phanisvara das wrote:

i think you're right that the cost of unconditionally rsync-ing the whole drive every 15 min would be too high. but thinking through the setup i'm planning, that wouldn't be necessary. [snip] i'm afraid i'm overlooking something obvious, that's why i'm asking here, where many have much more experience with this type of thing.

RAID1 would be a lot easier and lot less effort (than re-inventing the wheel). -- Per Jessen, Zürich (14.0°C) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 2012-05-06 21:39, John Andersen wrote:

And as for the "strain" when one member dies, how is this "strain" different than the daily thrashing of rsync?

It is the daily load on one disk + the load of replication. - -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 11.4 x86_64 "Celadon" at Telcontar) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.16 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAk+m1dsACgkQIvFNjefEBxoszQCfS9tKBBA6eS3GplHcg9HSUU4v XxkAoLEP2NoqD6bn7ntkUj9EpBdPE7Mv =Ridf -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

phanisvara das said the following on 05/06/2012 03:51 PM:

would it be correct to say security-wise it's a toss, RAID1 or rsync? if the answer to that was "yes," i'd go with RAID. less trouble day-to-day, and i'd learn something new.

Since security encompasses all of * Availability * Integrity * Confidentiality yes, it doesn't matter whether you use RAID for availability or rsync for backups (aka integrity), you can call it Security if you want. -- "Ahhh. A man with a sharp wit. Someone ought to take it away from him before he cuts himself." - Peter da Silva -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

phanisvara das said the following on 05/06/2012 05:25 AM:

i'm afraid i'm overlooking something obvious, that's why i'm asking here, where many have much more experience with this type of thing.

I suspect we all overlook things - its the old "Where you stand depends on where you sit"//"Context is everything". But Per has a few pertinent observations. 1. RAID is about availability, not backup. 2. Keeping the librarian's /home on the file server using NFS, a very well established technique that dates back to SUN and the 1980s, does address part of your problem. 3. We've discussed using LVM instead of RAID in the past. Its easier to set up LVM mirroring of partitions *AND* you can use LVM to do disk-to-disk backup. 4. Ultimately backup means transferring to another media; tape, removable disk, or something, and archiving it securely. This has nothing to do with RAID or RSYNC. I know, first hand, that a) NFS mount of users home directory works well. b) LVM is easy to set up if you start the disk with it, but pernickity if you try to 'convert' and existing disk, partition or drive. You need to have experience (i.e. have got it wrong catastrophically in the past and figured out why). So start with a new set of drives. If you do that its easy. c) LVM snapshot is in real-time until you tell it to stop. d) You can backup snapshots onto DVD. I have a policy of using 4G partitions to facilitate that. Its nice to have them as mountable file systems. I'm of the opinion that for what I'm doing, RAID-per-RAID is too complex, involves too many decisions and too many drives. With LVM I can use any number of any drive of any old size according to my budget, add them or remove them. KISS. But YMMV. -- A program designed for inputs from people is usually stressed beyond breaking point by computer-generated inputs. -- Dennis Ritchie -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On Sunday, May 06, 2012 08:51 AM Carlos E. R. wrote:

On 2012-05-06 11:25, phanisvara das wrote:

...

i'm afraid i'm overlooking something obvious, that's why i'm asking here, where many have much more experience with this type of thing.

You need both raid and a backup, and IMO it is more important the backup.

If you make a goof and delete something, the data will be deleted on all the disks of the array. If you have a good backup strategy, you can recover deleted files.

It is as simple as that.

All that you do is done to the entire raid array. Any bad thing happens to the array - you are protected only from one type of failure: a disk failure.

Note that with rsync you can have a history of changes: the new directory has the new files, and hardlinks to the old files that exist in the previous directory.

