs but you get the beneifts of both: large capacity and security.

Hope this helps.

 

[DanS]

<snip>

Can you point me to a link that shows proof of what you say? In my own
admittedly informal testing I have found most onboard SATA RAID
controllers offer little or no performance advantage. With a 3rd party
card ($$$$) there are some speed advantages but I haven't seen this
with any of the built in controllers that I have used. It would be
nice to see some impartial test results.

Kerry

http://modtown.co.uk/mt/article2.php?id=sataraid&p=2
http://www.hardwarecentral.com/hardwarecentral/reviews/2072/5/
http://www6.tomshardware.com/storage/20000329/fastrak66-14.html
http://www.overclockercafe.com/Articles/RAID/

These are a few. What you are doing with your PC determine's if RAID0 will
provide any speed benefit. Of course, benchmark scores, as we all know, do
not always simulate the real world.

The most performance gain with RAID0 will be with sustained sequential
reading/writing. The OP said his main use was video editing. That is the
perfect application of RAID0, for capturing video to the HD.

Of course, we're also talking SATA RAID, and not SCSII RAID, which should
be even more high performance.

DanS

 

[DanS]

Thanks for the alternative input Dans,

I really appreciate the tip for doing a new XP installation to get rid
of Dell excesses!

Still some confusion on:

So - install all apps to Drive "C" then backup to external drive - is
that belt and braces? Won't the Drive Image/Ghost do that?

Well....a smart backup plan. You did say you had an external drive or 2
as well. The backup s/w is to keep a running backup of your projects, or
'the D: drive'. And configure all of the applications to use that too as
their 'project/home dir' and 'temp dir', etc. The first backup is AFTER
~EVERYTHING~ is installed, and functioning, and BEFORE the system is put
into everyday use. And yes, Drive Image or Ghost, would do this. I got HP
Disaster Recovery with a CD Burner I purchased years ago. That was the
same thing, it created a backup of your PC and if something happened, you
could restore from the new CD's after booting from the floppy disk it
made. Instead of the totally LAME-O Dell 'restore' CD that won't just
install Window's, but EVERY OTHER piece-of-sh*t software that Dell
think's you want cluttering up the HD that will never get used. That's
just in case of ultimate failure of the system drive.

I understand the concept but not the how! Do I phone Dell and tell
them to include some sort of RAID cable or find something in XP that
lets me do same? It seems that RAID5 is popular but feel very under
tutored. Sorry for ignorance - spent the last 20 years hardly backing
up anything - now getting nervous!

cheers

XP won't do RAID on it's own, it has to be supported by the controller.
So I can't help you on that. I assume the Dell would be SATA, unless of
course you specifically ordered SCSI. The built-in SATA controller may be
RAID capable already. So the question for them would be, 1) is it SATA,
and 2) if so, does the controller support RAID.


regards,

DanS

 

[Kerry Brown]

http://modtown.co.uk/mt/article2.php?id=sataraid&p=2
http://www.hardwarecentral.com/hardwarecentral/reviews/2072/5/
http://www6.tomshardware.com/storage/20000329/fastrak66-14.html
http://www.overclockercafe.com/Articles/RAID/

These are a few. What you are doing with your PC determine's if RAID0 will
provide any speed benefit. Of course, benchmark scores, as we all know, do
not always simulate the real world.

The most performance gain with RAID0 will be with sustained sequential
reading/writing. The OP said his main use was video editing. That is the
perfect application of RAID0, for capturing video to the HD.

Of course, we're also talking SATA RAID, and not SCSII RAID, which should
be even more high performance.

DanS

Thanks for the links. Interesting reading.

Kerry

 

[Leythos]

In all of this, based on the subject, it's important to remember that
RAID, any type, is not a BACKUP method or solution, it's strictly a
hardware redundancy method (except in the case of R0, and then it's
double your chance for loss).

 

[DanS]

In all of this, based on the subject, it's important to remember that
RAID, any type, is not a BACKUP method or solution, it's strictly a
hardware redundancy method (except in the case of R0, and then it's
double your chance for loss).

Understood. That is why in my explanation of how *I* would set it up, I
specifically included a backup package and automated routine.

 

[Kerry Brown]

In all of this, based on the subject, it's important to remember that
RAID, any type, is not a BACKUP method or solution, it's strictly a
hardware redundancy method (except in the case of R0, and then it's
double your chance for loss).

I agree. I would never use RAID 0 except possibly for a dedicated paging
file on a server. I've replaced far too many hard drives to take a chance
like that. I do mirror the OS on most servers and sometimes use RAID 5 but
this is just to keep the server up if a drive craps out. I personally don't
see the need on a workstation even for the much touted extra needs of video
editing. I have several customers who do video editing. Only one customer
needed something faster than regular PATA drives. They use special SCSI
drives designed for the purpose. I find CPU power and ram to be more
important to working with video.

Kerry