- Oct 8, 2013
- 19
- 0
- 10,510
Windows 8 Hard drive Mirroring for Data Redundancy
Description
Windows 8 and proceeding OS's have included the ability to have Windows automatically mirror data from one hard drive onto another. This can be very useful if you have important data that you don't want to loose due to a hard drive failure.
Pre-requisites
[_] Windows 8 or Prior down to Windows XP
[_] 2 or more, Hard drives of the same size
Directions
1.) Navigate to your systems 'Control Panel'
2.) Launch the 'Administrative Tools' app
3.) Click on the 'Computer Management' app
4.) Within Computer Management select "Disk Management" from within the Storage section
5.) You may be asked to 'Initialize Disk' select [OK]
6.) Your new drives should now be presented to you
7.) Right click on one of your new Hard drives, and select "New Mirrored Volume"
7.a.) On the Wizard startup screen select [Next]
7.b.) The disk you selected will already be added, now select one of your other disks and
click [Add]
7.c.) Click [Next] when you've selected the drive(s) you wish to have mirrored
7.d.) Select the drive letter you wish to use and click [Next]
7.e.) Select the Format type you with and then click [Next], then click [Finish]
7.f.) You will probably then get a popup, read the warning, and if you agree to the risk
click [Yes]
You should now see the same new drive letter on both of the drives you selected. When you look at the new drive letter it should be the same size as one of your drives.
Wrap-Up
Mirroring of drives is a great way to ensure that your data is secure. But for higher levels of security it is best to also keep data on an external drive that you only hook up to your system during backups. When not using your external drive for backups it should be stored somewhere secure, ideally not in the same structure as your computer.
If you have a hardware RAID controller you can also set up RAID 5 for redundancy which has a lower cost per gigabyte over drive mirroring. Remember Mirroring uses at least a one-to-one relationship(for each data drive you need at least one backup mirror drive.) whereas RAID 5 requires at least 3 drives but only needs one for redundancy.(In RAID 5 your total storage is n-1*capacity [n = number of hard-drives, capacity is the size of each drive])
Description
Windows 8 and proceeding OS's have included the ability to have Windows automatically mirror data from one hard drive onto another. This can be very useful if you have important data that you don't want to loose due to a hard drive failure.
Pre-requisites
[_] Windows 8 or Prior down to Windows XP
[_] 2 or more, Hard drives of the same size
Directions
1.) Navigate to your systems 'Control Panel'
2.) Launch the 'Administrative Tools' app
3.) Click on the 'Computer Management' app
4.) Within Computer Management select "Disk Management" from within the Storage section
5.) You may be asked to 'Initialize Disk' select [OK]
6.) Your new drives should now be presented to you
7.) Right click on one of your new Hard drives, and select "New Mirrored Volume"
7.a.) On the Wizard startup screen select [Next]
7.b.) The disk you selected will already be added, now select one of your other disks and
click [Add]
7.c.) Click [Next] when you've selected the drive(s) you wish to have mirrored
7.d.) Select the drive letter you wish to use and click [Next]
7.e.) Select the Format type you with and then click [Next], then click [Finish]
7.f.) You will probably then get a popup, read the warning, and if you agree to the risk
click [Yes]
You should now see the same new drive letter on both of the drives you selected. When you look at the new drive letter it should be the same size as one of your drives.
Wrap-Up
Mirroring of drives is a great way to ensure that your data is secure. But for higher levels of security it is best to also keep data on an external drive that you only hook up to your system during backups. When not using your external drive for backups it should be stored somewhere secure, ideally not in the same structure as your computer.
If you have a hardware RAID controller you can also set up RAID 5 for redundancy which has a lower cost per gigabyte over drive mirroring. Remember Mirroring uses at least a one-to-one relationship(for each data drive you need at least one backup mirror drive.) whereas RAID 5 requires at least 3 drives but only needs one for redundancy.(In RAID 5 your total storage is n-1*capacity [n = number of hard-drives, capacity is the size of each drive])
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram