Originally Posted By: thseng

I will make periodic offsite backups, but I was attracted to the option to set this up as RAID 1. I understand the main benefit of RAID 1 is that if one HD fails, the other one keeps working seamlessly. What is not clear is what happens if the RAID controller hardware fails?! Can I take a HD and plug it into andy computer or external hard drive enclosure and read it? Or do I need another RAID controller? Or do I need the SAME RAID controller?


With most types of RAID, you need to have the same type or at least a very similar RAID controller, configured correctly, to recover the data.

With RAID-1, straight-up mirroring, this is generally not the case, you can plug the drive into almost any other controller and expect to get the data.

Keep in mind that while RAID is great in protecting against HDD failure, it does nothing to protect against malice, human error, and many environmental issues.

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In other words, if I don't absolutely need uninterrupted service, should I set it up as RAID 1 or just two normal seperate volumes? I could then theoretically manually back up one drive to the other and remove it for offsite storage...


Manual backups are severely subject to human error and failure to follow through. I'd suggest an online backup service like Carbonite (my only connection with them is as a satisfied customer).