>> Is that software RAID or hardware RAID?
> 
> Software. Real HW-RAID costs incredible amounts of money and software is 
> easily trustable enough for home usage.

Well that's what I'd figure...

>> My dad went with a hardware RAID solution, and it was utterly useless. 
>> You had to resilver it every few hours because it kept breaking.
> 
> It was some random bulk-card and I'd doubt how hardware based it 
> actually was.

Well he got a newer motherboard where the chipset throws in a RAID 
function just for fun (this seems to be very common now), and had the 
exact same problem. (Despite it being an unrelated machine with 
unrelated drives.)

>> No matter what size it is, it always takes an extremely long time. 
> 
> OTOH today you can format multiple drives at once without significant 
> loss in time.

That's true. Although I've never yet had occasion to need to format 
multiple drives in the same day. ;-)

> Linux keeps the software-RAID-1 block-by-block -identical also - and it 
> drops the disk from the array if it can't do that. What it doesn't do is 
> dropping the disk from the array if it works, so if you'll get a drop, 
> you know you're going to have a need to replace that drive - either 
> immediality or really soon.

This is where the system my dad had failed; it would randomly drop 
drives for no apparent reason. Once he turned RAID off completely, all 
the drives worked just fine. Go figure.

>> Yeah, I guess... Doesn't seem like you're gaining a huge amount, but I 
>> guess it's better than nothing.
> 
> Do backups ever seem like gaining a huge amount? Think again. How does 
> external HD differ from LTO-tape in
> 1) in virus-case, when all online files are compromised or deleted
> 2) when your running data-disk breaks up
> 3) when you'll accidentally press "delete"
> 4) when the flood comes through your roof
> 5) when some looney robs your laptop

Because the LTO system we have at work involves the tapes being put in a 
fire resistant safe in a remote location. ;-) Obviously, a home user 
with an external HD isn't going to do this.

> And yes, if your house burns down or your roofs gives up and lets the 
> water in, you do have a bigger problem than your binary data. But it 
> doesn't remove the dataloss being a problem, it just cumulates all other 
> problems on top of it.

...it just means that that problem is dwarfed by all the other ones! :-D

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message