[JohnPete]

Hello,
After reading an article about RAID and hot swapping HDDs, I am considering that option and have a question. The article described a Promise system with a RAID controller card (0+1) and hotswap drive housings. If I decide to go this way I would have two of the drive housings in the computer and one external for backups.
My question is if the internal HDDs became corrupt (not damaged or failed) for some reason, is it just a matter of installing the external (backup) drive or would it too become corrupt by the RAID mirror drive copying the corruption?
Thank you for any information.

[Dr._Ephemeron]

RAID is not meant to be used as a removable backup system. That is, you don't plug in a backup drive and let the data get copied over and then remove it. It is made so that all 4 drives (in the case of 0+1) are in continuous operation at all times so when one fails, it can be removed and replaced.

The only reason you would want ever use the hot swapping caddy is when you would remove the failed drive and replace it with a new one.

So a drive failing would not mess the data up on the other 2 drives, otherwise there would be not much point in 0+1 RAID now would it.  ;)

And if for some reason bad data is written to the hard drives, do to other hardware failures, software failures, viruses, it will write it to all of the drives. So you still need a removable backup system.

[JohnPete]

Hello Dr._Ephemeron,

Thanks for the informative reply. As you can see, my knowledge of RAID is limited at best. I think I'll stick with image backups and use an external HDD if I need to take the backup off-site.

Thanks again, your help is appreciated. :)