[ILUG] Why RAID

[Robert Sweetnam]

With regards to RAID,

Its a matter of choice whatever option you choose. If you have a stand alone 
machine, RAID might be seen as overkill, if you have a mission critical 
machine, RAID, along with a solid backup plan is essential, Better safe than 
sorry.

If you are a home user, forget about RAID, unless you want to try it out. 
For a business. RAID is as essential as a solid backup schedule, regardless 
what operating system you happen to choose. Integrity of data is the 
ultimate goal and you cannot rely on hardware reliability alone.

I recently had an 8 month old server with 4 quantum 40GB SCSI disks (in a 
raid array) baulk one after another. one failed and was replaced, RAID 
rebuilt the replaced disk like it was supposed to. Disk 2 failed was 
replaced as well, RAID rebuilt, no user intervention, except for physically 
swapping the disks and more importantly no data loss. Ultimatly fault lay 
with a dodgy batch of Quantums supplied by the vendor and one after one they 
were replaced.

The point of this story is as we all should know, hardware can fail, Backups 
can ease the pain but there is no substitute for a well planned disk layout.

Best Regards and my tuppence worth.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Rick Moen" <rick at linuxmafia.com>
To: "ILUG" <ilug at linux.ie>
Sent: Tuesday, July 13, 2004 4:45 PM
Subject: Re: [ILUG] Why RAID


> Quoting Timothy Murphy (tim at birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie):
>
>> Personally I just rsync to an ancient (PII) machine with a large disk.
>
> That's backup, not redundancy.  More on that below.
>
>> The chances of a total disk failure  are negligible in my experience
>> (especially with SCSI disks).
>> I'd actually be more worried about 2 disks on the same machine
>> being struck by lightning, pee-ed on by the cat, etc.
>