RAID 1 using RT-AC68U

[utamav]

I recently posted here because one of my drive died after a router upgrade. Fortunately most of my data was backed up on another drive.

This incident is making me think if there is anyway to use my router to configure RAID 1 setup with one drive connected to the USB3.0 port while the other to USB2.0 port.

 

[sfx2000]

erm - I would say no....

Consider a nice 2-bay NAS, and even then, RAID is not a backup...

 

[utamav]

erm - I would say no....

Consider a nice 2-bay NAS, and even then, RAID is not a backup...

Can you please explain what you mean by "RAID is not a backup"?

 

[sfx2000]

Can you please explain what you mean by "RAID is not a backup"?

Because it isn't...

RAID0 - stripes between two disks
RAID1 - mirrors - which means changes on one affects the others.

There are other versions of RAID - but they require more than 2 disks - and even then, it's not about backups... everything on a RAID is realtime - just like on a single disk.

If you want to protect your data, you still need to back up the RAID...

Anyways - even if the kernel code allowed it - two USB drives on the USB2 and USB3 ports, would be limited to the USB2 bandwidth... which likely would not be a good thing, compared to a single USB3 drive and a reasonable backup plan to another disk on the USB2 port.

 

[Icemanz]

Raid is not a backup, what screws up your data on one drive, screws it on the second in real time!

If Your question is really: how can I keep my data safe from corruption/deletion then raid is not the answer.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

 

[RMerlin]

A RAID over USB would be the last thing I'd want to try, even less on a router with a weak CPU.

 

[sfx2000]

A RAID over USB would be the last thing I'd want to try, even less on a router with a weak CPU.

Just for kicks - did configure a couple of USB thumbdrives as a RAID0 with usb2 on a hub with mdadm - it can be done... however, just because it "can" doesn't mean it "should" be done.

Performance was worse actually than a single drive configuration... and it goes to what @RMerlin suggests above - mdadm is a software RAID controller - it's good, but it does take some CPU horsepower (and memory) to do it's thing.

4TB drives are fairly cheap these days as a single disk configuration - and over USB3, many do see acceptable, if not great performance.

A little tip - before upgrading firmware on any vendor's Router/AP that supports disk sharing, it's always best to stop the share and unmount the drive before upgrading firmware of the Router/AP.