[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: deduplicating file systems: VDO with Debian?



On 2022-11-08 at 09:36, Nicolas George wrote:

> Curt (12022-11-08):
> 
>> Redundancy sounds a lot like a back up.
> 
> RAID also sounds a lot like a backup, and the R means redundant.
> 
> Yet raid is not a backup.

That depends on which sense of the word "backup" you are using.

No, it's not a "backup" in the technical "back it up to tape" sense of
the word. There are many types of data-loss scenarios in which it will
not protect you at all.

But it does mean that if one drive fails, you can still fall back to the
copy on the other drive, and thus that copy is serving as a backup to
the copy on the first drive. There are some data-loss scenarios in which
RAID will protect you.

That more general sense of "backup" as in "something that you can fall
back on" is no less legitimate than the technical sense given above, and
it always rubs me the wrong way to see the unconditional "RAID is not a
backup" trotted out blindly as if that technical sense were the only one
that could possibly be considered applicable, and without any
acknowledgment of the limited sense of "backup" which is being used in
that statement.

-- 
   The Wanderer

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all
progress depends on the unreasonable man.         -- George Bernard Shaw

Attachment: signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature


Reply to: