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Simple solutions are often the most robust and transparent, which are two qualities that one would like to see present in their data backup or redundancy setup.

Imagine the system that has two SSDs, 900GB each, an Intel mobo and no HW RAID controller. What is the simplest way to set up the real-time mirroring ("cloning") between the drives, such as:

A. Any writes to one SSD are duplicated on another SSD in real-time, sector-perfect.

B. Any SSD can be unplugged at any time and

C. When connected to any other machine it can be read as a regular drive by whatever hardware/OS combo that can read NTFS. All the duplicated files can be accessed as if it was a common drive.

The "simplest way" in this scope means the least hardware/software involved. I.e. if a software RAID 1 setup requires downloading and insalling a 1GB file management proprietary software + extra windows service it is not simple enough (small open-source utilities are OK though). If the solution requires a hardware RAID controller it is not simple enough. You get the gist.

Some of the solutions I've tried:

  1. Using Intel RST through the BIOS. Works, and ticks all the A,B,C requirements. However, a LOT of people advice against using it due to having the worst of both hardware and software RAIDs.
  2. Using Storage Spaces. Works for A and B, but violates point C above. Removing the drive and/or storage space wipes it.
  3. Using StableBit Drivepool. Works for A and B, but violates point C above. Disconnecting the drive does not guarantee the duplicates will be on it.
  4. Using Mirrored Volumes feature of Windows 10. Gets stuck at Resynching... for a day or so.
  5. Using Dynamic Disks feature of Windows 10. Works for A and B, but violates point C above.
  6. Using Snapshot software such as FreeFileSync. Not realtime per se.
Noideas
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    What is the goal? Disk mirroring is not a good backup strategy. What is your budget? Redundancy is achieved by having a secondary, and completely separate, system. – Gantendo Aug 23 '23 at 12:23
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    Hardware RAID would likely be the simplest and most transparent for redundancy. For backups, [WIMs](https://superuser.com/a/1581804/529800) _(can be automated through Task Scheduler for partitions other than `C:`; for `C:` it can be automated to boot to WinPE, perform the capture, then auto reboot back to Windows)_. For uncompressed 1:1 file backup, File History [`Control Panel\System and Security\File History`]. – JW0914 Aug 23 '23 at 13:18
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    As @Gantendo asks, *to what purpose*? That strategy would be effective in the case of *drive failure only*. It is not an effective backup strategy that could protect against *malware* or *ransomaware*, which would affect both drives. It is not effective against hardware failure, since if one disk has incomplete writes, both will. Further, if this drive includes the OS, it could only be used on an *identical* machine, and even then, Windows 10 might have activation issues – DrMoishe Pippik Aug 23 '23 at 13:48
  • @DrMoishePippik Purpose is redundancy. Purpose of redundancy is to have a snapshot that is updated in real time, not for backup purposes per se, but to protect the system from hardware failure. Also to be able to resume the work where it ended immediately should the disk fail. – Noideas Aug 23 '23 at 14:00
  • @Gantendo Ideally assume that the budget is zero, i.e. built-in OS solutions or FOSS solutions only. However, if there is a good proprietary software that does NOT charge enterprise/pro-level prices for personal-grade ue, then up to 100$ – Noideas Aug 23 '23 at 14:02

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