11-11-2015, 06:03 PM
RAID is fine, but it's obviously limited in what it protects you against.
Against a disk failure, it's great as you don't lose data and you're up and running without downtime.
Against a file system corruption, idiotic user deleting/overwriting a file or viruses inflicted woes however it's useless.
A separate backup protects against the those, but clearly a restore of a complete system takes time.
That's why you want both in an ideal world.
I'm not personally convinced by RAID 5 in a typical home environment - it has advantages in a corporate environment certainly, but for a home user I'd always go RAID 1. Yes you lose 50% of your total capacity, but you've got a perfect replica of your disk that you can if needs be remove and plug into another computer and read the data.
Against a disk failure, it's great as you don't lose data and you're up and running without downtime.
Against a file system corruption, idiotic user deleting/overwriting a file or viruses inflicted woes however it's useless.
A separate backup protects against the those, but clearly a restore of a complete system takes time.
That's why you want both in an ideal world.
I'm not personally convinced by RAID 5 in a typical home environment - it has advantages in a corporate environment certainly, but for a home user I'd always go RAID 1. Yes you lose 50% of your total capacity, but you've got a perfect replica of your disk that you can if needs be remove and plug into another computer and read the data.
1990 Peugeot 205 GTi 1.9 // 1991 Peugeot 205 GTi 1.9 16v // 1992 Peugeot 205 GTi 1.9 // 1999 Peugeot 306 HDi Estate