Continual hard drive mirroring

Steevo · Jan 20, 2017

Just had another hard drive die on me (clicks, and then appears to reset/restart), seems to be a constant problem.

Is there a simple way to set up some sort of RAID hard drive mirroring so I've always got a working copy. All files are backed up the cloud as well, but it's not quite the same and would be easier to have a second drive I could swap to whilst I order up a new one and get it delivered. Would prefer internal drive rather than an external drive if possible.

Storeman · Jan 20, 2017

Your mother board may support some flavour of a RAID array.
Have a look on the motherboard manufacturers web site, they should have a manual in pdf form that will have the info in.

Steevo · Jan 20, 2017

http://www.foxconnchannel.com/ProductDetail.aspx?T=motherboard&U=en-us0000345

I assume that would be a no...?

Storeman · Jan 20, 2017

It would would indeed be a no.
Okay, so, no on board RAID, but you can get PCI / PCIe cards that act as a RAID controller.

Steevo · Jan 21, 2017

Storeman said:
It would would indeed be a no.
Okay, so, no on board RAID, but you can get PCI / PCIe cards that act as a RAID controller.

Thanks, I'll look into this a bit more and may well be back with more questions...!

Steevo · Jan 21, 2017

This?

http://www.ebuyer.com/662877-starte...-adapter-internal-sata-connector-to-s322sat3r

milkloss · Jan 21, 2017

A question: would a mirror hard drive also mirror errors?

Storeman · Jan 21, 2017

Steevo said:
This?

http://www.ebuyer.com/662877-starte...-adapter-internal-sata-connector-to-s322sat3r

Yes, that's the kind of thing.
That particular one seems to run off the SATA controller and the drives then plug into that board. I've never seen ones like that, the usually sit in the PCI or PCIe slots. I have no idea how well that particular one works.

Make sure you have a read on the pros and cons of RAID, it isn't always a bed of roses.

Storeman · Jan 21, 2017

milkloss said:
A question: would a mirror hard drive also mirror errors?

Do you mean errors in the data or errors on the hard drive itself?
Any data on one drive will also be on the second drive.
A RAID array just spreads the data over two or more disks. There are several levels of RAID which give different levels of data protection.

milkloss · Jan 21, 2017

Storeman said:
Do you mean errors in the data or errors on the hard drive itself?
Any data on one drive will also be on the second drive.
A RAID array just spreads the data over two or more disks. There are several levels of RAID which give different levels of data protection.

Hard drive errors. So if one developed a bad sector or some other issue that corrupted the data on one disk would that corrupted data be copied to the mirror. Does the computer or disks know which one is the corrupt one and then stop mirroring in order to preserve data?

Storeman · Jan 21, 2017

If one drive in the array has an error, this can cause what is known as a sync error. If the controller doesn't mark that particular drive as failed, then the data is assumed to be okay.
Many RAID controllers have a built in process to check the integrity of the physical drives. This process is written for speed, not accuracy, so errors can leak through.

If the data can't be read from one drive, it can't be written to the other. Hard drives have there own data integrity tests to look for bad sectors and if found the data is moved to another sector on the drive, depending on the level of damage.

Steevo · Jan 21, 2017

Storeman · Jan 21, 2017

RAID is a bit of a science on it's own.
Here is an introduction to RAID................
http://www.howtogeek.com/162676/how-to-use-multiple-disks-intelligently-an-introduction-to-raid/

Ukjay · Jan 21, 2017

How many drives have you gone through, and how old is your system?

Steevo · Jan 21, 2017

Not silly amounts, but my main data drive seems to last 2-3years or so.
Currently it clicks, drops power and the restarts, clicks, drops, etc etc.

Ukjay · Jan 21, 2017

Steevo said:
Not silly amounts, but my main data drive seems to last 2-3years or so.
Currently it clicks, drops power and the restarts, clicks, drops, etc etc.

Have you checked the output from your psu?

Steevo · Jan 21, 2017

Ukjay said:
Have you checked the output from your psu?

No, I haven't. How would I go about that please?

Ukjay · Jan 21, 2017

Steevo said:
No, I haven't. How would I go about that please?

This may help, bit long winded, but he gets there in the end. I take no responsibility if you electricute yourself though.
It does work to find problems - but you need to take your time.

Your system looks to be fairly old if I understand your post correctly, so I woukd start at the basics first before buying another hard drive.
You may find the psu is not working correctly, thus your drive keeps trying to reboot through not enough power. I had a poor performing psu on a new pc, but due to the warranty requiring the pc going back to Slovakua and being without the pc for 2 months - I just replaced the psu myself after watching lots of online repair videos.

Your psu will have a data plate on it, and this will give you the tolerances it will work to, but once you know the actual output, you then need to understand if your drive dan operate at the output you have.

Greenbeast · Jan 21, 2017

could look at SSDs too, not to bad cost/size now.
or an external RAID box (i have one usb and one network 2-disc caddies that can both do mirroring)

alan01252 · Jan 22, 2017

windows 8+ includes software raid called storage spaces which would do the job.

Continual hard drive mirroring

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