Hi BobH, On Wednesday, December 19, 2001, 3:23:14 PM, you brought forth from the deepest reaches of your consciousness:
B> I am considering installing a new server (samba) for file and print serving B> a small medical office. I have never used raid before and I have a B> questions before I buy. B> 1. Should I buy a hardware raid device or rely on software raid? That's a cost/benefit issue. You should weigh your goals against your budget. B> 2. Should the OS be installed on the raid or on another separate device B> and then let the raid handle all the data files? In this case I would B> place the print servers on the boot device with the OS. B> I figure I could resinstall the OS easily but the data is the part that we B> don't want to lose -- ever! If the main goal is data integrity, where you put the OS is of little consequence (IMHO). If you expect high loads it will be to your benefit. Either way, you should look into imaging the OS prior to use (but after configuration) so you don't have to reinstall, just re-image. B> 3. Probably most important, is raid just overkill for a small office as B> long as tape backups can be made nightly and if we are down for 3-4 hours B> for a reinstall we can live with it - although not without some angst. Quite possibly. But again this is something you need to asses. Is the time you will spend setting this up, maintaining, etc. plus the additional hardware costs (multiple drives, possible RAID controller, etc.) worth what your benefits would be (speed, reliability, etc.). A small office may never even notice the benefits. Especially in a file/print sharing scenario. Things to consider are... How often do files get accessed? What level of data integrity is needed? Will this solve my (anticipated) problem? etc... B> 4. If I go with a raid, is tape backup still necessary on a daily basis? ALWAYS DO BACKUPS!!! RAID is not some magic solution that would eliminate the many ways that data can get destroyed. B> 5. What is considered the best tape backup program (GUI interface please B> for this relative neophyte)? For back-ups there are too many choices that vary in validity based on budget/features, so I'll leave that to others. But tar from a cron job is as effective as almost anything out there. Just not pretty. ;) For the aforementioned imaging, try Mondo. http://www.microwerks.net/~hugo/index.html Have fun, -- _________________________________________________________________ Brian Ashe CTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dee-Web Software Services, LLC. http://www.dee-web.com/ ----------------------------------------------------------------- You don't have to swim faster than the shark... You just have to swim faster than the people you're with. _______________________________________________ Redhat-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/redhat-list
