ASUS G74SX-XA1 vs. MSI 780 series

Hello - brand new to ASUS. Just bought the above system, 4 gig of additional ram and an additional 750 gig hard drive for a total of 16 gig ram and 1.5 tb hard drive memory. I'd like to set up the hard drives in a Raid 1 (?) configuration so that if the primary hard drive fails, I have the second in place and operational eliminating down time or problems. I also bought an external 2T drive for data and/or backup. (My concern is more for business than gaming.)
The question is, how do I set this up for RAID, presuming I can? I keep toying with the idea of switching this ASUS out for the similarly built MSI laptop (with RAID support) but I for one prefer the clarity and brightness of the ASUS. So, I decided to ask the pro's (you guys) for suggestions and recommendations...

 

Sorry to say the G73/74 models do not come with RAID surely you checked that out before buying it

Most just do the next best thing and stick a solid state in the primary for the OS and gaming etc and just use the mechanical drive as a data drive.

Instead of doing that I just picked up two cheaps SSD's so that I had RAID speeds without losing the storage with RAID 0. SSD is the way forward.

 

newasususer, Dallers is spot on, I would add since you have an external HDD, install a backup program such as Free Backup Software: Paragon Backup & Recovery Free Edition - Overview
or use windows builtin backup to create images frequently to the external HDD.
I create 1 each month or so, and save everything I value to the 2nd hard drive (not the SSD) in the G73 as well as to the external HDD.

 

Actually, as it turns out I was misinformed. I was under the impression the ASUS did have a raid setup only to find out yesterday it did not. So, having been burned once by losing my primary hard drive, the raid 1 capability was something I wanted. Add to that, I have (and use) dozens of programs so I liked the idea of the the 2 disc's being mirror images of each other and not just a data backup. So, would I be better off buying a disc image backup program (Acronis, Ghost or ?) which (as I understand) can duplicate HDD 1 onto HDD 2 on a daily schedule easily (or external drive 3) OR switch for the MSI which does come with raid 0... Again, I'm told a raid 0 capability can be easily switched to a raid 1 BUT I am not a computer mavin... I only can go by what I read on forums like this one...
Can you tell I' new at this stuff???
Thanks for the help -

 

I would recommend the imaging program, and creating images to an external HDD. The ones you mention above are fine, but there a few good free ones available. On mine backup/imaging takes about 30 minutes to a USB 2 external HDD (35 GIG). Restore takes about 45 minutes.

 

Thanks Josea - I believe Paragon you recommend was indeed one of the good ones - made even better by it being free! (Plus in my case, the ASUS and the new external are both usb 3 so it should be pretty fast. Is the software easy to use for someone not too computer literate?)

 

Glad to help, Basically you install it, hook up the external drive and launch a wizard that walks you through the process. The help files in the program are good also. It also reminds you to create a bootable disk that will allow you to run the program outside of windows for restores.
If you need more details on use; you can private message me and I can provide them.

 

If it's only RAID1 mirroring that you require you are able to use Windows 7 software RAID which works fine even on a boot volume.

Just to point out though RAID shouldn't be used for a method of backup.