On 2 Oct 2007 at 13:19, Schlake wrote:
> CDs are scary, and small. DVDs are just as scary, and almost as
> small. I would never trust either of them to be a sole copy. I'd
> trust two CDs or two DVDs to be a backup for as much as three months,
> but not much longer. If you are spending the $5-$10 a pop for
> archival quality media, then I'd extend their lifetime, but not the
> need for two copies. That is two copies assuming that you also have
> them on a spinning hard drive. External hard drives seem too frail,
> too ephemeral, and too easy to misplace.
>
> My pictures are on software mirrored hard drives. I've seen too many
> spectacular failures in proprietary raid hardware to risk my data to
> one. I can't afford a real backup system (off site tape and robot) so
> I live with the risk of catastrophic loss from theft or fire.
And then lightning struck....;))
And your dilemma's certainly don't have to be; AccuSys makes
wonderful lovely hardware RAID 0/1/5 configurations, which the PC
regards as just an ordinary disk-drive; using 1x or 2x 5.25" bays,
IDE-PATA & SATA, 3.5" or 2.5" (in case of 1x 5.25" bay) with hot-swap
backup-functionality in RAID-1 context (and no proprietary protocol
of course)....and there is even a triple RAID-1 model with
integrated/timed 3rd backup disk.
Add an external housing with eSATA or any USB/Firewire adapter, and
you could even put that housing in a fireproof safe.
(but in the external department, there are far more suppliers on the
market....the only trick is finding those with hot-swappable trays,
for every possible backup scenario)
> The
> likelihood of any pair of mirrored drives failing simultaneously seems
> small enough that I'm not worried.
And then lightning struck....;))
Putting an UPS inbetween is half the trick (also against power
surges, up and down).
> By keeping the mirror in software
> I'm not very worried about a hardware failure toasting all the drives.
> My current set up isn't ideal, since I have mirrored pairs sharing a
> drive controller, though. I should fix that someday and make sure
> both sides are always on separate controllers.
--
Bye,
Willem-Jan Markerink
The desire to understand
is sometimes far less intelligent than
the inability to understand
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
[note: 'a-one' & 'en-el'!]
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