>1.) Use mirroring onto this HD for the PGDATA directory tree (which can
>abd should be on its own filesystem, IMO). Then, to back up the system,
>you break the mirror (which will wait on write activity to stop), back
>up the offline disk, then reestablish the mirror.
uh oh, the water just cleared my eyebrows -- but i'm not in "over my head"
yet! (almost. . .)
our server is a dual pentium I 233, with dual IDE HD's (4.3g), each set up
with the exact same geometry (had to turn lba off in bios to get linux to
give both the same geometry -- but it does now). i did that so we could do
a cat /dev/hda /dev/hdb sort of thing nightly to "mirror" the main hd --
but we haven't done that yet so the hdb is not being used. actually, it is
hdc -- i guess the cdrom which is slave from hda made it skip the hdb
assignment (or the cdrom got it??). i haven't done the cat command because
i'm not sure if the second hd, in addition to needing the exact same
goemetry as the first, needs to have the same partitions defined.
unfortunately i'm a little skittish to try much on it since it is now in
use (a little too early on my part, but our system is now so much better i
think it may have been worth it. . .). we are using rh linux 5.2 (mandrake
5.3), but kernel 2.2.2. so i guess i'm at least a few steps behind being
able to follow your advice (maybe i'm not even on the same track!). i'd
like to set up mirroring, but i don't know how! we just ordered a card to
mirror up to 4 ide drives that is os independent -- it just does it for
you. only $250 or so -- not in yet but because this server is now on-line,
we are anxiously awaiting! i don't know that it is our best solution
though. can you direct me to a place to find more info on setting up
mirroring?? or is it possible with ide hd's??
thanks so much for your help!
jt kirkpatrick / www.mpsllc.com
