Backing up multiple HDDs

  Like a lot of you I have two HDDs in my computer. One for the boot OS and my Sonar programs files ,in my case Win7 64 bit. Another was intended for streaming samples and additional content like .fxb files and also stores my Sonar bundle files. I occasionally copy those files onto yet another drive in case of drive failure.

 I had decided to take my disk backup seriously in case of failure and was about to go with a  RAID 1 system. Althopugh RAID 1 is a great way to build in trouble free redundancy should one drive fail,it still has a few flaws. One of those is if you get a computer virus it gets copied across both drives......now you have double trouble. Another is backing up two HDDs. To do that you will need more than one RAID system. This all starts to get complicated really fast,and lets face it, most serious DAW users have at least two HDDs,especially those streaming huge Kontakt files or any other large streaming instument.

 So I am looking for the best way to comletely copy two HDDS with minimal hassle. Last night I made another image backup file to a 500gb external usb drive. I found out for the first time that the backup program included in Win7 allows me to backup both my C AND my D drive in the same operation and at the same time.

 How does this work in actual use if one drive fails? If I backup for C & D drives to an image and I lose my C drive, will the backup image only rebuild C drive? or will it try to rebuild both drives?or if I loose my file drive and my boot drive is intact, is the application smart enough to know which drive needs rebuilt?

 Even though there are two drives,I operate as if they are one so I need them both.

 

 Thanks for your help Jim. I am glad the imager gives you a choice there. I'll put your advice into practice!

Probably the best bet for not getting a virus is to never let your DAW see the internet. In that case RAID 1 (or mirroring) disks is a good backup solution, however, it is a one disk to one disk solution and a bit less flexible when you need more space.  

If you want to be super safe with backups, plus easily add more storage space, you might want to look into a RAID5 or RAID6 system. RAID5 and RAID6 stripe the data across multiple disks in an array plus add parity bits to the data (the parity bits is used to rebuild lost data). RAID5 uses single parity and if a disk fails in the array, that disk can be phically replaced and the data can be recreated throught the parirty bits and information striped across the other disks. Unfortunately, the performance of the system takes a hit until the missing disk is fully replaced. A RAID6 uses double parity which will allow rebuilding of the data if two drives to fail in the array.

Personally, since disks are so cheap these days, I mirror everything and not worry about RAID stuff. I have a USB to SATA adaptor and a bunch of external 1 TB drives. I use Acronis to mirror my boot disk and I recreate the image after any major upgrade (I also make a second backup to another external disk to give me an additiona backup (I also keep one older image back just in case). For my data disks or client disks, I copy the data from the DAW to external disks each day (or whenever something additional is recorded.

If you have a Western Digital hard drive, you can get true image free from WD. check their site.
As far as backup goes, I just keep copies of one drive on other drive(s) on the same computer. 

I'm pretty sure that the only way I'd lose anything is if the computer got stolen. But, I guess that is a possibility.  

Hi,

I don't do any streaming to additional drives. So there is some possibliity of loosing something if my data disk should fail as I am recording (or before I do a backup - and this is where a RAID system would save you). I have not had this happen but it could. I make sure I do a copy of my data disk(s) after I add any new data (recordings) or my OS disk if I install something new. Having a backup of the previous OS disk allows me to go back to a good install if I find that the latest install has problems that I didn't see initially. Doing copies of everything takes time, and you need to set up and you need to do a new on on your data disk, but I usually set up my backups when I am heading off to dinner or to bed and I have a nice feeling when I come back to the DAW and see the "Backup completed Successfully" message :-)

As Firebird suggests it is not a question of if you will ever need a backup, but when.