On Sat, Nov 21, 2009 at 12:06 AM, Mauro Rezzonico <l...@ch23.org> wrote:
> Darrin Chandler wrote: > >> If you're doing RAID for redundancy/safety then there are some things to >> consider: >> > > No. I am considering Raid, RAID1, in this case, mainly for *UPTIME*... > > * with RAID, you should still do backups >> > > I do my backups very well, thanks... > > Point here is that I am not considering raid as an alternative to backup, > but as a way to keep the system up... > > Please correct me if I am wrong, but when your drive fails you have *TWO* > problems: > > 1) you have to restore from your (well kept, well done, well designed and > well verified) backups (a big *IF*, if I can say); > > 2) the system is down until you restore everything; > > So, either you have the luxury (or the need) of a hot spare machine... > Or a raid solution can /help/ you recover more quickly... or not? > > Please note that although raid and/or backups and how they are configured > in respect to each other and how they are deployed is a *very* fascinating > topic (and I am *very* interested in hearing everybody's ideas, opinions, > experiences on this) actually this is an off topic debate... Because my > original question was indeed very narrow: "Hardware or Software?" > Software. If you go hardware you will get married to your hardware's vendor, which is typically costly and requires you to have +X spares for the controller. Software is hardware independent (you only depend on the OS). With hardware RAID you depend on the hardware (to run the RAID) and the OS (to use the filesystem or volumes on top of the RAID). > > I think we all got sucked into a very > serious/complex/fascinating/interesting/whatever issue, that of how to make > your system more reliable, in these difficult days of complex network > architectures... > > But this is just a "can of worms"... I wouldn't dare to mail such a > question to the list... > You see: > - what if you have raid level whatever everywhere? > - what if you can implement hot spare machines? > - what if your valuable data is mainly into a RDMS? > - what if your disks are cheap and your cpus are expensive? > - what if your disks are expensive and your cpus are cheap? > - what if you are using VMs? > - what if you just use ZFS everywhere (sorry I couldn't resist)? > - what if you are on the "cloud" (sorry I couldn't resist)? > > I appreciate your post, don't get me wrong, the problem of making a network > infrastructure rock solid and totally reliable is probably the secret dream > of every respectable net administrator... > But I think we must chop the problem in swallow-able pieces... > > -- > Mauro Rezzonico <ma...@ch23.org>, Como, Italia > "Maybe this world is another planet's hell" - H.Huxley > > -- http://www.felipe-alfaro.org/blog/disclaimer/
