New approach with removable IDE RAID Backup (was: Tape Question)

[Christian Hammers <ch@westend.com>]

Hi

On Wed, Aug 21, 2002 at 04:14:09PM +1000, Craig Sanders wrote:
> > I have a big size file about 33G in /home directory !!! and i wanna
> > backup this file into tape device....
Why tape, buy a ATA (IDE) RAID controller that allowes hot swap and hot
plugable devices (e.g. 3ware). Then setup a raid1 between two harddiscs.

Whenever you like to do the backup simply mount that array, rsync /home 
to it and umount again. The next morning, exchange one of the discs agains
a new one, the discs are your backup medium. The new disc will be rebuild
automatically and be available for the next backup after a few hours.

Sounds strange? Well never got the change to test it myself but it could
work. 

Benefits:
 - Cheaper: RAID Controller (300€) + Drive Bay (200€) + 4 drives (100€ pro
   60GB) are about 900€. This is more than competable with DAT/DDS3 and even
   more with DLT tape drives.
 - Faster and easier when restoring. Obviously, just mount it.
 - More capacity per medium. Splitting up across several media makes things
   complicated.

Any comments?

bye,

-christian-

-- 
Christian Hammers    WESTEND GmbH - Aachen und Dueren     Tel 0241/701333-0
ch@westend.com     Internet & Security for Professionals    Fax 0241/911879
          WESTEND ist CISCO Systems Partner - Authorized Reseller