RAID 1 (Mirror) and backups

[kmmatney]

I have a quick questions about backups and RAID 1. I normally use WD hard drives, and use the free version of Acronis (made for Western Digital drives) to do backups on computers I build (for both work and family) This has always worked great, and I've re-imaged drives from backups without issue.

However my latest build is a Core i5 system, with RAID 1 (mirror), using the on-board Intel RAID controller. Is there a way to back this up so that the system can easily be recovered to the "just-built" state. The WD version of Acronis doesn't support RAID, and I'm gertting soem conflicting info even if the real versions of Acronis support it.

So my solution is to break the RAID, image the drive with Acronis, and then rebuild the RAID. I like this idea because I could theoretically apply the image to any hard drive in the future and (as long as we buy 2 of them) rebuild the array. Seems more flexible this way, but is there any other way to make a backup image of a RAID 1 setup?

 

[corkyg]

You don't need to break the RAID1 array. Acronis sees it as a single drive and can back it up or clone it as you see fit. I clone my RAID1 data array to two othger PC's data drives and also to a separate USB external. RAID1 provides redundancy, and the cloned versions constitute several backups.

As far as Acronis and RAID1 arrays go, I have cloned them perfectly for several years now using several versions of TrueImage. I just upgraded to 2013, and then created bootable media. I always clone using bootable media - never from within Windows.

 

[mrpiggy]

With two SSD's in RAID1, I get no meaningful difference in using the Intel RAID versus the built-in Win7 RAID1 Disk mirroring (whether throughput or CPU utilization). The point being that for a simple RAID1 mirror boot system and assuming Win7 as the OS, it's much easier to deal with Win7's Disk Management and a simple mirrored boot OS. It's also much more portable; as in I could take out a single or both disks if I wanted, drop it into an AMD system, load a couple of drivers, and it would work perfectly fine. There's nothing wrong with using the Intel's RAID solution, but you don't gain anything with such a simple RAID1 setup, beyond more hassle over the Win7 built-in solution with an i5 processor (you have plenty of CPU horsepower where running the mirror in the OS is a negligible load on the CPU).

Acronis has worked for backup for me, regardless of whether the boot mirror was running on Intel's RAID1, Win7's, LSI, or Areca RAID controllers. You shouldn't have to break the RAID to make a good backup that could be restored to another RAID or even a single drive.

 

[kmmatney]

Thanks for the replies. We are using Windows XP at the moment, due to third party hardware. We'll try buying the full version of Acronis and see if it works.

 

[corkyg]

I just cloned an XP/SP3 machine yesterday. Even with full version Acronis TI, you need to create the bootable rescue media. The name of the game is to clone from that and not from within Windows. You get a more reliable process, no rebooting to do it, and a much better GUI to work with. I always stick to MANUAL mode and control the process. Example - yesterday I needed to clone the slave to the master. Auto mode would have screwed that up and I would have ended up with two bad drives. <LOL>

 

[GJCornish]

Why would you need to back up a mirror raid? Wouldn't that be redundant?

 

[corkyg]

Why would you need to back up a mirror raid? Wouldn't that be redundant?

No. RAID1 is not a backup. Any malware or corruption that hits that drive is mirrored to both drives. RAID1 provides some redundancy, but a prudent user will also back that up, preferably to an external drive.

 

[mv2devnull]

With two SSD's in RAID1, I get no meaningful difference in using the Intel RAID versus the built-in Win7 RAID1 Disk mirroring.

Obviously; both are software RAIDs.


All RAID do store array metadata into the drives. That is separate from "content". It does make sense to backup the content, but not the metadata. Lets look at some scenarios:

* One drive in RAID1 breaks. Content is intact. Replace the broken drive and the RAID creates metadata to it as well as syncs content to it from the intact drive.

* Both drives break. You create new RAID1 array from new drives with new metadata and then restore the content from backup to the array.

