Re: RAID choices

Tue, 14 Sep 2004 09:26:23 -0400, Patrick A Thompson <[email protected]>
wrote:
> I happily set up a RAID-1 system and thought I was
> 	protected from anything.  Coding and user errors
> 	simultaneously trashed both partitions. :=((
> 
> I now use what I call "slow cycle" RAID-1.  Every morning,
>            the primary disk is copied (compressed) onto the
> 	secondary disk.  In my environment, human failures
> 	are much more likely than hardware failures.  This
> 	"slow cycle" approach also protects against the all too
> 	common  --- rm wrongfile  -- 

RAID is excellent for reducing the impact of a single disk failure,
but as you learned the hard way it does not eliminate the need for proper
backups. Even copying everything like this does not keep you entirely safe;
what if you don't discover the problem until next morning after the copy has
been done?

There are lots of free solutions out there, ranging from the simple "taper" to
the grand scale "amanda". If you're on a tight budget then all you need to
purchase is a cheap tape streamer and a few tapes.


--
Andreas Lund ([email protected])
Tel: +47 90.07.71.62 / +47 63.88.33.56
Ano-Tech Computers (http://www.atc.no/)
** He had a baseball bat and I was tied to a chair. 
** Pissing him off was the smart thing to do.  -- Max Payne