Jim Henderson wrote:

> On Mon, 09 Nov 2009 09:27:31 +0000, Invisible wrote:
> 
>>>>> guess there isn't a convenient modality for backing up 500GB of data?
>>>> There is - but not for sane prices, no.
>>> 
>>> A 1.5 GB SATA Seagate Barracuda drive costs a mere $95 from newegg.
>>> 
>>> I guess that arguably is an insane price - insanely cheap.
>> 
>> I don't know, man... Backing up spinning disk to... spinning disk? Is
>> that such a sensible idea?

I do this daily, the thing is it is spinning disks on separate servers, from
different manufacturers, on different operating systems, each of the disks
being of different age since purchase... I'm sure you see how spreading the
risk applies, and thus increasing the percentage change of a backup
surviving.
 
> But I also back up directories from several systems to other systems
> using rsync.

Me too - works well.
 
>> (Then again, I don't have any hard data on the reliability of HD verses
>> tape verses CD. I've heard that spinning HD up and down wears it out
>> faster than keeping it spinning, but I don't know if that's true...)
> 
> Well, I didn't say anything about shutting the drive down.

I've seen this phenomenon on older drives. Had a HDD in a system here that
was left on for years, probably been turned off 20 or 30 times in its
useful life. The fortieth or forty-fifth time the server was turned off,
the HDD died - after running reliably (while not being turned off, ever)
for 5 or 6 years. Ok, old hardware and an old drive, but just goes to show.
Keep 'em spinning is better than spin-up / spin-down on a daily basis.

-- 
Stefan Viljoen

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