martin f krafft wrote:
also sprach Marty <martyb@ix.netcom.com> [2007.01.29.0403 +0000]:Why not mirror the whole drive? and then make it bootable with fdisk right? No, you use lilo or grub.If you mirror the drive, you also mirror the boot sector. You can only do this if the drives are the same size though.
Thanks for the correction. I meant to suggest that he should mirror the root partition, not the whole drive. Obviously this has some limitations if your system is spread across multiple partitions or multiple drives.
>Does this mean it also takes with it all the program's / servers I've >currently installed? Like mysql and bacula?This is a non-trivial issue. Databases need guaranteed integrity and use specialized backup software with journaling filesystems.Just shut down the running processes.
I think there are cases when that's not possible, or when backups must be as close to real-time as possible. There can be a major problem maintaining database integrity and consistency.
Incidently, I'm suprised anyone is still using a Jaz drive. Are not USB flash drives cheaper per byte? They might also boot in your computer.Jaz drives are MO drives and thus can be written too a lot more than flash; they're more reliable.
In my own experience they seemed to be unreliable.
If on the other hand you are using old hardware because its the right geek thing to do, then just ignore this comment.He may also be happy with it and use the money for other things...
Althought pure geek value is one thing, I don't see it as a particularly good way to save money.