On Sun, 11 Jun 2006 13:05:35 -0700, "Jochen"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said:
> 
> peter Wrote: 
> > Sorry, but RAID 1 is no replacement for backups. Your data is not only
> > at risk from hardware failure but also from human error. If you
> > inadvertently type rm -rf / tmp/* (note the extra blank) with
> > sufficient rights under linux, you're screwed (yeah, done that).
> 
> Agreed. RAID doesn't stop you from being stupid. But a backup e.g. on
> DVD doesn't stop you from leaving the DVDs lying in the sun, either.
> I'm not saying that RAID 1/5 is the end all, be all solution, but it
> always depends on how much effort (time, money and hardware wise)
> you're willing to spend.
> 
> Mounting the music partition read-only and mounting it only rw when
> necessary (e.g. when adding new music) already stops you from doing
> most of the not-so-clever things, including the above mentione rm -rf
> ;)

That sounds like a good idea. 
I know I'll find it too much of a hassle in practice.

> > Actually, the best (and cheapest, easiest) option in the case of most
> > music stores (which tend to rarely change) is to use a second
> > (non-RAID) disk and nightly synchronisations using something like rsync
> > (local or over the network). I'm lazy as well but my crontab is very
> > patient and perseverant. Ideally you would do this with an off site
> > machine, but another local machine or even a seperate drive in your
> > single machine would be ok too. 
> 
> Sure, if one's willing to have not just one, but two or even more PCs
> running, this is even better. Just make sure your rsync doesn't do a
> full sync and also delete files ;) 

It helps a lot if you use rsync in combination with a copy-tree of hard
links. That way you can store a number of snapshots. In my case being
able to look back a day has been sufficient. Especially with music
files.

I use this method: http://www.mikerubel.org/computers/rsync_snapshots/

> You could as well keep another copy of the data on a independent disc
> (maybe even attached to the same computer), only mouted when needed for
> backup, and keep a copy of the data there. Needless to say that you
> could as well use RAID there.

I do that as well. For one of my colo machines I keep a seperate
unmounted nightly synched disk plus nightly snapshots to my home server
over adsl. A day of data loss is acceptable in this case. Never happened
yet (knock on wood).

> RAID is not the answer to all backup needs, but it keeps you fairly
> safe from hardware failures. And if I'd have to choose from a
> standalone single-disk NAS and a standalone PC with mirrored disks, I'd
> always pick the latter.

Depends on the purpose. If it's not a high availability system using the
two disks seperately and synching nightly would be my preference. If a
day of data loss is a big problem, I'd choose the RAID.

Regards,
Peter
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