want to try RAID Mirror option

R

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I have a new ATA 133 controller card, It happens to be a RAID controller also. I recently installed a new Maxtor 40 gig, ATA 133 hard drive on it and it is working great. I have another new identical 40 gig Maxtor that I haven't even formatted yet. I never have tried RAID yet in any form. Hard drives have come way down in price and I am after reliability above all so I think Mirrored drives is what I want to try. The operating drive has the operating system etc on it and the other drive is still in the plastic bag. After I format the second drive exactly like the first, do I have to copy the first drive to the second. There is a way to do that as long as you don't copy the swap file, it will work. See http://www.appliedcompadmin.com/Clone.html
I would defrag the first drive etc. This is what I would do on my own to try and do this, but before I screw up, any suggestions. I hope there is an automatic function to this. when the PC boots I get three options, I think, one is Mirror. I will write them down. This post at least will start this thread.
 
I don't understand-- is there a question in there somewhere, or are you trying to help others out? In either case, an FYI: maxtor hard-drives and stability are oxymoronic, even in a RAID1 (especially a software RAID!). Maxtors use a very unreliable bearing design, which makes their drives run hotter and live shorter than other drives such as Seagate or Western Digital.

Peace,
-AT
 
good point, ive got a WD 40gig 5400 hdd and had it for about three years and thrashed it to hell and it still works, just a little bit noisy!
 
Anti-Trend said:
I don't understand-- is there a question in there somewhere, or are you trying to help others out? In either case, an FYI: maxtor hard-drives and stability are oxymoronic, even in a RAID1 (especially a software RAID!). Maxtors use a very unreliable bearing design, which makes their drives run hotter and live shorter than other drives such as Seagate or Western Digital.

Peace,
-AT
Click to expand...

Anti Trend, Yes there is a question. I need to know how to go about trying to do what I tried to give the facts on. (The only RAID I have ever used comes in a can.) I believe what you say about Maxtor hard drives, but I have not had that much trouble with the other 5, I have purchased. I only have had corruption of files problems so far, some of which was probably my fault. Reformating brought the problem hard drives back to life. Anyhow, I already have these two drives and I think they will probably last for whatever the useful live for the rest of the system is. This is a K6-2+ computer with an Epox mother board with 384 mBs of memory. The one that you helped me with the lost memory problem before. I still can use this PC as a back-up PC and still learn about PCs with it, like in trying to use RAID. PCs came on the scene late for me. I don't do too bad with them for my age which is 65 now, so that you know we are conversing across a few generations. By the way, is the Mirror option for RAID used very much?

Since I posed the question of this thread, I have come to the conclusion that for most non corporate users without valuable high dollar information to safeguard, RAID out of a can is sufficient. About Maxtor hard drives I still use them but I also have Western Digital Hard Drives for a X2 4800 system and a AMD 3700+ system. My Maxtors are still working fine also. I think the cooling of Hard Drives is not given the attention required. One way or another becauses cases and mountings can vary, I always add heat sinks to the mounting of my Hard Drives and I think it helps. This is where Aluminum can really help. Of Course, I also optimize the cooling fans in my cases. I don't think twice about cutting metal to mount a larger fan. Computers came along late for me, but I do have Design Experience. I have Maxtors six years old that work fine.
 
