On Wed, 23 Jan 2013 10:09:00 -0500, Cousin Ricky wrote:

> My laptop is running on fumes. The battery is failing, and the Linux
> root partition has already gone south. I need a new computer.

I didn't realize there were others who crossed over from here to the 
Linux forums I admin (but I recognise your post from over there <g>).

I don't know that I'd worry too much about RAID - it tends to add 
expense, and most of the machines I've had for personal use have not used 
RAID for redundancy.  I /do/ back stuff up to an external 2 TB drive so I 
maintain two copies of the data that's important to me, and that's proven 
effective through multiple hard drive failures (oddly, mostly on the 
device that's backed up to rather than the "source" machines).  I've lost 
some non-critical data, but that's OK, because it was non-critical.

Cost of RAID has come down significantly with SATA/PATA RAID controllers 
in consumer-grade machines, but it still seems like overkill to me for a 
personal machine.  (My last home RAID system was a Compaq server-class 
486 that I bought in 1992 or so, and Compaq graciously gifted me a SMART 
controller and a couple of 2 GB drives in exchange for some volunteer 
work I did for them on CompuServe so I could run and support customers 
using their RAID controllers).

Jim

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