* Controller breaks and is replaced. The new one (compatible model) finds metadata and assembles the array, just like in every boot. If there was content corruption during breakup, you will need the backups.

* Software flaw or user error corrupts the content. You restore content from the backup.

* Some flaw corrupts metadata on one of the disks. RAID either treats it like you had replaced a broken drive, or you have to restore content from the backup.


There is a difference between having a backup and having multiple snapshots from different time-points. If you have only one occasionally synchronized copy, you can replace only the mistakes that have occurred after the latest sync. In RAID1 the latest sync did occur just now.

If you make a backup snapshot daily, spotting a mistake, which did happen Wednesday, on Friday lets you restore from Tuesday's copy since the Wed and Thu copies already store the mess.

 

[Tdavis5432]

Or what I do, I have a 256GB OS drive and a 3TB RAID1 that I backup my main drive to But yeah sometimes I have issues getting Acronis to work properly with UEFI bios, its rather annoying honestly.

No. RAID1 is not a backup. Any malware or corruption that hits that drive is mirrored to both drives. RAID1 provides some redundancy, but a prudent user will also back that up, preferably to an external drive.

 

[corkyg]

... sometimes I have issues getting Acronis to work properly with UEFI bios, its rather annoying honestly.

Acronis corrected this problem with version 2012, and now 2013. It's well worth the $30 upgrade.

 

[mrpiggy]

Obviously; both are software RAIDs.

Not sure if this was directed towards me.. But I'll respond that while both are software solutions, the common misconception is that the Intel RAID solution to RAID1 is somehow better than MS's Windows built-in RAID1 in performance or reliability, because it's implemented in the chipset's add-on BIOS utilities so it seems like a hardware solution (though it's not). So people put up with Intel's more-complicated way of implementing a simple RAID1 thinking it will be faster or more reliable than if done in the OS; without realizing that it's much easier to deal with Window's Disk Manager in managing a RAID and there is no performance penalty (unless you're using a really old or weak CPU).

 

[Tdavis5432]

Intel Rapid Store application allows you to manage the Intel raid from within Windows and I find it more useful + helpful then the windows disk management, and you can rebuild array, add disks etc in Windows with it...

Not sure if this was directed towards me.. But I'll respond that while both are software solutions, the common misconception is that the Intel RAID solution to RAID1 is somehow better than MS's Windows built-in RAID1 in performance or reliability, because it's implemented in the chipset's add-on BIOS utilities so it seems like a hardware solution (though it's not). So people put up with Intel's more-complicated way of implementing a simple RAID1 thinking it will be faster or more reliable than if done in the OS; without realizing that it's much easier to deal with Window's Disk Manager in managing a RAID and there is no performance penalty (unless you're using a really old or weak CPU).

 

[mrpiggy]

Intel Rapid Store application allows you to manage the Intel raid from within Windows and I find it more useful + helpful then the windows disk management, and you can rebuild array, add disks etc in Windows with it...

I'm not discounting that the Intel solution is not better in terms of management or performance for other types of RAIDs, however for a simple RAID1, bootable mirror, the Win solution still is easier (i.e. no settings in PC BIOS to turn on) and there is rarely any maintenance management to be done with such a setup. Plus it has advantages with SSD's (trim support) that Intel is only now "sorta" getting if you have the right chipset.

This is coming from a guy who uses a LSI 9265 RAID controller mostly. For my bootup mirror of two SSD's, I just like to keep it simple, because for experimentation, portability, or troubleshooting, the Win7 RAID1 solution just works.

For example, my kid's drive stopped booting up for some reason. I just yanked out one of the mirrors (2.5" hot swap bay) in my PC and stuck it in the kid's PC and it booted up fine, auto loaded a couple of different chipset drivers, and I was able to use my utilities to see and fix the hard drive that was not booting. Once the drive was fixed, I put my SSD back into my PC, and rebuilt the mirror. The removal, reinsertion, and rebuilding of the RAID1 of the mirrored drive caused no downtime to my primary PC either. I have not had great success with using a mirror built with Intel's solution and swapping it into other PC's.

