Advice on external backup of a Linux server.

[Arthur Pemberton]

Bill Gradwohl wrote:

> Arthur Pemberton wrote:
>
>> What if something goes wrong in the chasis, for example, power surge, 
>> all teh HDD's go? no?
>
>
> We've been in the micro computer networking business since 1982. In 
> all that time, I've never seen a power supply fry a drive. I don't 
> doubt it's happened, but I've personally never witnessed it, nor have 
> any of my employees. I have seen a lightning strike take out a whole 
> slew of machines in one shot, but what are the odds of that?

That's just funny and humerous :) In such a case, would two identical 
HDD's at software RAID 1 (which if I remember correctly is just 
mirroring) be good enough? OR would it be better to keep the 
backup/second HDD unmounted and just mount for a scripted backup?

>
>> The prob I have I have with the USB solution is that it requires user 
>> intervention.
>
>
> What user intervention? If you use an external drive, it has its own 
> power supply. Just leave it plugged in permanently via its USB cable, 
> if what you're after is a "home" solution.

This is actuall ymy home solution. I actually made my backup script in 
PHP. I just flip on the power switch for my USB enclosure which 
interface to an ATA HDD , and does script does is stuff, and I switch 
off after.

However I'm planning this for a smal business. As I'm sure you're aware 
normal employees (ie. non geek, or computer centric) shouldnt' really be 
trusted with anything computer, so if possible, I woudl prefer not to 
rely on them to switch on the USB HDD to allow it to backup.

>
> Even for a business, you can script rsync operations to fit X number 
> of snapshots on to a single disk, so that you only NEED to touch it 
> every few weeks after its filled up with umteen generations. User 
> intervention every long while isn't so bad - is it?

You seem to have alot more experience than I. So I'm hoping you could 
tell me.

>
> BTW - We're getting our clients used to living without tape backups, 
> opting for disk based backup solutions in a variety of forms. I mean 
> real disk, not CD-ROM or DVD. One client has a box with 6TB of disk 
> capacity. Only 2TB is their data. The other 2+2TB is for backup using 
> two 12 port 3Ware Escalade controller and a large hot swap backplane. 
> Works like a charm.

All I can say is COOL!!

>
> You can look up D2D or even D2D2T on Google to get some idea of what 
> industry is doing.
>