Using RAID 1 mirror for backups

I am considering setting up a RAID 1 volume (1 primary and 1 secondary disk) and using the secondary mirror as the source for archive to a file-server. This should give me a perfect snapshot in time of my volume and the read access from the volume would not affect system performance too much. The strategy I have in mind is to remove the mirror from the RAID 1 volume, mount it as a normal volume and make a backup from it (using EMC Retrospect) to a file server over our network. Once the backup is done, I would unmount the mirror and reconnect it to the primary disk to recreate the RAID volume.
My questions are:
1) Is this possible with OS X's built-in RAID functionality?
2) Am I better off with using SoftRAID 3?
3) Will the rebuild of the RAID volume be as if it was from scratch (that is, would it take too long for a 150GB volume)?
4) If I have two 150GB disks (SATA), can I make the entire disk one RAID volume and still boot from it?
5) If the answer to Q4 is "no", with OS X's built-in RAID, can I make a RAID volume out of partitions from two disks? In other words, am I forced to use whole disks for a RAID members in OS X?
Your help in this would be very much appreciated.
Mac Pro Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Using mirrored RAID is NOT my sole backup method. It is part of it. The idea is to backup a secondary mirror to an tape or disk based backup system on our file server using EMC Retrospect. This would provide recovery from deleted or modified files.
The need to unmount a mirror from backup comes from my desire to have perfect snaphots-in-time for backup. Backing up a live filesystem can lead to inconsistent states in the backup. For example, backing up 50G over a network can take several hours. If, for example, you are writing an article that contists of several files, and you had a draft of file #1 that was copied to the backup. A little later, while editing file #2, you decided to move some text from it to file #1. After moving this, file #2 is backed up, with the moved text removed from it. The end-result in the backup is that the text is in neither file #1 or file #2.
Backing up live file-systems has this inherent danger. One way of avoiding it is to create an instant snapshot of the entire file system to a second drive and backup from that drive. The mirrored secondary drive in the RAID system would have this snapshot, continually updated. It would have to be disconneted from the RAID set before the backup from it is started in order to preserve the snapshot's consistency.

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Welcome to Apple Support Communities
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Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help and unmark them if they provide no help. If you have feedback for TechNet Subscriber Support, contact [email protected]

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Optimizing Client Computer Performance
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff634214
Optimizing Client Computer Performance
This topic has not yet been rated - Rate this topic
Updated: April 21, 2010
Applies To: System Center Data Protection Manager 2010
On some client computers, you may notice the computer running slow when a backup is in progress. You can improve the computer’s responsiveness by setting the following registry key DWORD.
Key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft Data Protection Manager\Agent\ClientProtection
Value
WaitInMSPerRequestForClientRead
Data
50
Type
DWORD
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Please remember to click “Mark as Answer” on the post that helps you, and to click “Unmark as Answer” if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread. Regards, Mike J. [MSFT] This
posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

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hi
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Message was edited by: leroydouglas
better yet, try this solution:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/12351186#12351186

Using RAID 1 mirror for backups

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