[GRLUG] To Raid, or not to Raid, that is the question.

[Adam Tauno Williams]

On Thu, 2011-03-10 at 00:14 +0000, Michael Mol wrote: 
> On Thu, Mar 10, 2011 at 12:05 AM, Joseph VanDerStelt
> <joseph.vanderstelt at gmail.com> wrote:
> > So, here is the situation. I am about to send a server down to a data center
> > in Indiana. I just purchased two WD 1GB hard drives to place in it for extra
> > storage. I also bought a $25 raid controller, just in case. Should I even
> > bother with the raid? I was going to go raid 1, so as not to risk losing my
> > data and other peoples data. However, I have to ask... Would simply creating
> > a cron job to backup key directories/files every 2 hours or so get the job
> > done just as well?
> > Just looking for a little input and maybe spark some debate.
> > So far, I am leaning towards raid 1.

I'd skip the $25 RAID card and use MD (software RAID) which in current
LINUX distributions is very solid.

> There's a saying: "RAID is not a backup"

No, RAID is for availability and to provide you a window to perform the
repair [critical for a co-located server that isn't where you are].

> If you want it for backup purposes, then you might find a better
> solution somewhere in the realm of snapshots and/or incremental
> backups.

A disk in the same server isn't backup either.

I'd RAID and replicate the data to somewhere else as a backup.


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