But doing backups every 15 minutes is excessive wear. You would need a third disk with daily backups, and powered off the rest of the day.

fwiw on my primary machine which requires 100% uptime I use RAID with an additional disk which I mirror with rsync as a failover. In my rsync script I use rsync parms to retain a different fstab and menu.lst which enables it to be bootable at any time. I run the script via cron during lunch and in the evening, so it's not a real time mirror but it's close enough. I also maintain a copy on another machine on my gb lan as protection against a catastrophic failure (i.e., not just disk failure) of the primary machine. Cron runs this rsync script once every evening. Storage is cheap nowadays. Once this is all set up, everything is automatic and I don't have to pay any attention to it, other than the scripts mailing me a message indicating success or failure in the run. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On Sunday, May 06, 2012 08:59:56 AM Carlos E. R. wrote:

On 2012-05-06 16:55, Dennis Gallien wrote:

...

Storage is cheap nowadays.

No, it is not. All the hard disk manufacturers had their main factories in the same country and they were flooded. Prices doubled and have not come down since.

Depends on your point of view. A few years ago when drives weren't so big, I thought $100 for a 20g hard drive was a great price. Now I can get 2Tb for about $120. The prices are coming back down. Just slowly. Mike -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

Carlos E. R. wrote:

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1

On 2012-05-06 16:55, Dennis Gallien wrote:

...

Storage is cheap nowadays.

No, it is not. All the hard disk manufacturers had their main factories in the same country and they were flooded. Prices doubled and have not come down since.

The price per Gb is still much less than it was ten years ago. -- Per Jessen, Zürich (16.9°C) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

Hello, On Sun, 06 May 2012, phanisvara das wrote:

the only TB size HDDs one gets in kolkata these days are those "green" ones, that park every few seconds, only to be awakened again a couple sec.s later. there's supposedly a DOS utility to adjust that, but google finds mixed reports re. this.

I too have only those disks, but they don't park. You can adjust that with 'hdparm', namely the Parameter -S. Also, look at your power-management settings in yast. Or adjust the pm-profile setting SATA_ALPM="max_performance" in the profile. I just copied the 'balanced' to a new name, changed that setting and then activated that profile (/etc/pm-profiler.conf resp. /etc/sysconfig/pm-profiler).

i can't easily get another 2TB drive now and will have to make do with two of them for the time being.

You should. Having identical drives of the same age in a RAID ... HTH, -dnh -- "All mushrooms are edible. However, some of them only once" -- Ino!~ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 05/06/2012 11:36 AM, phanisvara das wrote:

On Sun, 06 May 2012 21:58:51 +0530, David Haller wrote:

...

Hello,

On Sun, 06 May 2012, phanisvara das wrote:

...

the only TB size HDDs one gets in kolkata these days are those "green" ones, that park every few seconds, only to be awakened again a couple sec.s later. there's supposedly a DOS utility to adjust that, but google finds mixed reports re. this.

I too have only those disks, but they don't park. You can adjust that with 'hdparm', namely the Parameter -S. Also, look at your power-management settings in yast. Or adjust the pm-profile setting

SATA_ALPM="max_performance"

in the profile. I just copied the 'balanced' to a new name, changed that setting and then activated that profile (/etc/pm-profiler.conf resp. /etc/sysconfig/pm-profiler).

ah, that's interesting. which brand / model do you use?

Although, I'm running a server, per say, IMHO, I'd use Hitachi brand drives. The reasoning is that, because of money, I have to buy used drives and they have never failed me yet. I outgrow them first. My current set of drives, I've had for three years - again these are - used - drives and my desktop is running 24/7. -- Duaine Hechler Piano, Player Piano, Pump Organ Tuning, Servicing& Rebuilding Reed Organ Society Member Florissant, MO 63034 (314) 838-5587 dahechler@att.net www.hechlerpianoandorgan.com -- Home& Business user of Linux - 11 years -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

Duaine Hechler said the following on 05/06/2012 02:01 PM:

Although, I'm running a server, per say, IMHO, I'd use Hitachi brand drives. The reasoning is that, because of money, I have to buy used drives and they have never failed me yet. I outgrow them first. My current set of drives, I've had for three years - again these are - used - drives and my desktop is running 24/7.

