Results 1 to 9 of 9
  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jun 2002
    Posts
    41

    raid 1, raid 0 and off site backup

    hi,

    i am thinking using raid 0 (2x80gb ide drive, or 2x36 gb scsi drive), rather conventional raid 1, for my colocated server.

    Raid 0 is very risky, but with the benefits of speed and cheap, as compared with Raid 1. Most people use raid 1, do not use raid 0. And also do offsite back up.

    I intent to rely on my home computer to do daily backup only.

    I think offsite backup has advantage and disadvantage vs. Raid 1. But in the end, the advantage is over disadvantage, if my file/websites is not so critical.

    advantage of offsite backup: very safe, can against corrupted data, easy to use, easy to set up. can against many other disasters that Raid 1 can not (fire, etc. )

    disadvantage:

    the only major advantage of Raid 1 compare to offsite backup is, you May recover and be back online several hours earlier as compare to offsite backup, when there is a hard disk failure. But hard disk failure is very rare.

    Loss one day's data is not really my big concern.

    How do you think?

    thanks

    charlie.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jan 2002
    Posts
    574
    Why not raid0+1?

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Mar 2002
    Location
    Westbury, LI NY
    Posts
    1,705
    RAID is not a back up.

    http://www.google.com/search?sourcei...ot+a+backup%22

    There are numerous reason why RAID is not a backup.

  4. #4
    Backups maintain history so you can roll back versions of files. RAID simply provides drive integrity.

    If you delete a file, RAID isn't going to get it back for you. If you overwrite a file, RAID isn't going to get it back for you. If the file is corrupted by software, RAID isn't going to help you.

    The only time RAID helps is if a drive fails (or with striping, makes I/O faster). It saves you the time and hassle of restoring from a backup if a hard drive fails. With a good hot swap system, you can just yank the drive and plug in a new one without missing a beat.

    My preference is RAID 5. Go look up "raid definitions" at Google and you'll see why.

    Don't do RAID 0. For hosting, that would be disasterous. RAID 0 is used for things like digital video recording and other mass disk I/O intensive operations. Hosting isn't that way.

    With RAID 0, you have to replace the hard drive and restore from a backup just like a single conventional hard drive failure. Your OS will be corrupted, your data will be partial (at best), and you probably won't be able to boot if you have a failed hard drive with RAID 0.
    Sincerely,
    Andrew Kinney
    CTO, Advantagecom Networks
    http://www.SimplyWebHosting.com

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Aug 2002
    Location
    Tampa Bay, FL
    Posts
    27
    I agree, don't use raid 0

    but for offsite backups, if you're using a unix based system, try rsync
    http://rsync.samba.org/

    remember you need to have enough bandwidth to your backup site for any offsite backup solution to work.

    ( I tried to setup a backup using rsync of several gigs, but through an isdn line, didn't work because each backup took like 18 hours )

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Dec 2001
    Location
    N.Ireland
    Posts
    80
    Use Raid5 with backup. Striping (raid 0) may speed you up a bit but doubles your chance's of failure. Raid is only good in case of hard drive failure which is the biggest reason for data loss nowadays but it is not a backup its a fail safe. For backup you realy don't use raid 1 you just do backup to another harddrive. You can do it on site or off site on site will be cheaper but if you have the money off site works.

    Raid 0 means if you have 2 hd's 80 gig's each you can have 160 gigs storage but if one hard drive fails you lose ALL every bit of data.

  7. #7
    Was that to backup all your files or just the updated ones? I think you can setup rsync to just update the changed files, and that may save you some time and bandwidth.

    TinmaN

    Originally posted by setherd
    I agree, don't use raid 0

    but for offsite backups, if you're using a unix based system, try rsync
    http://rsync.samba.org/

    remember you need to have enough bandwidth to your backup site for any offsite backup solution to work.

    ( I tried to setup a backup using rsync of several gigs, but through an isdn line, didn't work because each backup took like 18 hours )

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Aug 2002
    Location
    Tampa Bay, FL
    Posts
    27
    just the updated ones.
    that's the nice thing about rsync.

    it was a REALLY sucky connection, I was getting a speed of like 8 kbps, the location was at the end of the line, the fastest connection I could get was isdn.

    the recieveing location had cable.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Feb 2002
    Posts
    2,120
    what is your server purpose....? Then we can easily say what is the best RAID model for you

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •