Need Suggestions for Automated Backup

[Net Llama!]

On Tue, 2 Dec 2003, Shawn L Johnston wrote:
> On Tue, 2003-12-02 at 00:44, Chong Yu Meng wrote:
> > Hmm... I never thought about the size thing. Didn't factor it in.
> >
> > I'm not sure about RAID, though -- I'll have to do the sums to see if I
> > can build in some redundancy. Which would you suggest ? Mirroring or a
> > full RAID-5 array ?
>
> It depends on what your goal and finances can allow. Mirroring gives
> better data protection but is more expensive then RAID-5. And then there

That's not true.  RAID5, if implimented as a pure hardware solution can be
significantly more expensive than RAID1.  It depends on the amount of
hardware you need/want to throw at either implimentation.

> are all sorts of other fun things to consider like the differences in
> write vs read times with different raid setups, plus the big question of
> hardware raid vs software raid. If you really want to go all out,
> perhaps a mirrored RAID-5 array? Don't forget too check out ebay for
> cheep fibre channel drives. ;)

Its worth noting that RAID5 is generally alot slower than RAID0 or RAID1.

> > Typically, how many days data does a company keep?
>
> >From what you origionally described for backup needs this makes the most
> sense to me. As for "snapshots", I'd think if you were using some sort
> of LVM you should be able to use the snapshot stuff with an external
> hard drive without any problems.
>
> You may still wish too use some sort of other media to make occassional
> backups of some data in addition too an external hard drive. I'd
> recommend a DVD burner over CD's at this point, or a used DDS-2 (or
> DDS-3 or DDS-4) tape drive. Personally I prefer tape, but I'm probably
> unusal in that.

Not really.  Most 'old school' folks still gravitate to tape for backup
purposes, because it has a very long & reliable track record.  I'd
definitely shy away from DVD burning right now if you value your data.
The technology is way too immature, and even the standards are just now
being finalized, so the format that you choose could easily end up not
existing a year or 2 from now.  That would make your backups either
unreadable, or very expensive to maintain.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lonni J Friedman				netllama at linux-sxs.org
Linux Step-by-step & TyGeMo		     http://netllama.ipfox.com