I buy new [or what the dealer tells me is new], and use LVM, so I can use a patchwork of sizes/specs. Lack of availability of any specific size isn't a problem with LVM. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On Sun, 06 May 2012 18:31:09 -0700 John Andersen wrote:

http://serverfault.com/questions/279571/lvm-dangers-and-caveats

Nice one! Thanks, John. Been following this thread with interest ;-) Carl -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On Sun, 06 May 2012 22:00:59 -0400 Anton Aylward wrote:

John Andersen said the following on 05/06/2012 09:31 PM:

...

As for mixing and matching size with LVM, its almost always an accident waiting to happen. When your partition is scattered across multiple drives, a failure of any one will likely take down everything.

Yes, you *CAN* configure LVM that way. it is one of the *MANY* ways you can configure LVM and because of that it is a reason many people find LVM confusing and difficult to use. It is fraught with decision alternatives you have to make.

That being said those alternative also allow you to do things like mirroring, yes *REAL* mirroring. And you have the flexibility of doing it on a file system basis, not just a drive basis.

Yes, you can also stripe across spindles and scatter-gather across spindles with LVM and yes that will cause a catastrophe if you loose a spindle. But no-one is forcing you to use that rather than mirroring.

The same applies with RAID. There are many ways of doing it and not all offer reliability in the event of a loss of a spindle.

The OP mentioned the need to protect the data but no the OS. using different strategies for different file systems is a capability of LVM not enjoyed by RAID.

...

LVM was not made for reliability, it was made to allow building big volumes from several smaller devices.

That too. LVM has many capabilities. Don't focus on just one.

Hmm. Some configurations of RAID can be said to allow building big volumes by spreading a file system across several small devices as well.

It all depends on how to choose to configure things, doesn't it?

...

Its really not the right tool for the job, even if it can be forced into that task.

I wouldn't call it 'forcing' any more than choosing a particular RAID is 'forcing'.

...

http://serverfault.com/questions/279571/lvm-dangers-and-caveats

Some of that is so wrong as misleading that its not worth discussing.

That you can screw-up something though ignorance and inexperience applies just as much to RAID as LVM ... or anything else for that matter -- there are many examples of that in the software world!

Anton, I'd recommend you actually study the lengthy thread at John's link. Overall, the comments there are quite positive about LVM2 in spite of some specific caveats (see 'pvmove data loss', in particular, plus a decidedly steep(er) learning curve, even for admins.) I really enjoy frank discussions addressing pros and cons from people like you two -- each with lots of contemporary hands-on experience -- and, imho, the thread John referred us to falls into that category. regards, Carl -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 05/06/12 22:00, Anton Aylward pecked at the keyboard and wrote:

John Andersen said the following on 05/06/2012 09:31 PM:

...

As for mixing and matching size with LVM, its almost always an accident waiting to happen. When your partition is scattered across multiple drives, a failure of any one will likely take down everything.

Yes, you *CAN* configure LVM that way. it is one of the *MANY* ways you can configure LVM and because of that it is a reason many people find LVM confusing and difficult to use. It is fraught with decision alternatives you have to make.

That being said those alternative also allow you to do things like mirroring, yes *REAL* mirroring. And you have the flexibility of doing it on a file system basis, not just a drive basis.

Yes, you can also stripe across spindles and scatter-gather across spindles with LVM and yes that will cause a catastrophe if you loose a spindle. But no-one is forcing you to use that rather than mirroring.

The same applies with RAID. There are many ways of doing it and not all offer reliability in the event of a loss of a spindle.

The OP mentioned the need to protect the data but no the OS. using different strategies for different file systems is a capability of LVM not enjoyed by RAID.

...

LVM was not made for reliability, it was made to allow building big volumes from several smaller devices.

That too. LVM has many capabilities. Don't focus on just one.

Hmm. Some configurations of RAID can be said to allow building big volumes by spreading a file system across several small devices as well.

