[list] [ale] Need advice on home back-up solution

[dcorbin at machturtle.com (David Corbin)]

On Sunday 28 September 2003 16:14, Geoffrey wrote:
> Greg wrote:
> > Since the $/GB factor seems in many respects to favor hard drives,
> > why don't you install a removable hard drive bay and buy another HD ?
> > That is what I did for a friend recently.  I installed 2 hard drives
> > in a software RAID mirror configuration.  When he leaves for the
> > weekend, he powers down the file server, takes out the 2nd HD and
> > places it into a fire proof safe.  The removable hard drive bays are
> > about $15 to $35 in cost.  They use a key to lock down the HD upon
> > insertion.  The solution seems to fulfill all of his needs, which
> > seem to reflect yours.
>
> First of all, that sounds like a big pain in the ass. :)  

It is unfortuntate that you have to power down to swap drives, but it's not 
the end of the world.


> Further, a
> harddrive just isn't as durable as a tape.  You probably don't want to
> chunk the tape backup into the trunk of your car, but you could.  I
> wouldn't do that with the drive.  I guess it also depends on how you
> feel about having an offsite backup.  If your drives are all in the same
> place, you're not protected.  

I just take one off to the safe deposit box periodically. 

> Sure, the cost of a big drive is cheaper
> than a tape device, but that drive will eventually fill up, unless
> you're just blowing away your previous backup, which would mean you
> don't have a very robust backup solution.  If you cost out drives vs.
> tapes per gig, I suspect you'll eventually win on the tape side.
>

 I have a backup for 2 reasons: 1 Hard drives fail (often, compared to other 
computer components) and true disaster (house burns down).  I don't need a 
backup of anything more than a day old.  Two disks meet this needs.

Tapes are not really very good long-term storage.  I often run into trouble 
trying to read a tape that wasn't "just written". 

I figure the chances of both my mirrored drives + the offsite drive failing at 
the same time are very small.  The trick is not to procrastinate when one 
DOES fail.

David Corbin <dcorbin at machturtle.com>