About the life of Hard Drives. I have seen comments from people on every brand saying this or that brand is to be avoided. I think what the determining factor really for how long any hard drive will last is heat. I felt the hard drives after a PC was on a while in a few PCs and they all seemed pretty warm to me, so I devised my own mountings. I have aluminum plates approximately 7"x6"x.060" thick with L shaped feet on the end that straddles the 92MM fan in the front of the case. I can mount two drives between these aluminum plates. The aluminum conducts heat from the sides of the drives and the "tunnel" created by the longituinal mounting allows the air to flow over the drives. They hardly get warm to the touch now. Now I have added a 3" fan internally to blow on the PCI slots and the Video, sound, and ATA controller cards. Computers came late for me, but I have close to 30 years as an industrial designer, I have a Radio Amateur's license and have been in Radio Control since before the transistor was invented. One thing I have learned is that heat will eventually shorten the life of any electronic component, so I didn't hesitate to add some aluminum to PC cases where it will do the most good. Hard drives are aluminum so I think this idea works better for a hard drive that it would for the sheet steel construction of CD ROMs and DVD ROMs. I also painted the outside of the aluminum plates black to help dissipate the heat. Remember, bearings always have/need lubrication, so don't you think that excess heat eventually breaks down the lubricant. I was surprised that Hard Drive manufacturers don't at least give preferred methods for mounting their drives. The jam packed compact drive bays in a lot of cases, in my humble opinion, cause the drives to overheat. The effects of overheating are cumulative over time. For what they are worth, I offer these comments on the life of hard drives.
 
I don't seem to be getting any comments on using RAID and the Mirror function. Lets see if I can clear up my question and I might have changed my mind in favor of a more simple approach to what I wanted to accomplish. First, would it have been worth the effort attempting this with W98se with the operating system already installed on the C: drive along with a couple of other programs? Already having the operating system on the C: drive is where I supposed I was going to have problems, especially with W98. I realized after thinking it over that most people would use Windows 2000 or Windows XP over W98 for this. I guess that I can assume that nobody wants to get into a somewhat complicated discussion on this. There probably would not have been a problem, if I had installed both drives at the same time. Now I am thinking that with the other projects I am doing, and the time it might consume, why did I think of this in the first place. When it comes to having media with enough capacity to hold a really useful back up, it was always a problem. Its less of a problem now with a DVD ROM, but a 550 processor is not powerful enough for that. To answer my own question, its simple, if you have a second hard drive equal to your C: drive, format it, it will then be the D: drive. The D: drive will then be able to back up the whole C: drive. I talked myself into it. By the way, these new Maxtor hard drives I bought are only around 11/16" thick and like most everthing else, made in China.
 
i would advise to run a secure zone on one of the hard drives instead of using their full amounts to fully back up, if you have 2 80gb hds then you can use 40 maybe even 60 of one and keep the extra space for more storage

but thats my opinion,

and if you wanted a RAID configuration it would be a good move to start fresh and true with a more advanced operating system as you said yourself



do you have raid with your motherboard or are you using an adapter?
 
zRoCkIsAdDiCtInG said:
i would advise to run a secure zone on one of the hard drives instead of using their full amounts to fully back up, if you have 2 80gb hds then you can use 40 maybe even 60 of one and keep the extra space for more storage

but thats my opinion,

and if you wanted a RAID configuration it would be a good move to start fresh and true with a more advanced operating system as you said yourself



do you have raid with your motherboard or are you using an adapter?
Click to expand...

Thanks for the comment, You are right about not using all of the second 40gig drive for backing up. I will have no more than 1/3 of the C: drive used normally. (I don't collect tunes or videos so 40 gigs is enough for most of what I do) I will remember your suggestion when I format and partition the 2nd drive. I have an ATA 133 controller card and it was supposed to have non-raid ATA 133 capability, but that driver was not to be found on the CD so I installed the RAID driver and it works, and maybe that is what got me to start thinking about mirrored drives, which I probably don't want now. My motherboard is only ATA 66 capable so I notice the difference this ATA 133 controller makes. By "secure zone" do you mean a normal partition with a drive number like E:?
 
its as if a closed off partition of a drive that can only be accessed for backups or removing backups, its virtually hidden off from viruses etc.

i know software like acronis true image are good of these things, but there is def an equal alternative dedicated to the same purpose for free
 
I know norton ghost does an excellent job at copying/mirroring!
i think partition magic does a similar thing!
 
OK, let me address the RAID (Reduntant Array of Inexpensive Drives) issue, and I'll make a side note about Maxtor HDDs.

