On Wed, Mar 15, 2006 at 09:35:27AM +1300, Hadley Rich wrote: > The extra 2 x hot-swapable hard drives listed were part of the backup > solution > as well as rsync over ssh to an externally hosted box. I was thinking SATA > hotswap but USB2 would probably be acceptable.
I've used 3ware RAID cards with SATA hot-swap successfully, for a long time, with only local "operators" - very very reliable. On the other hand, I've yet to see any USB2 hotswap under Linux work reliably - sooner or later the machine hangs, or the disks don't mount, sometimes they don't release their previous hold over sda, and get mounted as sdb, etc, etc. These aren't necessarily big deals for a workstation, but they're killers for a remote server. I'd recommend a 4-port hot swap, one drive in permanently (to reduce chances of damage due to regular movement), the next two bays alternating as the raid partner, and the final bay either empty, or with a hot spare. 3ware's command-line tools allow you to rejig things in real time, and for operators there's an HTTP server presenting a useful GUI. -jim
