Re: [gentoo-user] smartctrl drive error @60%

[Dale]

Bill Kenworthy wrote:
> On 26/06/14 06:16, Dale wrote:
>> Neil Bothwick wrote:
>>> On Wed, 25 Jun 2014 17:44:48 +0100, Mick wrote:
>>>
>>>>> Install a simple forwarding MTA like ssmtp to have all mails from cron
>>>>> and friends sent to your ISP mailbox.
>>>> ... and when you find out please tell us:
>>>>
>> What I really need to do, set up a RAID or some other backup method so
>> that even if this happens again, I don't risk losing anything.  Then
>> again, that will take time as well.  Also takes money.
>>
> Repeat after me ... RAID IS NOT A BACKUP

I agree with that.  Power supply goes nuts and burns out the whole
puter.  RAID won't help that.  House catches fire, ooops.  Thief steals
puter,  uh oh.  That list could go on for a while.  About the only thing
it does is allow quick recovery from a failing/dead drive.  Basically. 
It's good at that from what I have read. 

>
> There are many ways to do a backup - various raid forms, mirrors etc can
> help in some (and only some) instances but only a spatially separated
> copy of the data is relatively safe.
>
> Have two computers? - cross backup between them. (keep an old machine as
> a file server in the back room, start it up a couple of times a week and
> run a backup script - can even be automated)

I do have a old puter at the moment.  I thought about sticking it in a
outbuilding and just turning it on to do backups then shutting it back
down.  That puts distance between house and outbuilding too.  Thing is,
I plan to let a family member use it when I can get around to getting a
new case for it.  I guess I could use any old slow junky puter with a
LARGE drive in it. 


>
> Have a friend/relative nearby? - take your PC over, create a backup and
> then sync the differences across the net using rsync etc - most normal
> people do fill up todays large disks, or have large "personal valuable
> data" requirements.
>
> You dont need to backup the whole machine, just the valuable bits
> (configs, personal data, email archives, ...)
>
> There are many ways to do it - if you only have one disk and no backups,
> the data by definition is not valuable :)
>
> Ive just been caught by an old 1G WD green drive failing (possibly the
> MB's fault as the sata interface died as well - seen a few of those
> now!) that took out the middle drive from a striped LVM.  Didnt bother
> to recover, just built a new machine from leftover bits, bought another
> drive and rebuilt it using btrfs raid 1 on the two orignal WD 2G green
> drives and a new WD red, and restored from backups on another machine -
> over the years this type of event has happened a few times - you only
> need to get burnt once to learn!.
>
> BillK
>

I do backup what I know can't be replaced at all.  My camera pics can't
be replaced since they are not anywhere else.  Some other things here
that are nowhere else I can live without, just would rather not if I can
help it. 

I never backup the OS.  I just reinstall it if needed.  Generally, I try
to keep a copy of /etc and the world file.  I'll copy /etc over and use
the world file as a guide on what to install on the new install.  Heck,
I can install Kubuntu in a hour or less.  Then I can install Gentoo from
that while doing my usual puter activities. 

I had a WD 80GB drive to fail several years ago.  That's the only drive
I have ever had to fail on me tho.  It spit out errors and I was able to
do backups and save the data before it died for good.  I can't recall
the exact error but it mentioned '24 hours' and 'right now'.  It didn't
miss it by much either. 

Just imagine if we had no tools to warn us of a failure at all.  That
would suck.

Dale

:-)  :-)