(R)edundant (A)rray of (I)nexpensive (D)isks -- Ken Schneider SuSe since Version 5.2, June 1998 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On Mon, 7 May 2012 11:30:59 Anton Aylward wrote: [..]

The OP mentioned the need to protect the data but no the OS. using different strategies for different file systems is a capability of LVM not enjoyed by RAID.

Really? Like, running RAID 1 on two filesystems and linear RAID to stitch together a few left-over chunks of unpartitioned space into a single filesystem (and, yes, I could have done the same with LVM), whilst other filesystems on the same physical disks (which are not as critical) are not RAIDed at all? All easily done with mdraid. Been doing it that way for years. -- ========================================================================== Rodney Baker VK5ZTV rodney.baker@iinet.net.au ========================================================================== -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On Mon, 07 May 2012 02:44:39 +0530, David Haller wrote:

Well, the parking has nothing to do with brand or model, not sure if I made that clear.

a while ago i looked at reports about those green drives, used with various linux distros, and i remember that some claimed that certain disks / brands were honoring those param.s, others not. but there were discrepancies between different reports, they weren't all saying the same re. those hdparms, and a dos utility to be used with some free dos implementation. in general i got the idea that it's something i would like to avoid. if you have better experience i'm glad for you, but it doesn't alleviate all my worries, or dislike for those green things. there have been quite a few complaints about them, perhaps newer batches have been fixed. that doesn't mean that older, sub-standard drives aren't still being sold to india... -- phani. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

Hello, On Mon, 07 May 2012, phanisvara das wrote:

On Mon, 07 May 2012 02:44:39 +0530, David Haller wrote:

...

The WD is a 500G PATA model. And the others were bought over ~2 or more years, with a couple months inbetween. Above mentioned Seagate-Samsung is in the other box, replacing a WD 20..EARX? and a Seagate ST1500xxxAS.

so you're using both, seagate & samsung green variety, with good results. perhaps i'll better wait for somebody coming over from US, which will happen sooner or later, and ask them to bring one or two (once i get the money approved, that is).

