System Disk "mirroring"

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davidcole

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#160430 6-Jan-2015 14:24

Is it possible to do a soft mirror/replicated system disk between 2 drives in a system?

I'm going to get an SSD for my main system drive...but considering utilising a 10k rpm drive I have as a warm system backup. So if I lose the SSD I could boot to the other hard drive and at most have it a day behind.

I could just do a windows mirror - but unsure if this would affect the SSD performance.
Thinking about something like an acronis clone disk daily job.

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timmmay

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#1209251 6-Jan-2015 14:30

Does your system change that quickly you need a daily mirror? I do a mirror every 3 months using Macrium Reflect Free - honstely though I only update it every 6 months or so. If a disk fails I can be up and running quickly - even with a different disk type. Warm backup takes power and adds wear to the spinning disk.

insane

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#1209254 6-Jan-2015 14:31

Rather buy two identical SSDs and RAID1 them.

davidcole

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#1209256 6-Jan-2015 14:35

timmmay: Does your system change that quickly you need a daily mirror? I do a mirror every 3 months using Macrium Reflect Free - honstely though I only update it every 6 months or so. If a disk fails I can be up and running quickly - even with a different disk type. Warm backup takes power and adds wear to the spinning disk.

Yeah i could probably do this. I already have acronis...and suspect I wouldn't need to keep it that up to date. The only complication might be the drivebender I'm also running - as in if there's a catalog on the system drive.

@insane - The 10k drive is currently about to be replaced under warranty - I tried getting it changed to an SSD - they said they'd replace with like for like - so I was thinking of another options without having to buy two drives.

timmmay

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#1209262 6-Jan-2015 14:39

Why are you using drivebender? I just read their website, their comparison with storage spaces is obviously written by a "creative" marketer.

davidcole

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#1209264 6-Jan-2015 14:41

timmmay: Why are you using drivebender? I just read their website, their comparison with storage spaces is obviously written by a "creative" marketer.

Cos I migrated from WHS v1 to WHS 2011 - when I replaced the 2011 system with windows 7 (as WHS2011 was restricted to 3gb ram) - it just seemed logical to stick with it.

timmmay

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#1209269 6-Jan-2015 14:43

I mean are you RAIDing disks with it (not sure it does that), making smaller disks look like big disks, etc. Just curious.

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davidcole

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#1209276 6-Jan-2015 14:50

timmmay: I mean are you RAIDing disks with it (not sure it does that), making smaller disks look like big disks, etc. Just curious.

Joining 6 drives of differing sizes (3x2TB, 1x3tb and 1x4tb) into one disk with folder based duplication in place for most of it.

raytaylor

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#1209575 6-Jan-2015 22:29

Typically you would run a Raid 6 array - but you would need them all to be SSD's in that case.
RAID 6 = striped for super fast speed, with two of however many drives as spare for failure.

If you currently use RAID, then I would suggest getting two SSD's and having them mirrored in their own seperate raid array.

Or at least install the system onto your SSD, then run a regular windows system backup to the raid array so you can use a windows installer disk and restore the image to another SSD or spare hard drive if it fails. The built in windows backup can achieve this.

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