Backup Solutions III
 

My final chapter in this saga involves me realizing that Raid 1 is what I am looking for. Single fault Tolerance without any loss in performance. I have 3 30gb (1 133, 2 100's) IDE drives and will use 2 in Raid 1

So, I am looking at these promise cards availible. Some are Fasttrack 100, around $30 and some are SX6000 that are like $150 that have a processor and a slot for DIMMs. I assume this is to maximize performance.

I assume I would be fine using the $30 one, but I wanted to hear from someone knowledgable.

Are you using the Raid PC as a network server or as back up for your PC?

if you're looking for raid mirroring, and that's pretty much it, i probably wouldn't spend the cash for the sx6000.

last i checked, which wasn't that long ago, the sx6000 was at like $250. it's a 6-channel raid 0, 1, 0+1, 5 adapter. not really necessary for what you're needing.

just get a basic 0/1 adapter, you'll be fine. hell, now you can get those for $15 on ebay and $25 locally. if you run windows, it should be sufficient.

Just for my work PC. I don't use it as a server. :)

Wicked man, that's what I like to hear. I figure spending $30 on that is a lot better than $50 for some hokey backup software. I like hardware :)

30gb IDE's are so cheap now I would even possibly put the 3rd one there to mirror as a second backup (backup to the backup).

Thanks again.

if all you're doing is 30's, put 4 in, do a 0+1 setup. it would make the server or whatnot run a little faster.

but yeah, if you're not using raid 5 or some _serious_ power, the cost of the 6000 just isn't justified, IMHO.

although i wouldn't mind picking one of those up with 6 200gb drives and making a killer lan server with it :)

I'm using IDE RAID 1+0 for a while. No more worries about failing harddrives. In this configuration data read transfer is 200% faster. Copying a 600MB file takes less than 10 second...

The SX6000 is only recommanded if you handle a lot of files. For increased performance it is $150 + $$$ for the cache memory. Without de extra memory you won't notice the difference.

Tried that and had problems....
Now I use "Second Copy 2000" and back up the data I want to another hard drive. Sweet Program...
I also have a second hard drive I "ghost" the main hard drive to.
I run 4 computers and they ALL have "At Least 4 Hard Drives" (2 for operation and 2 for backup)
Bottom line is "Hard Drives FU", MAKE SURE TO HAVE A BACKUP.

Just my

:2 cents: