On using Firewire drives for backups (was: Re: SCSI Disk/Controller advice please - fun - usb)
On Oct 30 2004, Ron Johnson wrote: On Sat, 2004-10-30 at 00:33 -0700, Alvin Oga wrote: but people still think usb hd is what they want geez... ( it's their $$$ for time and hw ) That's why I voted with my $$$ for a firewire enclosure That's what I did also: motivated by the good performance of my iPod when connected the Firewire port of my iBook both under MacOS X and under Linux and looking to be as prepared as possible in the event of crash recovery, I bought myself a Firewire enclosure for an IDE drive and a vanilla Firewire card for my Desktop. I have been quite happy with this strategy ever since. And the nice point is that current Linux kernels are able to use HFS+ quite well, which is a good compromise between a filesystem that can be used with Linux and with other OSes (it allows symlinks, which VFAT doesn't and it can be journaled, which VFAT also doesn't allow). -- Learn to quote e-mails decently at: http://pub.tsn.dk/how-to-quote.php http://learn.to/quote http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/toppost.htm -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: SCSI Disk/Controller advice please - fun
On Fri, 2004-10-29 at 21:25 -0700, Alvin Oga wrote: hi ya ron On Fri, 29 Oct 2004, Ron Johnson wrote: I've been using h/w RAID for 10 years, in everything from 60GB (using scads of 4GB devices) to 15TB SANs using 147GB devices, and have *never* *ever* seen what you suggest. I would, literally, fall over dead if I ever saw that happening. good , lucky for you ... i seen people do it ... and screw up their mirrors and data Sounds like user error to me. So, what's SCA? None of these controllers says SCA... sca is the silly removable connector on the disk and in the chassis to allow oyu to remove the disk A truly uninformed statement, by someone who must not have ever needed to pull a drive out of a running system. SCA is a great and useful idea, and I wish there was something similar for internal IDE drives. since you're the expert, perhaps you can tell everybody what that connector is called that is used in the hotswap drive bays - the connector that goes on the disk - the connector that goes on the drive bay or chassis Never said I was the expert. Our SysAdmins are the experts. And they have to swap drives out of running systems on a reasonably frequent basis (it's a 24x365 data center, and there are *lots* of disks in the various SANs, NASs, direct-connect racks), and so hot plugging + SCA is very useful. and again, there is a silly equivalent thingies for IDE ... i have some - and again, on the ide drive bays, what is that connector called - but, the problem with IDE is that the ide drivers is NOT meant to hotswap and i've seen pepople pulling out disks too .. wonder why some of them call in a panic ? Yeah, I know. That's why I *wish* there was something similar for internal IDE drives. FireWire800 will be a big step in the right direction, since I can already get 1/2 of IDE speeds with my FW400 drive (an old Maxtor 60GB drive). -- - Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson, LA USA PGP Key ID 8834C06B Everybody today seems to be in such a terrible rush, anxious for greater developments and greater riches and so on, so that children have very little time for their parents. Parents have very little time for each other, and in the home begins the disruption of peace of the world. Mother Teresa signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: SCSI Disk/Controller advice please - fun
hi ya ron On Sat, 30 Oct 2004, Ron Johnson wrote: Sounds like user error to me. yes... and/or more likely, initial system config errors .. Never said I was the expert. Our SysAdmins are the experts. :-) And they have to swap drives out of running systems on a reasonably frequent basis (it's a 24x365 data center, and there are *lots* of disks in the various SANs, NASs, direct-connect racks), and so hot plugging + SCA is very useful. if the disks are dying ... and are still under warranty .. - the disks are probably running too hot - the disks are probably a bad batch from the manufacturer - somebody dropped the box of disks during shipping one time too many - i say, disks do NOT die ... fans die 5x - 10x more often Yeah, I know. That's why I *wish* there was something similar for internal IDE drives. one should be able to fake an ide disk to look like a hot swap ide disk ... but nobody makes that connector... and i keep wondering why not it's simple ... all disks have a ready signal - missing/dead disks means drive not ready which should force the ide device driver to try again FireWire800 will be a big step in the right direction, since I can already get 1/2 of IDE speeds with my FW400 drive (an old Maxtor 60GB drive). i think firewire had its day and its dying ... usb is taking over c ya alvin -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: SCSI Disk/Controller advice please - fun
On Sat, 2004-10-30 at 00:18 -0700, Alvin Oga wrote: hi ya ron On Sat, 30 Oct 2004, Ron Johnson wrote: [snip] FireWire800 will be a big step in the right direction, since I can already get 1/2 of IDE speeds with my FW400 drive (an old Maxtor 60GB drive). i think firewire had its day and its dying ... usb is taking over Blech. USB2 HDDs are *SLOW*. -- - Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson, LA USA PGP Key ID 8834C06B Has there ever been a war between two democracies? signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: SCSI Disk/Controller advice please - fun - usb
On Sat, 30 Oct 2004, Ron Johnson wrote: i think firewire had its day and its dying ... usb is taking over Blech. USB2 HDDs are *SLOW*. yup... almost as fast as floppies .. :-) but people still think usb hd is what they want geez... ( it's their $$$ for time and hw ) and hopefully security is a non issue, when one is allowing usb disks to be plugged in at any time c ya alvin -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: SCSI Disk/Controller advice please - fun - usb
On Sat, 2004-10-30 at 00:33 -0700, Alvin Oga wrote: On Sat, 30 Oct 2004, Ron Johnson wrote: i think firewire had its day and its dying ... usb is taking over Blech. USB2 HDDs are *SLOW*. yup... almost as fast as floppies .. :-) but people still think usb hd is what they want geez... ( it's their $$$ for time and hw ) That's why I voted with my $$$ for a firewire enclosure and hopefully security is a non issue, when one is allowing usb disks to be plugged in at any time That's goes for any external JBOD drive. -- - Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson, LA USA PGP Key ID 8834C06B NAMBLA - Nat'l Assoc of Marlon Brando Look-Alikes (Yes, it's a South Park reference.) signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: SCSI Disk/Controller advice please - fun - usb
On Sat, 30 Oct 2004, Ron Johnson wrote: and hopefully security is a non issue, when one is allowing usb disks to be plugged in at any time That's goes for any external JBOD drive. lot harder to hide a disk ... in ones shirt pocket and walk out :-) - cell phones with camera is no picnic either - rogue laptops sniffing your wireless traffic - another ball game for cover ones butt ( aka protect your servers ) have fun ron ... :-) dis ole boy need to get some stuff done .. c ya alvin -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: SCSI Disk/Controller advice please - fun
hi ya On Sat, 30 Oct 2004, Joao Clemente wrote: I'm getting a completly new server (P4 3Ghz, Dual-Channel DDR 400, MB with intel chipset) and, while I have a good ideia on these components, I would like to setup a RAID-1 system with SCSI disks... there is zero point ot setting up raid-1 if you do not need to be online 24x7 Uh, no. If the data is important to you, raid1 is always the best choice. If performance, mirror two stripe (raid0) sets. problem with raid1 ( aka mirror ) - if one disk goes bad, the other disk will copy that bad info onto the good disk the whole point of mirror, both disk is identical Completely false. Physical disk errors mirrored by raid? No, No, No. Fat fingered deletes? Yes. I'm looking for advice on these: wich scsi controller should I buy? Software or Hardware RAID-1? Wich disk brand? (I'm getting a couple of 36GB, it is more than enough space for my setup) if you insist on using raid1 ... do software raid1 so you can monitor it and maintain it whatever if you use hw raid1, you will suffer from not being able to monitor it and at the mercy of the hw vendor to provide you monitoring/maintenance tools - for the costs of the $200 hw raid1 controller, you can buy how many additional disks to do your mirroring with rsync and tar and other backup apps This is hackery, and is completely inappropriate in many situations. Which are the tradeoffs of hard vs software raid1? What happens/How do we proceed if 1 disk fails (how do we know it, how do we replace/resync them?) with raid1 .. you're gonna be S.O.L if one disk dies in a bad way that will make the good disk also go bad Nonsense. -- _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ ( t | i | m | @ | i | t | . | k | p | t | . | c | c ) \_/ \_/ \_/ \_/ \_/ \_/ \_/ \_/ \_/ \_/ \_/ \_/ \_/ GPG key fingerprint = 1DEE CD9B 4808 F608 FBBF DC21 2807 D7D3 09CA 85BF -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: SCSI Disk/Controller advice please - fun
