How do you backup a small network of computers?

[Maxim S. Shatskih]

If your M/Board supports it, setup a hardware raid. Software Raids are no

good if the OS shits itself.

I don't think Dynamic Disk is worse then the so-called "hardware" RAIDs, who
are usually implemented in driver software anyway

Microsoft and Veritas are more trustworthy companies for me then the Chinese
RAID chip vendor. At least for El Cheapo hardware Dynamic Disk is probably
better.

Another advantage of Dynamic Disk is easier recovery - the array will assemble
itself on any other controller flavor, the disks can be plugged in to the
controllers in any order.

And yes - RAID is not for backup, it is for redundancy. For instance, RAID will
not allow you to recover the accidentally deleted file.

 

[Googler]

I don't think Dynamic Disk is worse then the so-called "hardware" RAIDs,
who
are usually implemented in driver software anyway

Microsoft and Veritas are more trustworthy companies for me then the
Chinese
RAID chip vendor. At least for El Cheapo hardware Dynamic Disk is probably
better.

You make a valid point, but what about hardware vendors like Intel and Asus.
Yes they both make their good and their bad Mobo's, but when it comes down
to it "You get what you pay for" We don't want to be sitting around waiting
for Windoze to reinstall before re-creating our Raid. Also Windows XP does
not support any sort of fault tollerance. So we would still be relying on
3rd party Asian import software.

 

[Maxim S. Shatskih]

for Windoze to reinstall before re-creating our Raid. Also Windows XP does

not support any sort of fault tollerance. So we would still be relying on

Yes. Windows XP Home does not support Dynamic Disk at all. XP Pro supports
them, but not on a laptop and IIRC not RAID5 (software RAID5 is a bad idea
anyway due to CPU load. With RAID5, the El Cheapo SATA controller is probably
more recommendable then the Dynamic Disk).