[ale] raid suggestions

[Geoffrey Myers]

Jeff Hubbs wrote:
> So we've all gone down all these different roads and we still don't have 
> the hardware/usage story from the OP?

Well, now it's changed substantially. :(  Initially, was planning on 
replacing existing file server with better hardware.  Now they tell me 
they are purchasing an application, which of course, only runs on 
windows, thus they need the new server to run windows.  Just the same, 
the client has about 15 desktop machines that connect to an (existing) 
Linux box for sharing documents.

> 
> On 2/10/12 1:01 PM, Pat Regan wrote:
>> On Fri, 10 Feb 2012 04:44:38 -0500
>> Jim Lynch<ale_nospam at fayettedigital.com>  wrote:
>>
>>> Has the concern about the possibility of the hardware controller
>>> breaking and being out of production been eliminated?
>> Whether the card is out of production or not may not matter much in the
>> middle of the day when the controller decides to fail.  You'll still
>> either have to own a spare or you'll have to be able to actually
>> purchase one nearby.  Depending on your scale, buying that spare may be
>> a sizable amount of your server budget.
>>
>> Almost all the arguments I've seen in favor of using hardware instead of
>> software RAID are either completely untrue or were a true for a short
>> window around 10 years ago.
>>
>>> That of course can be alleviated by proper backups.  I always thought
>>> that was somewhat meaningless in a lot of cases 'cause I'd think many
>>> raid installations were to support a backup set of drives.  Not all,
>>> of course, but surely that's a common purpose for a raid set.
>> RAID is not a replacement for backups.  Your RAID only helps protect
>> you from disk failures and reduce the risk of downtime.  It won't
>> protect you from many kinds of data corruption or from user error.
>>
>> Pat
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-- 
Until later, Geoffrey

"I predict future happiness for America if they can prevent
the government from wasting the labors of the people under
the pretense of taking care of them."
- Thomas Jefferson