I've recently got two 2TB disks for home storage as my 500GB is nearly full. I am wondering whether there are any recommendations to setting them up?
My motherboard is an older Intel model, with 4 SATA ports. An 80GB boot disk is plugged into one, and the 500GB data is plugged into another. I've also got a PCI card which supports RAID 0 and 1. The OS is Windows XP, and the board does not support Vista or 7.
My options are:
- Use the RAID Card to Mirror the disks. While this is probably my best bet if I lose the card then I lose the mirror (although the data will be backed up to a USB HD).
- Use the RAID Card to Stripe the disks. Not really a fan of this, even though the disks are new I just don't want to risk it. Although 4TB would be nice.
- Use XP to Stripe/Span the disks. AFAIK Both ways I'd end up with 4TB but at the risk of losing everything if one of the disks go.
- Do nothing, and have 2x 2TB disks. Possibly write a script with robocopy /MIR to copy everything across, or use one for videos and music, and the other for other files.
I've got a lot of mixed data types, movies, videos, photos, documents. While I wouldn't be devastated to lose it I've got the means and patience to work out a way to avoid anything going.