Why one should have Raid 1 Setup on your computer right now

I think it is highly unwise to if you don’t have RAID 1 (mirroring) set up right now.

Raid 1 is a nerd acronym for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks Version 1.  Basically, it’s mirroring two hard drives at all time; a sort of instantaneous backing up tool that automatically has a 1 for 1 copy of your primary hard drive.  If one fails, the other one takes over and you don’t even skip a beat.  There are other flavors of Raid too, but we’re just going to talk about version 1.

First of all, ALL hard drives fail, period.  The odds are about 10% the first year, it gets higher after that.  You do not know when it will fail, it may be 2 minutes from now, 20 days, 2 years, or 5 years, but it will fail; it is mechanical, it’s spinning around over a hundred times a second, and wearing out is what mechanical things do. So it’s not a matter of what if, it’s a matter of when.

Now you have to ask yourself, how much is my data and time worth in monetarily, or opportunity cost or convenience?  Would you miss anything if your computer disappeared?  Would you miss anything if your computer was gone for a week or two? Would you loose any money if you to pay someone to look at your broken computer, reinstall your operating system, or ship back the old drive?  I think just about 99% of people would say yes to at least one of those questions.

That’s why you NEED Raid 1: It is the cheapest solution overall to those who value their time, data or convenience.  Bottom line is if you use your computer for normal uses, for anything besides just email and surfing, add RAID 1 as the cheapest and best way to ensure zero down time.

So what does getting Raid 1 entail?  When you buy your computer, instead of buying 1 hard drive, you buy another identical one, some slight easy modifications in the computers settings, add a driver when you are installing windows, and that is it.

So what happens when one of your hard drive fails in a mirrored Raid 1?

How it really goes down in real life:

So, this is exactly how it goes down.  One turns on their computer one day, and a little notice pop’s up: Raid Volume Degraded

Click on the pop-up and the Raid Manager will inform that the good drive’s Serial number is, let’s call it 2244668Z for now:

Now, open up the PC and look at each drive’s serial number.  It is wise to, when the computer is new, to put a little post it note in the insides of the computer, of the serial number of each of the Hard Drives so one is aware of which drive to pull out and send back.  Like so:

1122334X Top
2244668Z Bottom

Now go to the hard drive manufacturer (for me, right now it’s Seagate) and put in an “Advanced RMA”.  Most hard drive manufacturers offer an Advanced RMA for a fee they will ship a drive out to you right quick, with a prepaid sticker to ship your old drive back in.  For Seagate this costs $19.95.   In 2-3 days a new hard drive will come in the mail.  Put the replacement hard drive in the bad drive’s place, and boot into windows.  The Raid Manager (link) pop’s up and says “Raid rebuilding” or give you options or a little wizard to confirm the drive you just put it, is the replacement drive for the Raid1.  Now one can continue to use windows as normal, slightly slower than usual because it’s copying everything over.

In 8-12 hours (depending on the amount of data) the PC is backed up and running again.  Take the bad hard drive and put it in the box that your new one came, adhere the UPS prepaid label on the box, and drop it off.  You’re done.

Yes, as you can tell, I am an avid Raid 1 fanboy.  Raid1 has personally saved me or someone I know at least a dozen times in the past few years.  But I will admit, the bad thing about Raid 1 is it does not protect against theft or natural disaster, like online backups do.  But the probability that your hard drive will fail (100%) vs the chance you will be hit by an act of God is just about the same as it always was, and crime continues to go down. It also doesn’t protect against other hardware failure like motherboard, ram, CPU, fan or power supply failure.  But if those die, and they do die, your data is still intact.  And that’s the most important part.

Some people will incorrectly argue that it costs more to have another hard drive put in your computer.  Tisk tisk, the prototypical American response; not knowing the difference between price, value and cost.

Since there is a 100% chance your hard drive will fail, and thus there is a 100% chance you will have downtime and additional expenses.

These are the options you can choose, and their true associated price and costs:

Option A: Buy another hard drive, put it in Raid 1, price? ~$100 more (as of March 2010 a 1.5TB costs about $100, your price will vary.)

Option B: Buy an identical external drive for $120, and do weekly, daily or hourly backups.
Pro: You have another fun gadget to use
Con: It costs more, it’s terribly time consuming, you may forget to back up, you will sill loose a lot of time and money reinstalling OS, all programs, restoring all other data. Why not save the $20 and all that extra time and just pop it in Raid1?

Option C: Use a online monthly backup system,
Pro: It’s only $60-$200/year, theft proof, fire proof
Con: You have to keep your computer on all a lot longer to sync it up every day, your computer will slow down having to run indexes of you drive before syncs, and if it fails, you will still have to reinstall OS, all programs, and restoring all other data from an Internet link will take days if not weeks. Lots of time lost.

Option D: Risk it, do nothing, or just keep upgrading your computer every once in a while to get new Hard-Drive and hope.
Pro: FREE
Con: If your data is worth anything to you, and you absolutely don’t want to loose it, you will be paying the nice men in white space looking suits to go into a dust free lab and open it up, and try to get the data off the discs.  This can cost $2,000+/-  You will also loose probably a month of downtime.

Option E: Sync to another computer in your house
Pro: Free
Con: You may forget to sync all the time, and you will still be paying to get a new drive, or ship the old one back, and you will still have to reinstall OS, all programs, and restoring all other data from the other computer.  This is a good option if the computer you have doesn’t have important data on, your time is worth nothing to you, or at least the other computer has Raid 1.

Even if you make minimum wage, and other option is not worth your time!

Situations where Raid 1 isn’t for you:

You’ve got some other flavor or Raid that is redundant, or your time, data, or money is no object.   Good for you, this article wasn’t for you, but for the masses.  If you’ve got a better solution for most people most of the time, I would love to hear about it.

I’ve been in building computers since a teenager, and I can’t tell you the real pains I have seen, actual tears I have witnessed at the soul wrenching experience it is to have a decade of pictures wiped out, or a lifetime of scanned images gone or anything else of value stored inside that little box.  I beg you, I implore you, to have some sort of backup so this doesn’t happened to you. Raid 1 is the cheapest more carefree hands-off easiest option for most people.

So do yourself a favor and the next computer you build or buy, make sure it has two hard drives in Raid 1.