hi,
my laptop has a 500gb hard disk. to back it up i just bought an IDENTICAL hd (same brand and model) and an external case with usb, then used them to clone the laptop hd with g4l.
i clone it after testing any change i performed on the operative system or the installed apps, while dropbox incrementally backs up my documents directories.
it is a wonderful backup system: when it happened the laptop disk got broken (it did), i just physically replaced the internal hd with the clone, booted the system and waited for dropbox to sync the most frequently changing files... in a few minutes i had my full system back, perfectly working and up to date.
i just bought an asus ux51vz with 2 128gb Adata XM11 ssd drives (with proprietary connectors) in a raid0 configuration. i will receive it in the next few days and i'm now wondering how to get a similar backup system...
here are some of the possibilities i considered:
A) keep the raid0 configuration and back it up on a single 256gb ssd connected with a usb adapter (
http://www.ebay.it/itm/Asus-UX31-UX2...item3f1fbc99d2).
doubts:
1) where to buy a 256gb Adata XM11 ssd?
2) would a 256gb drive have exactly the same size (sectors number) of 2 128gb raid-0? this is crucial for g4l to properly clone the raid0 drives...
3) what does it happen if one of the 128gb ssd drives fails and i physically replace both of them with the 256gb clone? it wouldn't be a raid0 configuration anymore, shall i expect it to work properly?
pros:
- keeping the raid0 configuration would ensure the highest read/write speed
- all of the 256gb storage space could be used
cons:
- many doubts above, would such a system work properly?
- the 256gb Adata XM11 ssd will surely be pretty expensive
B) break the raid0 configuration and backup both the ssd drives to another 2 128gb Adata XM11 drives connected with a usb adapter (
http://www.ebay.it/itm/Asus-UX31-UX2...item3f1fbc99d2).
doubts:
1) how to break the raid0? should i expect to find an option in the bios menu?
2) where to buy the 128gb Adata XM11 ssds for the backup?
pros:
- all of the 256gb storage space could be used
- no g4l issues for drives size
cons:
- read/write speed would be about half than in raid0
- the 2 128gb Adata XM11 ssds will surely be pretty expensive
- the 2 drives can't be backed up at once
C) break the raid0 configuration and use one of the 2 drives as backup drive.
doubts:
1) how to break the raid0? should i expect to find an option in the bios menu?
2) how about the mount process behaviour? after the cloning process the 2 drives will be IDENTICAL (same content, same partition table, even the same UUIDs): there's a concrete risk that ubuntu mounts some partitions from a drive, and some other from the other drive... it would be a mess... how to tell fstab to mount all of the partitions from a single drive?
pros:
- nothing to buy
- no g4l issues for drives size
cons:
- only 128gb storage space could be used
- read/write speed would be about half than in raid-0
D) break the raid0 configuration and set up a raid1 configuration.
doubts:
1) how to break the raid0 and set-up the raid1? shall i expect to find an option in the bios menu?
pros:
- nothing to buy
cons:
- only 128gb storage space could be used
- read/write speed would be about a quarter than in raid0
- no chance to get back to a previous backup point if the system gets messed up
as you can see, there are lots of question marks...
if the raid1 could be set up with a bios option, the D) solution would be the simpliest... but having no restore point would make me very anxious...
since i only use about 50gb, the C) solution could be the best...
i guess that the "mount" issue could be solved booting a live cd just after the cloning process, then manually changing the UUID of the backup partitions.
comments/hints/warnings?
thanks
