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andrewmcc
Past MnGCA Board
Joined: 29 Jul 2007
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 Posted: Tue Dec 30, 2008 7:54 pm Post subject: Mirror Harddrives |
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Hey you techie types.
Could anyone tell me in English how I can mirror 2 external hard drives. If that is not the right term what I want to do is, when I back up anything to external hard drive A it will also go to B.
Does that make sense?
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speedysk1
Past MnGCA Board
Joined: 29 Oct 2007
Posts: 1991
Location: Mound MN
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| Posted: Tue Dec 30, 2008 7:56 pm Post subject: Re: Mirror Harddrives |
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| andrewmcc wrote: |
Hey you techie types.
Could anyone tell me in English how I can mirror 2 external hard drives. If that is not the right term what I want to do is, when I back up anything to external hard drive A it will also go to B.
Does that make sense? |
Yes, you will need to find a RAID compatible external hard drive system. From there, the manufacturer should tell you how to configure the drives to mirror the disks.
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andrewmcc
Past MnGCA Board
Joined: 29 Jul 2007
Posts: 979
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| Posted: Tue Dec 30, 2008 8:03 pm Post subject: Re: Mirror Harddrives |
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| speedysk1 wrote: |
| andrewmcc wrote: |
Hey you techie types.
Could anyone tell me in English how I can mirror 2 external hard drives. If that is not the right term what I want to do is, when I back up anything to external hard drive A it will also go to B.
Does that make sense? |
Yes, you will need to find a RAID compatible external hard drive system. From there, the manufacturer should tell you how to configure the drives to mirror the disks. |
Dumb question #1
Is that software or hardware?
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Pear Head
Past MnGCA President
Joined: 04 Apr 2004
Posts: 5594
Location: north of Duluth
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| Posted: Tue Dec 30, 2008 8:10 pm Post subject: Re: Mirror Harddrives |
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| andrewmcc wrote: |
| speedysk1 wrote: |
| andrewmcc wrote: |
Hey you techie types.
Could anyone tell me in English how I can mirror 2 external hard drives. If that is not the right term what I want to do is, when I back up anything to external hard drive A it will also go to B.
Does that make sense? |
Yes, you will need to find a RAID compatible external hard drive system. From there, the manufacturer should tell you how to configure the drives to mirror the disks. |
Dumb question #1
Is that software or hardware? |
RAID can be either, in your case though you're looking for software (unless you have deep pockets).
My guess is that someone here can point you to some free software that does what you're looking for. You'll need to specify your operating system.
These are USB drives?
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speedysk1
Past MnGCA Board
Joined: 29 Oct 2007
Posts: 1991
Location: Mound MN
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| Posted: Tue Dec 30, 2008 8:12 pm Post subject: Re: Mirror Harddrives |
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| andrewmcc wrote: |
| speedysk1 wrote: |
| andrewmcc wrote: |
Hey you techie types.
Could anyone tell me in English how I can mirror 2 external hard drives. If that is not the right term what I want to do is, when I back up anything to external hard drive A it will also go to B.
Does that make sense? |
Yes, you will need to find a RAID compatible external hard drive system. From there, the manufacturer should tell you how to configure the drives to mirror the disks. |
Dumb question #1
Is that software or hardware? |
Well technically both. You will need a external HD system with 2 drives in it. That's the hardware. Then there will be software that will control the RAID, ie mirroring, of the drives. You will need an enclosure that has 2 drives in it. Try googling for usb raid storage. It's not cheap to do. Expect to put a few hundred bucks into this.
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andrewmcc
Past MnGCA Board
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| Posted: Tue Dec 30, 2008 8:14 pm Post subject: |
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I have 2 usb external hard drives, 250 gb and 650 gb
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speedysk1
Past MnGCA Board
Joined: 29 Oct 2007
Posts: 1991
Location: Mound MN
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| Posted: Tue Dec 30, 2008 8:19 pm Post subject: |
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| andrewmcc wrote: |
| I have 2 usb external hard drives, 250 gb and 650 gb |
Sure you complicate this by having 2 different sized drives. 
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Pear Head
Past MnGCA President
Joined: 04 Apr 2004
Posts: 5594
Location: north of Duluth
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| Posted: Tue Dec 30, 2008 8:21 pm Post subject: |
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| speedysk1 wrote: |
| andrewmcc wrote: |
| I have 2 usb external hard drives, 250 gb and 650 gb |
Sure you complicate this by having 2 different sized drives. |
Then your max storage for the unit will be limited to 250.
I've seen software RAID done in some Windows environments, although I can't recall exactly which ones. I've not seen it done with external drives, but I don't see why it couldn't be done.. It's just finding the right software.
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Pear Head
Past MnGCA President
Joined: 04 Apr 2004
Posts: 5594
Location: north of Duluth
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| Posted: Tue Dec 30, 2008 8:40 pm Post subject: |
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You may be able to use SyncToy from Microsoft to do what you're looking for. I did a little reading on it and installed it, but I don't have the same setup that you do so I'm not entirely sure if it will work for you or not.
http://www.microsoft.com/prophoto/downloads/synctoybeta.aspx
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Pear Head
Past MnGCA President
Joined: 04 Apr 2004
Posts: 5594
Location: north of Duluth
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| Posted: Tue Dec 30, 2008 8:44 pm Post subject: |
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| Pear Head wrote: |
You may be able to use SyncToy from Microsoft to do what you're looking for. I did a little reading on it and installed it, but I don't have the same setup that you do so I'm not entirely sure if it will work for you or not.
http://www.microsoft.com/prophoto/downloads/synctoybeta.aspx |
I was able to simulate your setup. This should work for you. Email me if you need further help.
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speedysk1
Past MnGCA Board
Joined: 29 Oct 2007
Posts: 1991
Location: Mound MN
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| Posted: Tue Dec 30, 2008 10:27 pm Post subject: |
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Nice find. I'm going to try this myself.
Thanks PH!
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bflentje
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Joined: 29 May 2006
Posts: 3654
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| Posted: Thu Jan 29, 2009 4:07 pm Post subject: |
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| Pear Head wrote: |
You may be able to use SyncToy from Microsoft to do what you're looking for. I did a little reading on it and installed it, but I don't have the same setup that you do so I'm not entirely sure if it will work for you or not.
http://www.microsoft.com/prophoto/downloads/synctoybeta.aspx |
I've been playing with this tool extensively over the last few weeks. And while it is very cool and works well, it does not work as a native service. In other words, you have to actually tell it to do a synch. |
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bflentje
Geocacher
Joined: 29 May 2006
Posts: 3654
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| Posted: Mon Feb 02, 2009 9:09 pm Post subject: |
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While SynchToy cannot maintain a live, up to the second mirror, it does have a command line interface and can be scheduled using the Windows Scheduled Tasks in the Control Panel.
I've been interested in this tool for backup reasons. I've got a Windows server. It contains four drives in two pairs. Each pair is mirrored with RAID on the motherboard to give me redundency. I then use SynchToy to mirror data on the four drives above to an external USB2 drive. It's not a perfect system. But it's better than the average user doing NO backups and it's cheaper than maintaining a set of SCSI SCA servers by a long shot. |
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