02-19-15: Rhanson739
One drawback to the RAID plan is that while it is redundant unto itself, it doesn't protect you from complete data loss in the event of a house catastrophe. The better solution there is an off-site backup, or a fire safe. I don't do cloud.
+1. While RAID 1 protects against failure of one of the two drives in the array, it does not protect against any number of admittedly very unlikely but nonetheless possible scenarios which could destroy or corrupt both drives simultaneously. In addition to a house catastrophe, those would include the power supply for the array going into an overvoltage condition, its controller circuitry going berserk, a severe AC power surge, a computer virus, or a latent design defect in the RAID controller circuitry or its firmware. More than a few user comments I've seen at Newegg.com concerning certain RAID hardware have recounted data loss caused by the latter possibility.
Concerning HDD selection, my perception over the years has been that the best choice has generally been a moving target, often varying from one HD generation to the next. It may be helpful before finalizing a selection to review the user comments at Newegg on whatever tentative choice(s) you settle on, while keeping in mind that negative comments tend to be disproportionately represented there.
FWIW, in recent years I've had good results with most of the leading brands, including Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor, and Samsung (in all cases those being non-enterprise consumer-grade drives). Also FWIW, one of my computers, which includes two 640 gB Western Digital internal HDD's, has been running pretty much continuously for approximately the past 6 years. The drives have accumulated about 50,000 hours, with no hint of trouble and with perfect
SMART readings.
Good luck. Regards,
-- Al
