Software Alternative to RAID for Home Use

Software Alternative to RAID for Home Use I have a ton of data that I've been keeping 2 complete copies of between my Desktop and Laptop for a couple years now; I figure its about time to buy some more drives and make sure I don't lose any of it due to drive failure and whatnot.
Asked by: Guest \| Views: 308

Total answers/comments: 2

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Guest [Entry]

"Both Linux and Windows have built in RAID support. Windows XP and Vista support RAID1 and the server editions support RAID5, and you can set it up through the normal disk management screens.

Linux has full RAID support too (1, 5, 6, 10, and any combination of nested levels such as 1+0, 5+0).

If you want to avoid RAID completely for some reason then you could use rsync to maintain the duplicate copies."

Guest [Entry]

"I don't see a reason why for your use case a pure software-raid is not perfect.

As far as alternatives are going I do not know of any freely (as in libre) available tools that operate on a single hardware node.

If you are out to buy something I'd recommend some cheap home NAS. The empty drive you are talking about is usually called a hot spare if I understand the question correctly"