Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (2700 mails)

[Alexandr Malusek <Alexandr.Malusek@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Dale L Roblin <daler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

> 1. I need a tape device for off-site storage, are the LTO Ultrium
> devices good enough?

I've been using an "HP StorageWorks Ultrium 460" with 400 GB Ultrium
LTO 2 data cartridges on a PC with SUSE Linux 9.1 without any problem
for about 1 year.

> 3. Would a RAID system be better (I have not used RAID yet though) -
> would that need to be hardware RAID?

I think a HW RAID 5 (with a spare disk on a shelf) is a good solution.
I use 3ware controllers (http://www.3ware.com/) which are directly
supported by Linux.

> 4. I have read a little on SUN Storedge systems, can these be used
> with Linux, and are they better than anything else?

If I remember it right, these system can be managed remotely and more
servers can be connected to one array.  This is quite good for HA
solutions but the price is higher.  I would use it for the primary
storage but not for a backup.

> 5. So far I have only been using shell scripts for backup, should I
> be considering commercial packages, if so which are "in-favour" at
> present?

I think the answer depends on many factors.  The advantage of simple
scripts is that they are cheap and you can tune them as you wish.  The
disadvantage is that if something goes wrong then you may be the only
person who can restore data from the backup since other people may not
have appropriate skills.

--
A.M.