Using Raid1 in Windows

RAID1 mirroring is an arrangement of hard disks that creates an exact copy (or mirror) of a set of data on two or more disks. This is useful when read performance or reliability are more important than data storage capacity.

RAID1, for example, writes two copies of the data simultaneously on two separate drives. This is called fault tolerant because if one of the mirrored drives suffers a mechanical failure (e.g. spindle failure) or does not respond, the remaining drive will continue to function. The RAID 1 configuration is performed either by a hardware RAID controller… or performed in software. It is suited to applications requiring high fault tolerance at a low cost and where a duplicated set of data is more secure than using parity. RAID 1 is popular for accounting and other financial data. It is also commonly used for small database systems, enterprise servers, and home PCs where a fairly inexpensive fault tolerance is required.

Hardware raid is expensive compare using software Raid in your OS, But less headache because if fault occurs, the fault hdd led will lit to call your attention that something is wrong with the drive, all you have to do is insert another hdd to the hardware raid and it will resync. Whereas in software raid, you have to do it with your OS features.

Here, I managed to use RAID1 in my data and OS in a single partitioned hdd. Rememer that mirroring is not technically a backup solution, because if you accidentally delete a file, it’s gone from both hard disks. This is just a quick fix if you are running a server that requires less or zero downtime.

As I have said, A Raid1 is not a back up, I added another drive for back up. I recommend Cobian BackUp, I've been using it and it's FREE!

howtogeek.com has a tutorial of drive mirroring with Windows7. Older version is very similar with this one.