Failed server with raid disks

That makes more sense.  I am using the mirrored raid disks.  Does it make sense to use this for a small company, 30 people maximum using the server, to use this?  We back up daily and the server is failing.  It doesn't help me much to have two hard drives with the same errors on it.

errors... :-)

But actually, with 2HDD, we can not really speak about RAID tech used...
In your case, I would suggest to just make a clean installation on one hdd, image this drive on the second one, and eventually create on each drive 2 primary partitions.
Just create the second for data safety and try to create a special script or batch file to automatize the backup task, or select correctly the drive concerned for the BU.

I hope this is clear enough.

The good thing about using a RAID 1 (mirroring) is if one disk would fail the other disk is intact, with the mirrored OS, and you can still be productive. However this is not a problem with RAID but a problem with the system.
Yes RAID 1 would make sense for your small company. The RAID 1 is implemented for hardware failures not system failures.

I guess I am thinking that if the system is backed up daily, then it can be restored easily.  I have had Windows crash numerous times on the many computers that we have over the years but only one hard drive failure.  

What you probably need to do is find out when your system was working correctly and restore backups from that date.

WHo makes the 80Gb drives? maxtor seagate WD etc? if there seagates i doubt its the drives. if there other brands its possable however it could be your actual system board going bad maybe the PCI port with your raid card in it or pci sub processor onthe board there can be numerous possabilites i would suggest getting a hardware testing program to test all your hardware in the machine this is call the "burn in" procedure and will help you narrow down your problems after you run a progy like that it will tell you if you have bad memory, ports, sockets, even the processor. if all that turns out ok then it could be a drive going out.i wouldnt strees it too much since the raid thats setup seems to still work what i would do is buy 2 new 80GB drive and swap one out each day till the 2 bad drives are out of the system. since your problem sounds intermitant. but check that hardware first.

RAID won't help guard against software problems: viruses, spyware, corrupted files etc.  it only guards against harddrive failure.  Maybe what you should do is a fresh install of the OS and all programs you need, nothing extra.  Then create a backup of this and never use it.  When the copy you regularly use gets messed up for whatever reason you just clone the fresh install back onto it.

I like that idea.  I will try that.  
Lisa

Dannied,
Do you have a test in mind or one that you use and like?  I am limited on money for the school that I work for.
Lisa

Using RAID or other fault-tolerant technologies is NOT a question of the size of your organization. It is a question of can your organization afford to lose (or lose access to) the data stored on the server, or the services that the server provides? If the answer is "No" then you need to employ fault-tolerant technologies, with RAID being perhaps the best-known (other technologies include redundant power-supplies, UPSes, fabric switching, et. al). And don't neglect the need for off-site backups and a disaster-recovery/business-continuity plan.

If, on the other hand, the data stored on and the services provided by that server don't mean much to the organization, then you don't need to bother with fault-tolerance.

RAID 1 only helps to minimize downtime if a HD all of a sudden quits working. The fail-over process is also dependent on the RAID hardware that is managing it. It is mirrorring so if there is bad, corrupt data, then that will get mirrored also. In essence you will have double the trouble.

Hi,

Thanks for that and hope you have found your way out.