Can a system drive be mirrored?

bobmendon

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Jan 15, 2012
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Help me out as I am having a monumental brain cramp. Can a system drive be mirrored or to state it another way, can you boot off a mirrored drive?
 
Solution


This seems to be saying the system drive is different than the RAID array.
Yes?

If so, build the system.
Then create an image of the system drive, off on a whole other drive.
Save that, and update it once in a while.
In the case of the system drive dying, slot in a new drive to replace, and recover from that image.

I do this with Macrium Reflect (but without the RAID aspect).
My C drive is imaged every night at 2AM, keep for 2 weeks. Deleting the oldest as it goes.
So there is always a rolling image, rather than...

Barty1884

Retired Moderator
Depends what you mean by 'mirror'.

If it's a backup/system image, no, not exactly. Depending on the config, you might be able to 'boot' from it to repair etc, but not to function as a full fat OS, no.

If you clone the drive fully, then yes. In that instance it would be an identical replica (clone) of the drive and all it's functions.
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator


A better question is....
What are you actually wanting to do?

Can you have a fully bootable 'mirror'? Sure, in multiple ways.
 

bobmendon

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Jan 15, 2012
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I am going to be doing a software raid and was thinking it might be wise to have some redundancy with the system drives. My nightmare scenario is the system drive puking and taking the mirror with it.
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator


What is your desire for the RAID?
Your stated purpose may or may not require a RAID situation.

A RAID 1 only helps in the (rare) case of the physical drive crapping out, and you actually need 24/7 uninterrupted operation.
Any other issue simply affects 2 drives at the same time.
 

bobmendon

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Jan 15, 2012
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As I pointed out, my concern is losing the system drive and as a consequence losing my software raid configuration. It has been my experience that it's not a matter of if my drive should fail but more a matter of when.
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator


This seems to be saying the system drive is different than the RAID array.
Yes?

If so, build the system.
Then create an image of the system drive, off on a whole other drive.
Save that, and update it once in a while.
In the case of the system drive dying, slot in a new drive to replace, and recover from that image.

I do this with Macrium Reflect (but without the RAID aspect).
My C drive is imaged every night at 2AM, keep for 2 weeks. Deleting the oldest as it goes.
So there is always a rolling image, rather than an always on 'mirror.

If my system drive dies, just slot in a new one and recover from whichever image I choose.
This also protects against any other corruption of that C drive. Something gts accidentally deleted, or some major virus infestation?
Recover from the image 2 days ago.
 
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