What am I missing?

From: John Chris Wren <jcwren_at_jcwren.com>
Date: Fri Feb 8 21:43:33 2002

        Be aware that while RAID-1 is adequate (for small definitions of adequate)
protection against HD failures, it does NOTHING about filesystem errors. If
you have a stray process that's capable of writing to the drive, you can
just as easily wipe out both drives at the same time. A good instance is
one or two recent kernel versions of Linux that caused corrupt filesystems
because of journalling problems.

        --John

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org
> [mailto:owner-classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Jerome Fine
> Sent: Friday, February 08, 2002 21:50 PM
> To: classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org
> Subject: OT: What am I missing?
>
>
> I have a problem - am I the one at fault?
>
> I am upgrading to a "newer" system and one of my concerns is adequate
> backup. Normally, I do a full backup about once a day - or once every
> other day. It has been suggested that the "newer" have a "RAID 1"
> controller which would use two 40 GByte EIDE drives. A "RAID 1"
> system uses two disk drives and keeps two copies of ALL files
> at all times. This provides a duplicate set of images - so that
> even if there are only intermittent errors with one drive, I would be
> aware of the problems before both drives became bad and (normally)
> have time to make a complete backup before I replace the bad drive.
>
> However, I am experiencing two difficulties:
>
> (a) The firmware/software for the "RAID 1" controller seems to
> NOT have anything that will alert the user to be able to identify
> which disk drive might be bad even after a drive failure, let alone
> intermittent errors.
>
> (b) Even though my current files are (seemingly) all correct and
> I have two duplicate copies, when I said that I was was going to
> restore from my initial back-up from CD (I currently have no
> data files, just the installed software), I was looked at as if
> I was a bit crazy - why would I do a recovery if there is nothing
> wrong? Even though I attempted to explain that a full back-up
> includes the total recovery from scratch - at least a few times
> at the beginning to establish that the procedure works, that attitude
> is considered overcautious to say the least - at the worst it is:
>
> "So what if you loose all you files, you can always rebuild the
> system from scratch if you have to?" These individuals seem
> to have never heard of data files - like in a legal office, the
> client records don't need to be kept since everything in published
> law books is how to start all over again after a fire.
>
> Is this attitude common in industry? Am I wrong? I know that
> my wife has a cousin who works for an accountant who
> NEVER makes a back-up of the client files.
>
> If I am correct, is there any way to get my point across or is
> this a Catch-22 situation?
>
>
Received on Fri Feb 08 2002 - 21:43:33 GMT