OT: What am I missing?

I have a problem - am I the one at fault? I am upgrading to a "newer" system and one of my concerns is adequate backup. Normally, I do a full backup about once a day - or once every other day. It has been suggested that the "newer" have a "RAID 1" controller which would use two 40 GByte EIDE drives. A "RAID 1" system uses two disk drives and keeps two copies of ALL files at all times. This provides a duplicate set of images - so that even if there are only intermittent errors with one drive, I would be aware of the problems before both drives became bad and (normally) have time to make a complete backup before I replace the bad drive. However, I am experiencing two difficulties: (a) The firmware/software for the "RAID 1" controller seems to NOT have anything that will alert the user to be able to identify which disk drive might be bad even after a drive failure, let alone intermittent errors. (b) Even though my current files are (seemingly) all correct and I have two duplicate copies, when I said that I was was going to restore from my initial back-up from CD (I currently have no data files, just the installed software), I was looked at as if I was a bit crazy - why would I do a recovery if there is nothing wrong? Even though I attempted to explain that a full back-up includes the total recovery from scratch - at least a few times at the beginning to establish that the procedure works, that attitude is considered overcautious to say the least - at the worst it is: "So what if you loose all you files, you can always rebuild the system from scratch if you have to?" These individuals seem to have never heard of data files - like in a legal office, the client records don't need to be kept since everything in published law books is how to start all over again after a fire. Is this attitude common in industry? Am I wrong? I know that my wife has a cousin who works for an accountant who NEVER makes a back-up of the client files. If I am correct, is there any way to get my point across or is this a Catch-22 situation?