RAID setup with 3 drives

[fat-chunk]

Hi there,

My operating system and frequently used programs are currently installed on a 120GB SSD, which is doing its job just fine.

I keep all of my data (movies, music, games etc.) on a 1TB mechanical hard drive, but this has recently begun to fill up pretty quickly. None of this data is backed up either.

I was thinking of setting up a RAID array with 3 drives. I would buy a 2TB drive in order to give myself a total 3TB of space (along with the drive I already own), and then another 3TB hard drive on which I would mirror and back up all of my data.

My question is: Would this be possible? What would I need to do to go about setting it up (are there any guides for this?)

Also, would this be in any way difficult or tedious considering I already have things saved to my 1TB hardrive? would I need to back up the data and wipe the drive?

Thanks in advance for all of the help!

 

[alvine]

with raid you need to have hard drives with same capacity. if you have a 120gb ssd and you want to raid 5 it with a 1 tb and a 2 tb the 2 and 1 tb drive will act like a 120 gb drives to make 3 drives the same capacity

 

[fat-chunk]

No that's not what I meant. Forget the SSD.

The three drives I want are:

- 1TB and 2TB for storage
- 3TB drive for backup

Would this be possible?

 

[noidea_77]

As alvine said, this will not work and moreover it makes no sense. raid is not a backup! It helps nothing, if you delete a file by mistake and will mirror any virus directly to the other disk. My recommendation: use the 3TB disk as your main file storage, because it will be the fastest. Then use something like the SyncToy (http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=15155) to copy the data to the other disks (1TB+2TB) frequently.

 

[ronintexas]

Get a program like SyncBack Free http://www.2brightsparks.com/syncback/

It will backup your data, regardless of drive sizes. Very easy to configure and works across a network if you have multiple computers.

This is a lot easier to maintain than trying to configure and maintain a RAID for a home setup....