[ale] RAID, IDE and/or Linux

[Danny Cox]

On Sat, 2002-02-16 at 10:21, David Corbin wrote:
> I'm contemplating setting up a "big file server" to act as storage for 
> all my "personal critical data".  This will include source control for 
> home projects, digital pictures, ripped CDs, digitized audio, and 
> perhaps even some video eventually - other stuff too, I'm sure.. 
>  Naturally, the server will run Linux. Because of the great volume of 
> data that will not be replaceable, I'm contemplating a RAID solution. 
>  This is for "backup and reliability", rather than for "speed".  I am 
> not so silly to think that this server will survive the rest of my life 
> as is, however it is my intent that this be a place to be data I wish to 
> keep the rest of my life.   However, I don't want to spend "lots" of 
> time administrating it, or doing maintenance every week.

	One thing I've not seen mentioned yet is using a journalling file
system.  This is just further hedging your bets.  A wrinkle we're using
here is using LVM to provide snapshots too.  A snapshot is simply a
filesystem that's frozen in time, and can be mounted seperatly from the
main (which keeps on chugging along), and a consistent backup
performed.  After that the snapshot can go away.

	We implemented that as (top to bottom) XFS -> LVM -> RAID {0,1,5} ->
IDE disks.

	Just FYI.

-- 
kernel, n.: A part of an operating system that preserves the
medieval traditions of sorcery and black art.

Danny


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