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On Wednesday 31 March 2004 03:23 pm, Martin Hajduch wrote: |
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> i have raid1 setup at home on my workstation and i have two separate |
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> swap partitions as i have suggested |
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> my point is not to make sure that my machine won't crash if one drive |
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> crashes; i just want to be sure that |
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> my data are (more) safe |
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> i'm using reiserfs which gives me some protection against filesystem |
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> corruption in a case of system crash |
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Well, using a Raid 1 in that instance probably isn't the best solution. Raid |
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1 arrays are really best used in a critical server to keep the system online |
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until a tech can schedule maintenece. Soo many things can happen to a raid 1 |
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that it is not a good solution for data backup. If a file is deleted, |
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corrupted, etc it is just mirrored to both drives. There is no rotation, or |
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history. |
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The biggest gain from a raid 1 array is the fault tolerance. Those of you |
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hoping for backup and data protection are getting a false sence of security. |
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Unfortunatly, its a lesson not commonly learned until it is too late :( Raid |
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is not a replacement for backups. It does help is a lot of instances, it is |
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not a bad idea, but it is flawed. |
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I would use that second drive for a backup. Use rsync or some backup utility |
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and create snapshots of the system configs and user files. On my main server |
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for my business, I dump the database and rsync every 30 minutes, and rotate |
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those twice a day for a week, and two weeks on the database, with a once day |
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off machine storage. This has saved my butt several times. For a |
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workstation, that is insane. Something along the lines of a once a day rsync |
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and save back one day would probably be more protection than is needed. But |
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backups are like underwear, and its up to the wearer to pick which fits best. |
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For clients (server) I usually do once a day, with 2-3 days back depending on |
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how much space they buy. IDE drives are cheap, big, and work fine as a local |
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backup. The question of the day is how active is your data, and how far back |
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can you recover from. If losing a hour of work can kill you, then you |
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probably back up more often. Most people are fairly safe daily. On my |
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database, 30 minutes could be upseting, hence why it is so anally backed up. |
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I guess my point is that it is never a real backup. If you understand the |
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risk involved, then that is your choice. Just remember when you recommend |
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solutions to someone that may not be familure with the pro's and con's that |
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you let them know. Nothing is worst than a user that feels they are backed |
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up only to realize after the fact that important file is lost forever. |
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Rob |
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