 

[mv2devnull]

Not sure if this was directed towards me.. But I'll respond that while both are software solutions, the common misconception is that the Intel RAID solution to RAID1 is somehow better than MS's Windows built-in RAID1 in performance or reliability, because it's implemented in the chipset's add-on BIOS utilities so it seems like a hardware solution (though it's not).

Misconceptions, yes there are many. For one, the "RAID utilities implemented in chipset's add-on BIOS" are used only when you do run them and you can only run them when no OS is loaded. The moment any OS loads, the software driver version takes over (if OS has driver for Intel's metadata format).

On the Linux side the recommendation has been for years to avoid fakeRAIDs like plague and choose pure software RAID instead. I would be somewhat surprised if MS software driver would be worse than Intel software driver -- surely MS can get/create such piece of code. For example, wasn't a MS driver better than AMD's for AMD's SATA chip a while ago?

I do admit a misconception or two of my own. Once upon a time I did look at Window's ability to create software RAID; it was not there. Not unless one had a "Server" license. Next time I did look, the creation was possible, but only by converting to "Dynamic disks" -- a mysterious, less than clearly described thingy (which now looks like MS's version of Logical Volume Manager) that did appear to prevent dual-booting with non-Dynamic disk-aware OS. When something falls into the "not feasible to use" bin, its performance and reliability are not even considered.


Anyway, the beauty of RAID1 is that one can access the "content" from a single disk without activating the RAID at all (unless the RAID implementation has done some really bizarre things).

 

[murphyc]

So my solution is to break the RAID, image the drive with Acronis, and then rebuild the RAID. I like this idea because I could theoretically apply the image to any hard drive in the future

No you can't. The IMSM metadata is found at the end of the disk, starting at LBA -32. Only a disk with *identical* number of sectors (which often doesn't even happen between disks of the exact same model and batch) would a sector/block copy to a new disk work.

Like another poster said, treat the array as a regular disk, do not sector copy it as your backup, just file copy.

If 1 disk dies, you go through the process or marking it faulty if necessary, then removing it from the array, then physically removing the drive and replacing it with a new drive, then adding the replacement to the array. The RAID software will then recreate the metadata at the end of the new disk correctly, and start imaging the replacement disk.

If both disks simultaneously fail, or the motherboard fails and you no longer want to use Intel RAID, you have a backup that is not RAID dependent to regain access to your data, it's just a file copy based backup which you can use to restore data anywhere.

 

[RFlack]

Complete posting below ...

 

[RFlack]

You don't need to break the RAID1 array. Acronis sees it as a single drive and can back it up or clone it as you see fit. I clone my RAID1 data array to two othger PC's data drives and also to a separate USB external. RAID1 provides redundancy, and the cloned versions constitute several backups.

As far as Acronis and RAID1 arrays go, I have cloned them perfectly for several years now using several versions of TrueImage. I just upgraded to 2013, and then created bootable media. I always clone using bootable media - never from within Windows.

See below ...

 

[RFlack]

