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redundant / remote server options input wanted

W

Wang191

[H]ard|Gawd
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Nov 30, 2000
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I currently have an IDE Raid5 setup. It's really slow and I just had a drive disconnect itself. I need to rebuild that drive still, but it made me think.
I really dont know if i trust the raid5 it's nice because it offers a lot of storage and some protection from a drive failure but i just dont trust that i wont get more than one failure at a time.
I am very protective of my data and right now I have 1 TB of storage in this raid.

Ok that's the back story. here is where i'm at now.
What i'm looking to do is have some kind of redundant system as well as a system where i can have a backup that i can trasnport to a different location once or twice per month.

I was thinking of putting 3 pairs of 250 gig drives in raid 1 which would equal 750 gigs of storage (i dont mind going from 1tb to 750 because i can always add one more pair of 250 gig drives later to get me back to 1TB) and then swaping out the redundant drive every two weeks with another from a different location and having it rebuild. I dont know if i like that option because of having to rebuild every time.

Then i was thinking maybe i should keep the raid5 and then build another server with a raid 5 of the same size and use a data replication software to keep the two servers up to date. Then have a second set of hard drives for the second server where i can power down the server, pull out one set of drives, and then replace them with the drives from the backup location every two weeks. The replication software should be able to see what data needs to be transfered back and then update that second set of drives.

One reason i wasnt sure about these system is because in the case of theft or fire in the server I want the drives to be able to be read in another comptuer with out having to buy the controller card again. I want to be able to get at the data really easily.

I dont really want to do the second server idea because i dont have the money to build it right now but i might be able to find the money to do it if necessary.

if anyone has any ideas on how to have redundant data and a good backup please send them my way.

Thanks
 
Maybe i should do just the raid5 with three 400 gig hd's and a backup software that can span drives. Then I can just have a second set of 400 gig drives for backup at a different location that i backup every now and then.

again help appreciated
 
Use Linux; then you don't have to worry about the drives not being readable in another machine. Software raid is plenty fast for most things. It also has (experimental and I haven't tried it) raid 6 support for multiple redundancy. SW raid also lets you build interesting combinations like raid 0+1 or 5+1 or whatever you want.

 
you can also do a software raid with windows xp, 2003 or x64. There's built in support for raid 0 or 1 and with a few registry hacks you can open raid 5 support. Google it, its not very hard. And then you have a system that you aren't dependant on a raid controller for. Any windows xp box can read it.
 
is software raid 1 fast in windows xp? or will i suffer a performance hit?
 
I was just thinking maybe this would be a good option.

If i take 6 250 gig drives and I dont raid them or anything.
4 drives will be normal usage and then I can take 2 drives and compress them and use them as backup drives. Every night or two I can set retrospect or one of those software pacakges (havn't figured out which one i want to use yet) to backup to those compressed drives (which I will only put in the system when the backup is scheduled to take place).

thoughts?
 
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