Question : Problem: Need a Backup solution with hotswap.

I am building a new computer for a doctors office and they want a automatic backup solution for their data.  They want to be able to take a copy of their data home each night.  What do you recommend I purchase?  I know their are devices that hold two drives and clone the information on the go.  You can hot swap one drive and replace it with another.  I just dont know any manufactures or model numbers of these devices.  Do I need a special motherboard to run them?  Should I use some type of raid or external USB drives?

Thanks.

Answer : Problem: Need a Backup solution with hotswap.

Hi,

You could use drives with RAID 1 (mirroring) which requires 2 Disks. The first drive is mirrored exactly on the second. You should be able to remove the second drive overnight if the system has hotswappable RAID support, but there would be no RAID backup drive if the other one failed during the night. You may be able to use 3 drives with RAID 1 in this case.
You can also use the better RAID 5 which uses 3 disks.
See link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID

USB hard drives would also be a possible option, but you would need some sort of scheduled backup to copy data. Could use Windows Backup to schedule this, or Veritas Backup Exec which is much more comprehensive. USB would be the cheapest option, but not the best performance wise. RAID also gives the added protection if a hard drive should fail during any time.

Chris