I cleared MBR by accident on raid0. How to save data?

I use Macrium imaging to backup both my system and my data partitions. Given that you have apparently a lot more data than I have, you may have to modify the approach somehow. But the main thing is that I provide for an image trail all the way back to the initial installation and I image daily. Prerequisite with my approach is that you have enough disk space to hold one weeks worth of backups plus the weekly and monthly copies. The space requirements can be reduced if you use incrementals, but for that you need Macrium Pro or an equivalent other imaging program.
The backup time is not so important because the imaging can run in the background and does not keep me from doing other tasks. Here are the details:

I make a daily image of my system and data partitions at boot-up. I have set Macrium to do that automatically. It takes only 9 minutes from my SSD to the internal HDD. Every Sunday, I copy the Sunday image to an on-line external disk into a "weekly folder". Every first of the month I also copy the last image to an external disk "monthly folder" that usually stays off-line. That way I have a whole history all the way back to the initial installation.
In addition I have two 16GB sticks to which I copy my data every 3 months and put it into my bank safe. 3 months later I retrieve the first stick and deposit the latest data copy on the second stick, and so on.

Wow, extremely elaborate setup you have there, whs...
I don't have that extreme backup, my work data (all 5 years of them) fits in a DVD. So, every month or so I'd burn one DVD. But next to that, I have a SAN, 3x 1TB disks, 2 run as RAID 1, 1 stand by as Hot spare. I set smartd to email me whenever it found anything weird with any of the disks. Those disks are then, every few weeks synchronized to another SAN box using Rsync, incremental backup copy... I'm thinking of buying an IBM DS 3300 Storage system, it'd be much simpler to maintain, and a lot more reliable hardware wise...

zzz2496

Well, it may sound elaborate. But from an operational standpoint it is the simplest solution. My backups are all scheduled automatically and all I need to remember is to turn on the external disk for the monthly backup. Everything else runs without my intervention - except the USBs.
I have seen a lot more subtle approaches with sync, differentials and alike. But I like things to be simple and transparent so that I know at every step of the way where I am and what I have got. It may take a bit more disk space, but so what.

We can never have enough disk space, huh...?
Btw, where's the OP?

zzz2496

zzz2496 said:

Wow, extremely elaborate setup you have there, whs...
I don't have that extreme backup, my work data (all 5 years of them) fits in a DVD. So, every month or so I'd burn one DVD. But next to that, I have a SAN, 3x 1TB disks, 2 run as RAID 1, 1 stand by as Hot spare. I set smartd to email me whenever it found anything weird with any of the disks. Those disks are then, every few weeks synchronized to another SAN box using Rsync, incremental backup copy... I'm thinking of buying an IBM DS 3300 Storage system, it'd be much simpler to maintain, and a lot more reliable hardware wise...

zzz2496

Yeah, work data is invaluable. Multiple backups is cheap compared to what happens when a disaster hits. I think of it like this. If I charge $100 an hour for my work, then an extra HD is a drop in the bucket compared to what happens if I happen to lose several days of work due to a disaster.

surfasb said:

zzz2496 said:

Wow, extremely elaborate setup you have there, whs...
I don't have that extreme backup, my work data (all 5 years of them) fits in a DVD. So, every month or so I'd burn one DVD. But next to that, I have a SAN, 3x 1TB disks, 2 run as RAID 1, 1 stand by as Hot spare. I set smartd to email me whenever it found anything weird with any of the disks. Those disks are then, every few weeks synchronized to another SAN box using Rsync, incremental backup copy... I'm thinking of buying an IBM DS 3300 Storage system, it'd be much simpler to maintain, and a lot more reliable hardware wise...

zzz2496

Yeah, work data is invaluable. Multiple backups is cheap compared to what happens when a disaster hits. I think of it like this. If I charge $100 an hour for my work, then an extra HD is a drop in the bucket compared to what happens if I happen to lose several days of work due to a disaster.

Very true indeed... OP still MIA...

zzz2496

I suggest that if you're going to use an online backup solution you look for companies that actually do backup solution and not companies that are just providing disk space for downloading (i.e. Rapidshare, Megaupload). Reliability on those sites isn't even close to good because most of the files uploaded are illegal and get deleted quickly.

Here's what I suggest... It's simple and should work out just fine for ya.

Make one Macrium Free backup of your system partition after you've installed your programs, fixed your settings and all of that. This should be done right after an installation, that way there's nothing erroneous on the disk. Now copy this backup and put it in a few places (dvd/usb/etc). This part of the backup can just sit and collect dust as you don't need it unless you're updating it with a new configuration or using it.

The next part of the backup is to purchase a hard drive that's large enough to store all of your data. If this cannot be done, purchase multiple hard drives. This drives should be independent of your system drive and hopefully external as well. Store all of your data on these drive(s). Now purchase another set of these drive(s) so that you have 2 sets of the same amount of space. Now just use backup software to backup drive(s) 1 on drive(s) 2 once a day or week or month. Now you've got two copies of your data, you latest stuff which is stored on a set of external hard drives and a backup set which is kept disconnected.

The last thing to do is to create a usb stick or hard drive with your most important files (setup files you cannot live without, photoshop filters, etc etc). This is just incase of the worst case scenario where all of your data is ruined. Keep this in a safe place.

Now if you want to reformat/start fresh all you need to do is use the backup software to load your system image which will have all of your favorite programs and preferences pre configured and installed.

Anyway, if you still want to try online backups, here are some options:

https://www.jungledisk.com/
http://www.sosonlinebackup.com/
http://www.idrive.com/
https://www.sugarsync.com/
http://www.ibackup.com/
http://www.elephantdrive.com/

If you're looking for a solution that allows you to upload multiple gigs of data and then download all of that data in an instant, you might need a file storage solution like rapidshare and megaupload, here are some alternatives.

http://www.filefactory.com
http://www.mediafire.com/
http://www.netload.in
http://www.hotfile.com
http://www.ul.to
http://www.depositfiles.com
http://www.storage.to
http://www.mangoshare.com
http://www.megashares.com

Make 2 SAN servers (use Atom, it's more than capable) comprised or 3 HDD each (totaling 6 for 2 systems), setup as such: 2 RAID 1, 1 as Hot spare. Backup each day, incrementally on the first SAN, the second SAN will backup the first SAN once a week. Then, every month, backup the data from the second SAN to a set of DVDs. All this only for your Work data, you can do a system image backup too if you want, SANs usually can serve a SMB/FTP share, so you can almost backup anything to it. If you prefer enterprise (but on the cheaper side), I suggest you try IBM DS3000 series, somewhat cheap, dual controller capable, very fast, and it's supported by IBM...

zzz2496