Maybe someone would be willing to do a "low end" test on the difference between the two? Since this is about the cheapest and least time consuming (from a backup standpoint) of all the "security" solutions, I'm sure there might be a number of others interested in this as well. The new feature set of MirrorFolder is pretty complete, so it could be revealing to those of us with built-in RAID chipsets (but using software solutions instead). MF is especially easy for adding drives later on. I forgot to mention that MirrorFolder 5 is a beta version I think, so it might be a bit more difficult to obtain for testing without a license. ****************** After checking, this was in the email TechSoft that sent out: MirrorFolder v5.0 (beta) is now available for download and testing from  the link given below. You may use your existing v4.x serial number to  install it freshly or over your existing MF v4.x. You may also use the  temporary serial number "XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX" (two computers)  to install it on maximum two different computers for evaluation.  However, this temporary serial number will expire on 5th Oct, 2010. To save you work if you wanted to know what is different from the past, here's their info on what's new:Here are major changes in MF v5.0: * Added support for copying open files using Windows Volume Shadow Copy Service APIs in all synchronization modes. * Added option to perform synchronization in a separate thread with different priority. * Added option to perform multi-threaded synchronization on multi core/CPU systems. * Added option to send email notification on error/warning, and successful synchronization/archive operation. * The main user interface program now shows volume label of  source/mirror drives that are not currently connected. But it still uses  volume ID to identify source/mirror drives. * Supports for selection of network drive/folder as source to mirror on another network or local drive. * Added command line option to change volume for the mirror folder to mirror it on a new drive. * Added option to encrypt ZIP files. * It now automatically use 64-bit ZIP file format if ZIP file size grows beyond 2 GB. * Added option to synchronize when user remains idle for the specified time. * Support for Windows 95, 98, Me, NT 4.0, and 2000 has been removed.           * Many other small changes and improvements. *************** I'd love to see someone test this, as it might save them money (or convince them to buy something useful and cheap that is a real help and very easy to use). Message was edited by: sarmour2 - to add information Message was edited by: sarmour2 - removed temp serial number ... View more

Harm, I agree very much with your layout and we followed your suggestions a while back and went to single drives on our  3 workstations and have had much better stability and peace of mind. However, as much as we would have loved to have put an Areca RAID card in each ws for our backup, our non-profit budget just would not handle it. I have opted for another cheap solution that could be a good tradeoff  for others too, and would like to hear your comments on it: We really did not want to use more than four TB drives in each ws (except in our CS5 ws), so opted for having just a boot/prog drive, with another drive for data and the rest. We have been using the other two TB drives as mirrors (RAID1), through a software solution (MirrorFolder) and have had well over a half a year of stability and satisfaction. When one of the OS drives failed, MirrorFolder automatically kicked in at reboot and allowed us to boot off the OS mirror and install another drive very quickly. We lost almost no time and no work. I realize this is a tradeoff and the ideal would be for the hardware to handle the RAID1, but am offering it as a very nice and cheap alternative to other ways. It has given us great peace of mind and real confidence, especially when backing up to an external 4 TB eSata every now and then. We take a slight performance hit under Win7 x64, but nothing that was enough to bring CS3, CS4 or CS5 to their knees yet.The newest version of MirrorFolder (5,0,252) is very nice and leverages multicores and is quite stable under Win 7 x64. We love being able to mirror an occasional odd project folder at any time with it, too. Comments? ... View more

Harm, just a comment on that particular 4 TB external drive with the two big Hitachi's . I have a new one on a workstation (win 7 x64)  with the eSata connection and am not real impressed so far. It tested at 160 MB/s with HD Tach, but in real life seems to be much slower. Transfers to it from another internal 1 TB SATA drive were only 64 MB/s, which is much slower than going from my other internal drives to each other, or across our 1 Gb network. I'm not sure if something else is wrong somewhere in this setup, but he probably should get other opinions before deciding. If it's something else on this particular ws, then it still could be a very good solution. But it would be good to hear from others on that drive too... ... View more

Klfi, I guess for your setup, as Harm observed, what you stated seems right for what you have. Your workflow is very different from ours though. Harm, I guess the best thing at the moment is to wait out the bleeding edge and see where the SSDs are in a couple of months. From what I've read, they have already resolved (or are very close to finalizing) those problems. If they remove that barrier, it would seem a very good setup for a new ws and something we may try early next year. One of our quad Intel boards is rolling past the 2 yr mark and needs to be replaced soon. Since the controller would only be relevant for the RAID1 boot/mirror and for the RAID3 or 5 setup, which Areca board would be a good tradeoff of cost/benefit/performance? I know you like their equipment. ... View more

C: 500 GB for OS & Programs D: 500 GB for pagefile, media cache, previews E: 1 TB for project files, indexed and conformed/peak files F: 1 TB for media Harm, where is any redundancy in this setup? Seems to me no more secure from data loss than a single, large drive! For performance, it's good...but for security, it's not much. Why not a seemingly more secure and faster solution, like: C: small SSD for OS & Programs (with builti n Raid 1) D: small SSD for pagefile, media cache, previews (RAID0 or no RAID) E: larger HDD RAID5 for project files, indexed and conformed/peak files and all the media. Seems to be only a little more expensive, yet potentially much faster and much more secure. Where's the holes in my logic? One HDD less, less power draw and it'd all fit in a 4 bay case. ... View more

Ok Harm, I confess I skipped over your RAID 1 part entirely...my bad. You got it covered for sure. I guess after so many probs, I'm one who has lost all confidence in HDD's (even enterprise level), and RAID 1 for boot drives is not an option for us anymore. There is certainly no better solution I can see for boot/program drive protection. With the size of program bloatware installations growing all the time, and with the rate program updates are released, it makes no sense whatsoever for us to not plan for mirroring our boot drives. I can well understand the space prob though, as that's why I ended up zip-tying a drive into one server case! No time to make more elegant solutions. Thanks again for your article, sorry for my skipover. ... View more

Good overview article Harm, thank you. One absence for me in this whole picture though, was info for redundancy or mirroring for the all important boot drive. We have had more downtime problems from failing bootdrives (we got caught in the Seagate firmware mess) then any other thing. It is not just a question of hassle, but of recovering quickly from the loss of a critical ws, which always seems to happen with deadlines. Our RAIDs are usually mirrored, but what about the bootdrive? We've tried software mirroring with MirrorFolder, but have had corruption probs. Even with a less-than-ideal solution like MirrorFolder, we were very quickly back up and running after failures. Twice this has happened, and with multiple workstation's, it's almost a guarantee to happen again. Try recovering quickly without a mirrored bootdrive once and you soon get sensitive in that area! How do you handle boot drive redundancy? When we go to a FC SAN, it'll maybe be a less critical point, but still will rear it's ugly head. ... View more