[OT] If RAID's not backup... what do you use?

[OT] If RAID's not backup... what do you use?

[John Robinson]

I currently have a 3x1TB RAID-5 array. It contains backups of my other 
machines, taken with rsync. It's my central filestore, rsync'ed locally 
so I have previous editions. It also holds my media archive, and in 
particular my music collection that I really don't want to have to rip 
again. So while part of it is backup for other systems, part of it needs 
backed up. I'd like some means of coping with fire or theft of the 
server. I want something with some room to expand, which can do the 
whole job unattended. So what would the storage professionals here 
recommend? Tape autoloaders big enough to cope with >2TB seem stunningly 
expensive to me; even the tapes are as expensive per GB as hard drives...

Thanks in advance,

Cheers,

John.

Re: [OT] If RAID's not backup... what do you use?

[Justin Piszcz]

On Fri, 21 Nov 2008, John Robinson wrote:

> I currently have a 3x1TB RAID-5 array. It contains backups of my other 
> machines, taken with rsync. It's my central filestore, rsync'ed locally so I 
> have previous editions. It also holds my media archive, and in particular my 
> music collection that I really don't want to have to rip again. So while part 
> of it is backup for other systems, part of it needs backed up. I'd like some 
> means of coping with fire or theft of the server. I want something with some 
> room to expand, which can do the whole job unattended. So what would the 
> storage professionals here recommend? Tape autoloaders big enough to cope 
> with >2TB seem stunningly expensive to me; even the tapes are as expensive 
> per GB as hard drives...

The cheapest method?

Create another host, rsync + tar daily to the other host with the same 
configuration.

Justin.

Re: [OT] If RAID's not backup... what do you use?

[Wolfgang Denk]

Dear John,

In message <49267F25.4080806@anonymous.org.uk> you wrote:
> I currently have a 3x1TB RAID-5 array. It contains backups of my other 
> machines, taken with rsync. It's my central filestore, rsync'ed locally 
> so I have previous editions. It also holds my media archive, and in 
> particular my music collection that I really don't want to have to rip 
> again. So while part of it is backup for other systems, part of it needs 
> backed up. I'd like some means of coping with fire or theft of the 
> server. I want something with some room to expand, which can do the 
> whole job unattended. So what would the storage professionals here 
> recommend? Tape autoloaders big enough to cope with >2TB seem stunningly 
> expensive to me; even the tapes are as expensive per GB as hard drives...

If price maters, buy the previous-to-current technology used on eBay
or similar - say, some LTO2 autoloader/

Tapes can be stored savely for several years. Ever tried to  start  a
disk that has been stored (afther having been used for some time) for
- say - 5 years?

Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

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