Not sure if the (real) Seagate ST1500...AS are "green" models. The WD 20...EARX in the other box is a "green" one too. Basically you have 3 kinds of drives today: - server drives (specced for 24/7, often 7200 or even 10k min^-1), expensive, usually twice as much as "run of the mill" of the same size - standard models (7200 or 5400 min^-1, occasionally inbetween) said to be specced for about 8/7, cheap, used to need ~10W, now usually ~6W - "green" models (mostly 5400, some 7200 min^-1) said to be specced for about 8/7, cheap, ~6W Basically, unless you shell out the money for server drives, don't look at names, look at the specs (e.g. cache size, MTBF) and the price ;) For me, "top" disk performance is irrelevant. The HD20[34][UW]I are supposed to do 130-160 MB/s (or more). Two runs of [lsscsi]: [1:0:0:0] disk ATA SAMSUNG HD204UI 1AQ1 /dev/sdb [3:0:0:0] disk ATA SAMSUNG HD203WI 1AN1 /dev/sdd # hdparm -t /dev/sdb /dev/sdd /dev/sdb: Timing buffered disk reads: 410 MB in 3.00 seconds = 136.54 MB/sec /dev/sdd: Timing buffered disk reads: 282 MB in 3.01 seconds = 93.60 MB/sec /dev/sdb: Timing buffered disk reads: 410 MB in 3.00 seconds = 136.66 MB/sec /dev/sdd: Timing buffered disk reads: 282 MB in 3.02 seconds = 93.46 MB/sec But that's misleading too: [lsscsi] [0:0:0:0] disk ATA SAMSUNG HD204UI 1AQ1 /dev/sda [4:0:0:0] disk ATA SAMSUNG HD203WI 1AN1 /dev/sde # hdparm -t /dev/sda /dev/sde /dev/sda: Timing buffered disk reads: 388 MB in 3.00 seconds = 129.30 MB/sec /dev/sde: Timing buffered disk reads: 332 MB in 3.02 seconds = 110.09 MB/sec /dev/sda: Timing buffered disk reads: 406 MB in 3.00 seconds = 135.13 MB/sec /dev/sde: Timing buffered disk reads: 226 MB in 3.01 seconds = 75.21 MB/sec But! In practice, with all the seeks and FS-Overhead and whatnot, I feel lucky if I get over 60MB/s while copying (big) files with mc, typical is something from 40 to 50 MB/s. With small files, it's much much lower anyway (I've got a ext3 only system and the disks tend to be full). So, all those "fancy" numbers you find in benchmarks are a datapoint, but in practice, I see little difference in speed over all my disks in this and the other box, even the 2 PATA 500G disks read/write about 40MB/s and there's little difference between the oldest and newest SATA disks. It is noticeable at times, when copying from a fast one to a fast one vs. slow to slow, but not very much. So, as stated before, it is not really relevant what brand/model you get. I've had bad experiences with IBM (DHEA and DTLA series, bought by Hitachi), Quantum (one 3.2G drive), Maxtor (various models from 9.1G to 80G, bought by Seagate), Seagate, WD, and Samsung, and weirdly enough, the worst were the 2 Samsungs that died a few days apart (both 500G IIRC -> cf. "twins" mentioned), where I lost quite a bit of (replaceable) stuff. One disk was just dead, it spun up IIRC, but not even the BIOS found it anymore, from the other, I was able to scrape most stuff off off it. Since then (and before for models from 2 x 160G to 3 or so 400G), the other Samsung drives have been reliable, and that's been a lot (20 or more I think). OTOH, out of 3 ST1500...AS Seagates, only 1 is still ok, 1 is decomissioned, the other is about to, due to losing sectors. The 1 WD20...EAR. SATA too. See my previous mail. OTOOH, other people have quite different experiences, e.g. Samsungs dying like flies and WD/Seagate rock solid. Whatever. And, with you being in Kolkata (right?), you'd have to check it out yourself anyway, as you got quite a different climate that Germany. Just think about heat and humidity (or are those drives in a air-conditioned environment?) Again: it does not really matter what brand/model of a e.g. 2T drive you get. If in doubt: get the cheapest (non-fake/-refurbished etc.). Think about "green"/5400 min^-1 as being a bit less snappy than 7200 min^-1 models, but needing less power and being cooler. Continuous transfer is IMO irrelevant, because if whether you don't get 130 MB/s or don't get 150 MB/s at the application level copying files with, say, 60 MB/s is irrelevant. For me, those "green" drives are fast enough, and as you can guess from what's in this box alone, moving (i.e. copy & delete) 100 GB about is routine ;) I don't care if moving 50GB (of big files, 200MB-2.xGB) takes 15 or 20 mins. I won't be sitting there watching it anyway. You want snappy? Get a SSD ;) One last datapoint: Samsung drives report running at lower temps than WD or Seagate (no idea about Hitachi). Not sure if they are cooler or just report cooler temps. HTH, -dnh -- Perl is the successful attempt to make a braindump executable. -- Lutz Donnerhacke -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On Mon, 07 May 2012 06:49:51 +0530, John Andersen wrote:

Im almost certain these aren't made in the US, so you'd be better waiting for someone coming over from Indonesia or whereever WD is making their drives these days.

well, i don't knowm many people in indonesia, and if things there are anything like india, they'd be prone to sell sub-standard quality to their own people while exporting the good stuff to where most of their profits come from. (it's almost impossible to get good indian tea here locally; it all gets exported and only some boutique-like stores sell it in the big cities, at international rates.) -- phani. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On Mon, 07 May 2012 11:09:28 +0530, Cristian Rodríguez wrote:

Neither RAID or rsync provide "data security".. in fact no tool or hardware does, that's a very dangerous mindset to adopt.. deep trouble ahead .. now, that being said.. RAID can provide you much better *availability* and disaster recovery aid when things go wrong, but there is almost always a tradeoff for performance.

performance doesn't bother me in this case, so i would be willing to accept that trade-off.