In a RAID level 1, or mirrored RAID, the second HDD makes an identical copy of the first one. In the case of a software-based RAID, this copy is not exactly identical, and the second drive would not be bootable without the first. Also, if something happens to the software which is driving the RAID, the RAID will become unstable or cease functioning altogether. Basically what I'm saying is that the whole purpose of a RAID-1 is to provide extra data redundancy and stability, but a softare-based RAID practially nullifies any benefits it would have afforded. Data-writing problems or file corruption which is written to the RAID will affect both copies. You probably won't see much benefit from this type of setup. At best it will provide a way for you to recover important data post-mortem (after a total HDD crash, that is). A hardware RAID provides a truly mirrored array, both drives being identical and bootable. However, hardware RAID controllers are costly and require a bit of setup. You might also have to reformat your drives to add them to a RAID, depending on which controller you had.

Regarding the Maxtor issue... I've been in IT professionally for about a decade, and I've been a PC enthusiast since the age of 6. Maxtor HDDs are consistently low-quality, cheapy HDDs which are very prone to failure. The only reason they are popular is that they're typically around $5 cheaper than superior HDDs, or perhaps because the consumer doesn't know any better. I was stupid enough to use Maxtor HDDs in a RAID on my home server some years back, and though they were all well-cooled, they failed and I lost a tremendous amount of data. If I could recount all the times I've seen Maxtors fail in some way, I'd likely need several pages here on the forums. On the other hand, I've never seen a Western Digital 'Caviar' or Seagate 'Barracuda' fail. Ever. You don't have to take my word for it, but in my experience, only IBM/Fujitsu makes a worse HDD than Maxtor.

-AT
 
Hi anti-trend, Thanks for the comments. I will remember what you said when I build my new PC. It will have a socket 939 motherboard for an AMD processor. I already have these two Maxtor 40 gig drives, so I will used them until they quit working. I will no doubt get my moneys worh, they were less than $50 each. The RAID controller only cost $18 and some cents so I bought two of them. I have another PC that my brother wants to learn how to run. Everything today comes down to $. I am not paying anyone else to do this and I like to do things myself anyhow. I get my fingers into a lot of stuff that way, (into trouble too). If you read my later posts, you also know now that I am going to pass on using (trying to use) RAID with W98. I only had about 9 gigs used on the 40 gig Maxtor that I locked up. I am going to use part of the 2nd 40 gig Maxtor to backup the first. It is much simpler and will suffice. I was not trying to question your opinions on hard drives either, but I still think that any hard drive will benifit from being properly cooled. Thanks for the help. How I locked up my first 40 gig Maxtor can be the subject of another post. I might need help trying to get into it, when I get around to trying it again. I just looked at your post again where file corruption or data writing problems can screw up both drives in a Mirrored setup, so that is another vote against doing it, for me, glad you mentioned it.
 
zRoCkIsAdDiCtInG said:
its as if a closed off partition of a drive that can only be accessed for backups or removing backups, its virtually hidden off from viruses etc.

i know software like acronis true image are good of these things, but there is def an equal alternative dedicated to the same purpose for free
Click to expand...

I will research this before I do anything. That is what I do after all. Thanks for the suggestion. I hadn't thought about it being necessary or possible to keep a back up hard drive secure from viruses etc. I guess this is why external back up hard drives are popular. I never liked external anything because I can clutter up any kind of work place enough without external stuff, but maybe I will need to change my thinking.
 
pelvis_3 said:
I know norton ghost does an excellent job at copying/mirroring!
i think partition magic does a similar thing!
Click to expand...

I have a copy of Ghost somewhere and I have never used it because I didn't understand it when I got it. I am not going to try a Mirrored drive setup now but thanks for reminding me about Ghost, I might be able to get some use out of it. (You live in Australia?, that is a long way from here, I am in Pennsylvania, it looks like the NET is changing the World for sure.)

I added comments to an earlier post of this thread because this "end" of the thread did not appear when I logged on to it. I made comments about Maxtors, Western Digitals, and heat sinking again. I am thinking about another thread for a Cloning procedure for Hard Drives that "copies" instead of "imaging" that I found (I didn't make it up). I used it with W98 and will ask if anyone can tell if it "should" work with Windows XP.
 
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