I enjoyed reading this thread and your patience in explaining RAID-1 pros and cons. I am fully aware of the need for creating a backup of the RAID-1 array in case both HDD's become corrupt for whatever reason. In my case, I have 2 Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA III 7200 RPM 64 MB Cache Internal Desktop Hard Drives mirrored using the Intel Rapid Storage Technology chipset built into my ASUS P8Z77-V PRO motherboard. I am running Windows 7 Ultimate and it resides on this RAID-1 array along with all of my application programs and all of my data files. I maintain multiple copies of my data files on several external USB drives, which I update daily. My major concern is to minimize the effort it would take for me to get my system back up and running in the event that both RAID-1 HDD's become corrupt for whatever reason. The worst case scenario that I desperately want to avoid would be replacing the two hard drives and having to reload Windows 7 Ultimate and all application programs from scratch (I am sure you know the drill). Even though you did suggest a specific backup and restore program for RAID-1 data, I am not sure if it included the bootable OS and application programs. I am seeking current vendor suggestions due to the age of your recommendation. I have spent many hours searching the internet for a rock solid solution over the past 3 years since I built my current system. Unfortunately, no vendor’s product has surfaced as the undisputed #1 solution for my situation. None of the main stream vendors receive across the board rave reviews. In fact, there are just as many bad reviews with specifics as are there are good reviews with little specifics. I would assume the best case scenario for getting a system back up and running where the RAID-1 HDD's both became corrupt for whatever reason would read something like this. Step-1: Power down your system (desktop PC in my case) and replace the two failed HDD’s (in my case I would take this opportunity to upgrade to two 2TB HDD’s). Step-2: Insert a bootable media (CD/DVD or USB Flash Drive or whatever … and I assume it was created by the Backup and Restore program) and power on your system. Step-3: Run the Backup and Restore program and copy the contents from an external USB disk drive (created from the last RAID-1 backup) to your RAID-1 volume. I would totally understand if Step-3 required multiple steps. For example, the external USB disk drive backup contents would have to be copied to only one of the RAID-1 HDD’s first without the second HDD being connected. Next, you would power off the system, connect the second HDD, power on the system and boot from the single restored drive. Lastly, you would open the Intel Rapid Storage Technology program and have it activate and synchronize the second drive with the first drive; thereby, establishing a functioning RAID-1 array. Any and all suggestions are welcomed. Thanks to all in advance.

 

[corkyg]

I'm not a big fan of necro posts. However, if you clone your RAID1 array to a single drive as a backup, it will be bootable if you do it right. (Use external bootable media for cloning and not through Windows.)

 

[RFlack]

I know that the original post on this forum was from a long time ago, but I have not been unable to find any current threads regarding this subject. That is, being able to backup and restore a RAID-1 array that includes the OS, programs and data files (and is from where my desktop PC boots). In fact, all of the threads I have been able to locate on this specific subject were from several years ago including the Windows Seven Forums and the Tom&#8217;s Hardware Forum. So it is probably best that I simply post a new thread. Regardless, thank you for responding.

 

[cobeal]

It depends.
Generally my all around favorite is TERABYTEINC Image for Linux or a combination of Image for Windows/Image for Linux or maybe the PE version of IFW.

Regardless, they have a superior grasp of how drive, OS, and RAID technologies work and have already answered almost any question you would ever ask in their FAQ sections.

RAID comes in flavors and most always adds complexity as a trade for redundancy or speed or enhanced capacity. If you need that tiny fraction of enhancement for a personal computer I would be very surprised.

In our enterprise environments we must have at least the theoretical chance that we can remain up and available when a single hard drive fails so we spend thousands of dollars on controllers and enterprise drives to create the best possible chance of living through a drive failure and recovering without putting so much stress on the computer that nobody can access it properly during the rebuild.

I daily backup is much more effective if you have proven it can be restored.

If you are tied to some software based RAID then just know there are methods and sometimes those methods are specific to the particular RAID technology you are using.

Generally speaking I have found that IFL will allow me to recover virtually any system but when it comes to my SERVER 2008 OR 2008R2 I am much more comfortable with having a true hardware RAID and using the WINDOWS SERVER BACKUP tools that came with the OS for full restores. We maintain about a weeks worth and I have a golden fully configured and untouched version for file servers. The cost of the hardware RAID card we use is $800 and each drive that controller knows how to work with costs $400+. I have brought the system back from the dead once and was very happy with the speed at which I could accomplish that.

I have a low budget model with only 500 GB consumer grade drives using the INTEL/LSI circa 2002 and a raid recovery costs about 80% of the system performance for a week to bring the 2nd drive into RAID 1 array after I have restored an image to 1 drive.

So it depends...
Which motherboard
Which type of RAID
Which operating system

and many more considerations my play a role.