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Raid 1 for backup

R

ribs1

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 2, 2005
Messages
216
Hello experts,
I had an argument with a coworker today that I hope you guys can solve for me. We do onsite computer support for small businesses. A lot of our clients have basic file servers that we build. My partner usually sets them up with raid 1 for backup. Usually 3 80gig drives, 2 of them in raid 1 and swapping out the 3rd drive everyday. I generally think this a bad idea but I don't have much info to back up my theory. I usually set up my clients with raid 1 or raid 5 for redundancy and back them up with something else like a tape drive, internet backup, external hard drive etc. The upside that I can see is with raid 1 backup, if they need to be recovered, the entire HD Image is on that 3rd disk and they could be back up and running quickly. I'm not sure the downside, but it seems like a bad idea to me to rebuild the array every day. Can you guys give me more downsides to using raid 1 for backup? It seems to me that Raid is for redunance, not backup

Just to give you more info, most of our cheap file servers are as follows
3.0ghz Intel P4 600 series
2-74 gig raptors raid 1 (with extra drive), or 3-74 gig raptors raid 5
1 gig kingston ram
usually use onboard raid controller, sometimes use promise sata raid controller
Antec sonata case
2003 server

Thanks
ribs
 
Is it like this:

Disk 1 + Disk 2 in the server, Disk 3 offsite.
Time for next backup:
Disk 1 + Disk 3 (rebuilt off Disk 1) in the server, Disk 2 offsite

If so, that dosen't sound too bad to me. The problem with RAID is that although it protects against a drive failure, there are many other things that can destroy the array (virus, blown power supply, tornado, etc.). This RAID-1 swapping could help protect against this, while RAID-5 wouldn't. The advantage that a 3 disk RAID-5 has over a 3 disk RAID-1 is that you get double the capacity. However, it seems that the same effect can be accomplished with just cloning the main drive every once in a while
 
RAID 1 is not a backup solution. It is for uptime and uptime only.

You have a more foolproof solution than your co-worker does.

With hard drives the thing is...hard drives fail and will fail more often than tapes will ever even think of. Disks are faster in the short term but when one craps out...

I don't know, I'm actually a little torn. You'd want to have a RAID solution along with a solid tape backup to be the best off. It can go either way.

But honestly, when it comes down to it: You pay to play.
 
my dream backup/file server would be:


Drive 1 + Drive 2 + Drive 3 in RAID 5
Drive 4 + Drive 5 in RAID 1 backing up the RAID 5 array every so often.
 
feigned said:
RAID 1 is not a backup solution. It is for uptime and uptime only.

You have a more foolproof solution than your co-worker does.

With hard drives the thing is...hard drives fail and will fail more often than tapes will ever even think of. Disks are faster in the short term but when one craps out...

I don't know, I'm actually a little torn. You'd want to have a RAID solution along with a solid tape backup to be the best off. It can go either way.

But honestly, when it comes down to it: You pay to play.
Click to expand...

This is correct, RAID has never been and never will be a backup solution. It's for redundancy and reduced downtime only. A backup will never be contained in the same box as the originals. There are way too many things that go wrong on a regular basis that can take out everything in the box.

While the solution your coworker has come up with can work, it has a lot of problems with it. For one, it's time and disk intensive to keep swapping out drives like that. It also increases the chances of failure for all disks. The more handling of a hard drive and the more it's moved around, the more likely it will fail. Secondly, as already mentioned, hard drives fail on a regular basis. It is not a long term storage method even if it is kept under ideal circumstances which in this case it cannot be. There are way too many moving parts in a hard drive to ever consider it a true method of backup.

Tape or something like DVD or CD sounds like the best option for this. Yes, DVD or CD can be somewhat costly, but probbaly nowhere near as costly as losing all the data which is unlikely with CD, DVD or tape. They are much more safer methods of backup in every way.

 
ribs1 said:
Hello experts,
I had an argument with a coworker today that I hope you guys can solve for me. We do onsite computer support for small businesses. A lot of our clients have basic file servers that we build. My partner usually sets them up with raid 1 for backup. Usually 3 80gig drives, 2 of them in raid 1 and swapping out the 3rd drive everyday. I generally think this a bad idea but I don't have much info to back up my theory. I usually set up my clients with raid 1 or raid 5 for redundancy and back them up with something else like a tape drive, internet backup, external hard drive etc. The upside that I can see is with raid 1 backup, if they need to be recovered, the entire HD Image is on that 3rd disk and they could be back up and running quickly. I'm not sure the downside, but it seems like a bad idea to me to rebuild the array every day. Can you guys give me more downsides to using raid 1 for backup? It seems to me that Raid is for redunance, not backup
Click to expand...

Downsides

Server at risk for unnecessary downtime during RAID rebuild
Rebuild causes server to operate less efficiently during the rebuild process
Daily hdd hotswapping will cause premature failure of connectors.
Risk of rebuilding the "old" hdd onto the "new" hdd (depends on controller used as well as specific steps needed to rebuild the array)

By only using 3 hdds you essentially only have the previous days data, what if the office needs to restore data or a database from several days ago?

While using RAID in that manner may provide a reduced time to bring the server back online, it is not a well balanced solution in regards to other typical business needs.
 
SJConsultant said:
Downsides

Server at risk for unnecessary downtime during RAID rebuild
Rebuild causes server to operate less efficiently during the rebuild process
Daily hdd hotswapping will cause premature failure of connectors.
Risk of rebuilding the "old" hdd onto the "new" hdd (depends on controller used as well as specific steps needed to rebuild the array)

By only using 3 hdds you essentially only have the previous days data, what if the office needs to restore data or a database from several days ago?

While using RAID in that manner may provide a reduced time to bring the server back online, it is not a well balanced solution in regards to other typical business needs.
Click to expand...

QFT.

I often pull a month old, or even a 6 month old tape out of storage to restore a file that was accidentally deleted.

And the most likely time for a failure is durring a rebuild (most drive activity) so with a daily rebuild you are increasing the chanse of failure greatly.

==>Lazn
 
Thanks Guys,
Looks like lots of support for my argument and not much for his. Doubt I can convince him though.
ribs
 
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