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The Graveyard - Products No Longer Supported => D-Link Storage => DNS-320 => Topic started by: bluesman on February 09, 2012, 01:22:07 PM

Title: Need details on building 2nd disc in RAID 1
Post by: bluesman on February 09, 2012, 01:22:07 PM
I want to remove one of the RAID1 discs in my DNS-320 for backup and keep it in my safe deposit box.  With auto-rebuild enabled, it looks to me like I can just power down, remove one of the drives, replace it with a fresh blank one, power up, and the new drive will be formatted and populated as a duplicate of the remaining original disc.  Is this correct, or do I need to do something else?

Thanks!
Title: Re: Need details on building 2nd disc in RAID 1
Post by: JavaLawyer on February 09, 2012, 05:21:13 PM
You can do this, but it's not considered a best practice method for maintaining a backup. It's always best to maintain a separate physical backup of your data.  RAID 1 provides redundancy, but is not a backup. The DNS-320 was not designed for routine swapping of HDDs for this purpose.
Title: Re: Need details on building 2nd disc in RAID 1
Post by: steiny83 on February 09, 2012, 08:27:55 PM
Is there a better way to do this?  i.e. Can the DNS-320 be setup to make one drive a backup of the first?  Is there an advantage to using RAID 1 vs. just straight backup? 

Thanks!
Jacob
Title: Re: Need details on building 2nd disc in RAID 1
Post by: hoppo1 on February 10, 2012, 01:28:58 AM
You can break the raid and have two volumes. the inbuilt backup tool can then copy files between volumes to provide your backups.

I have two nas both located in different areas in my property. The dlink backs up to the other box every night using rsync but being paranoyd I also have extra copies of my family photo's / videos etc copied onto external usb + a couple of laptops just in case ! Those are irreplaceable and I even considered online storage for those as well just in case !
Title: Re: Need details on building 2nd disc in RAID 1
Post by: JavaLawyer on February 10, 2012, 04:42:34 AM
For more information on ShareCenter data backup strategies, please read the following post in our ShareCenter FAQ board:

Title: Re: Need details on building 2nd disc in RAID 1
Post by: bluesman on February 10, 2012, 06:29:36 PM
Thanks, JL.  I know RAID isn't backup. But if I keep a dupe disc in my safe deposit box and only swap it into the RAID1 array every 3 or 4 months to add files acquired since the last time, what's wrong with using this as backup?
Title: Re: Need details on building 2nd disc in RAID 1
Post by: cable2 on February 11, 2012, 10:06:38 AM
Hi,
I think that if there is an accidental deletion, corruption via mechanical failure or virus, etc., to your "working" drive and you are unaware of this process, what is going to be the effect when you pop your second raid 1 drive back into the NAS?  Is the NAS somehow going to miraculously know how to handle the drive discrepancies.  You are assuming, that there will be only safe stable data added to your working drive.  I'm not sure it would work that way 100%, plus how up to date is your "backup" data, 3-4 months at best.  I don't know how important your data is to you.  Here is the thing, Raid 1 basically protects you from a single hard drive failure and that is just about it.  Good luck
Title: Re: Need details on building 2nd disc in RAID 1
Post by: bluesman on February 12, 2012, 10:03:07 AM
Quote from: cable2 on February 11, 2012, 10:06:38 AM
You are assuming, that there will be only safe stable data added to your working drive.

I seem to have left out an important fact - I'm only using this setup for my music files (all FLACs), and my simple goal is not to lose the 1500 or so albums I've painstakingly ripped in about equal numbers from vinyl and CDs.  Once I've completed the rips (and I've already done about half), the only changes will be additions of a few albums a month.  So there's really no practical concern about the currency or integrity of the files.

Nevertheless, the skepticism you all express has made me rethink the idea.  I just set up a 3T backup for volume 1 and will leave the Dlink in RAID1 (it's my FLAC server).  I'll swap the drive in the BU dock as I was planning to do in the DNS320 and store one copy in my safe deposit box.  I'd bought a 3rd 2T HD when I got the DNS320, so I have a spare in the event of HD failure.

Thanks, everybody!!