Question : Problem: Best way: hard drives - raid or Separated

I need to get a new server and install windows 2003 on it. It will be primarily as a file server.
What is the best way to configure hard drives for file server and be able to back it up to hard drive in the same server then to tapes.
- would it be better to have 1st drive for the OS and 2nd for the shares and the 3rd for the backup (backup every night to the 3rd drive then from it to tapes since I need sometime to backup to tapes during the day, (don’t have tape changer )  and that way I have 2 backups
- or have the drives set as raid 5 and do backup to external then to tapes
- or ............ any other suggestions, Thanks

Answer : Problem: Best way: hard drives - raid or Separated

I don't mean to say tapes are not reliable, but rather other things are more reliable.  this being because tapes themselves CAN be damaged.  And Tape heads can get out of alignment, ultimately making the hardware used to store the data record and read improperly, allowing only that tape head to be able to read the data reliable (I'm sure data recovery services can compensate and recover data in most cases).

Again, how do you get the open files closed for the copy to the third hard disk?  If they can be copied to the third hard disk, then they would be backed up to tape.  Using proper backup software with open file options will be able to backup open files on a RAID or NON-RAID system.

Ultimately, if you insist on going that route, You could - I would certainly test it, first because I simply don't see how that solves anything.  I would also say you would need a MINIMUM of 5 disks and should then do two RAID 1 sets (Mirrors), on of the OS and one of the data.  The third (5th) disk doesn't need to be RAID because it's purely backup - if it fails, you lose nothing.