i agree with lanwench.
software raid is not something i'd feel good about. I personally would feel
more comfortable using each drive standalone & xcopying the data from one to
the other before i'd use software mirroring. At least with standalone
drives, you know that if it fails, everything's gone. You know you'll be in
trouble, so you're more likely to make sure you get those copies. With the
software raid, you have the illusion of security and are more likely to
slack off.
i've only encountered one company that ever was crazy enough to use Win2K's
builtin raid (they used raid1 -- mirroring), & it did not work. The entire
RAID failed, despite the drives being in perfect shape (they're back in use
today) and, since the disks were dynamic, the data wasn't recoverable by
hooking it up to a running system & viewing the drive (the case with
hardware raid1). Both Ontrack's Easy Recovery Pro & Winternals' Disk
Commander were useless.
in your case, it seems to me mgmt's position is this: our data is not worth
$300-400 (what a reliable hardware RAID controller will cost you from Dell).
It's called 'insurance,' a concept they might be more familiar with.
points against win2k's raid:
- it's probably the least-used feature of Win2K, so i don't think it's very
well tested
- the OS must be running for it to work; if it's not, i am fairly certain
you cannot simply reinstall a copy of the OS & get back up like with
hardware RAID. In this case, i believe you'll lose it forever.
- in the event of a software failure, you may find that there's no way to
get your data back
get the person who will not spring for the RAID adapter to put it in writing
that he/she thought it was unnecessary, despite being informed of the risks.
You will not get this. Make sure others in the office know you're doing it
only despite very serious misgivings.... heck, record conversations about
this. Managers generally will go out of their way to avoid being on record
for piss-poor decisions, which this definitely qualifies as. One of the
first things i ever learned in the real world was always to ask for verbal
requests like this in writing. Just say you think it's an unwise decision,
explain why, and say you're so uneasy with the decision that you'd like to
protect yourself. You might find they suddenly find the funds.
Whoever controls the strings in this case needs to be held accountable when
your disaster occurs. Yes, i mean 'when,' not 'if.' They'll likely try to
blame you.. Make it clear (in e-mail) that you think it's a disaster
waiting to happen & hang on to that copy in 'sent items.' Forward it to an
outside acct. at the time you send it so you have a copy with unalterable
headers (showing when it was sent).