It is not a replacement for backups, that's when rsync comes into play to help the file transfer/sync process.

so you also say that, if only one can be adopted at this time, backups (rsync) are more suited to prevent data loss. what i was considering was replacing these regular backups by RAID1, mirroring the whole disk, which obviously contains a copy of the data, too.

"data security" involves a "process" not only "a bunch of hw and software" but also policies regarding physical/virtual access to the information, data retention and confidentiality. Yes, cheap-ass hardware fails and usually sucks..but human beings screw things up in a much larger scale..big time! so think before you type !

i did even better, i asked here, with the usual good results -- even if i'm still not sure what i'm going to do in the end. -- phani. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

Cristian Rodríguez said the following on 05/07/2012 01:39 AM:

...

Neither RAID or rsync provide "data security".. in fact no tool or hardware does, that's a very dangerous mindset to adopt.. deep trouble ahead :-) .. now, that being said.. RAID can provide you much better *availability* and disaster recovery aid when things go wrong, but there is almost always a tradeoff for performance.

I'm sorry, but the accepted tenets of "Security" include the C-I-A triad: - Confidentiality - Integrity and - *Availability* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_triad#Key_concepts <quote> For over twenty years, information security has held confidentiality, integrity and availability (known as the CIA triad) to be the core principles of information security. </quote>

It is not a replacement for backups, that's when rsync comes into play to help the file transfer/sync process.

Correct: as has been pointed out by a number of people including myself, backups are another aspect of security - Integrity. You can also view backups as Availability post catastrophe :-)

"data security" involves a "process" not only "a bunch of hw and software" but also policies regarding physical/virtual access to the information, data retention and confidentiality.

True, but once we get into that we start dealing with issue like business alignment and policy enforcement and revision and ISO27000 and rapidly go beyond the scope of this list. If you want to go there, I can recommend some very active and very serious-minded lists; but this is about SUSE, not INFOSEC or ISO27K or POLICY.

Yes, cheap-ass hardware fails and usually sucks..but human beings screw things up in a much larger scale..big time! so think before you type ! ;-)

All hardware fails. No-one has an infinite budget. Yes, humans are the #1 security threat. But take away the humans and there's no point in having the computer systems, is there. Ultimately as the OP made clear, its about what management wants. As engineers, we know how to make indefinitely reliable systems out of unreliable components; that's what engineering is about - we're Sons of Martha[1]. Well maybe you're not; maybe you're a Son of Mary or Chicken Little. And as Larry said, "there more than one way to do it"[2] [1] http://tricolour.net/som.html [2] http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ThereIsMoreThanOneWayToDoIt -- All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them. -- Galileo Galilei. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On Mon, 07 May 2012 21:36:55 +0530, Rodney Baker wrote:

Bad, very expensive mistake. We did get it back. Eventually. From a backup. After much unplanned (and very inconvenient) downtime. I learned my lesson!

i've had such bad experiences, but only with my own machines. no fun, but a good way to learn. the idea to use something in production which i've never really dealt with (RAID), even though it's "easy as falling off a log," isn't very clever, to say it mildly. i'll stick to what i've done before, rsync, and probably put RAID on my desktop, to get the hang of it. -- phani. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On Tue, 08 May 2012 00:09:48 +0530, Brian K. White wrote:

Both those scenarios have pros & cons, but both are so simple that there is hardly any real reason to choose one vs the other. Both methods are fine. Both can be made very reliable. Both can be made automatic. Both can be screwed up and leave you with nothing. Do whichever you like best.

yes, i will. and since i knew nothing about one of the options (RAID), i've asked here. i found the result very interesting and think i've learned a few things from listening. now i'll use that in the praxis, i.e., use rsync for the server, and start using RAID on my own machine, to get some real experience; thanks for sharing your thoughts and knowledge everyone. -- phani. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org