hi ya On Sat, 30 Oct 2004, Joao Clemente wrote: I'm getting a completly new server (P4 3Ghz, Dual-Channel DDR 400, MB with intel chipset) and, while I have a good ideia on these components, I would like to setup a RAID-1 system with SCSI disks... there is zero point ot setting up raid-1 if you do not need to be online 24x7 problem with raid1 ( aka mirror ) - if one disk goes bad, the other disk will copy that bad info onto the good disk the whole point of mirror, both disk is identical I'm looking for advice on these: wich scsi controller should I buy? Software or Hardware RAID-1? Wich disk brand? (I'm getting a couple of 36GB, it is more than enough space for my setup) if you insist on using raid1 ... do software raid1 so you can monitor it and maintain it if you use hw raid1, you will suffer from not being able to monitor it and at the mercy of the hw vendor to provide you monitoring/maintenance tools - for the costs of the $200 hw raid1 controller, you can buy how many additional disks to do your mirroring with rsync and tar and other backup apps Which are the tradeoffs of hard vs software raid1? What happens/How do we proceed if 1 disk fails (how do we know it, how do we replace/resync them?) with raid1 .. you're gonna be S.O.L if one disk dies in a bad way that will make the good disk also go bad Seagate Cheetah 10K 68 pin,36Gb - 160 EUR you're best bet but even better if you use ide sisks ... 250GB disks for $150 or 40GB disk for $40 ... buy 4 disks ... why mirror to only 1 disk - Controllers Several Adaptec SCSI Cards from 200 to 400 EUR, wich can have: - 32 or 64bit there is zero point in plugging an expensive 64-bit controller into a 32bit slot - 160MB or Ultra320 get ultra320 if you can ... and the ribbon cable to support that speed get adapaptec ... all other scsi controllers are NOT on the radar screen - Raid (or not, when they say nothing.. I think) (the RAID ones start at 400 EUR and I've seen up to 950 EUR) for that costs.. why is it an option ... you can build 1 or 2 whole/complete systems for redundant power supply, redundant motherboard, redundant disks, redundant memory, etc, etc.. not just one disk mirrored to another disk on the same system Damn... Really confused... Please confirm these toughs also: :-) UltraWideSCSI = 68 pin ... What is 2, 3 or 4 ?!? These seem what sthe rest of the context ?? scsi-2 scsi-3 scsi-4?? ( i don't think scsi goes up that far) similar to ATA 66/100/133 - the bus speed, is that it? yeah.. maybe .. depending on where you 2 and 3 came from http://www.linux-1u.net/Disks/ata.gwif.html http://www.linux-1u.net/Disks/scsi.gwif.html So, what's SCA? None of these controllers says SCA... sca is the silly removable connector on the disk and in the chassis to allow oyu to remove the disk Ps: I supose getting a SCSI crontroller built-in on the motherboard is stupid? Those are low-value/performance controllers? onboard controllers are brain-dead and worthless but its very good for teaching why you dont want to use it vs getting an adaptec to lsi logic scsi controller if you insist on scsi c ya alvin -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: SCSI Disk/Controller advice please - fun
Hi Alvin, thanks for the quick reply. Some comments and questions, tough: Alvin Oga wrote: On Sat, 30 Oct 2004, Joao Clemente wrote: I'm getting a completly new server (P4 3Ghz, Dual-Channel DDR 400, MB with intel chipset) and, while I have a good ideia on these components, I would like to setup a RAID-1 system with SCSI disks... there is zero point ot setting up raid-1 if you do not need to be online 24x7 ?!? What if a drive fails while on those 12h/day where people are actually using them? This will be a fileserver where documents are constantly changed/added/removed during the work hours! problem with raid1 ( aka mirror ) - if one disk goes bad, the other disk will copy that bad info onto the good disk the whole point of mirror, both disk is identical Well, I never used it before, I tought it was somewhat smarter... like mirror UNTIL a drive goes bad. At that point stop mirroring, ignore failed drive, alert someone [...] if you insist on using raid1 ... do software raid1 so you can monitor it and maintain it if you use hw raid1, you will suffer from not being able to monitor it and at the mercy of the hw vendor to provide you monitoring/maintenance tools I see your point. Very good point! - for the costs of the $200 hw raid1 controller, you can buy how many additional disks to do your mirroring with rsync and tar and other backup apps How diferent is a every minute cronjob rsync'ing content in both drives to RAID1 (regarding the problem you stated above): bad info gets sync'ed to the good disk anyway... doesn't it? Which are the tradeoffs of hard vs software raid1? What happens/How do we proceed if 1 disk fails (how do we know it, how do we replace/resync them?) with raid1 .. you're gonna be S.O.L if one disk dies in a bad way that will make the good disk also go bad A drive failure may lock the whole disk array? there is zero point in plugging an expensive 64-bit controller into a 32bit slot :-) Stupid of me for asking this one... heheheh Thanks Joao Clemente -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: SCSI Disk/Controller advice please - fun
hi ya On Sat, 30 Oct 2004, Joao Clemente wrote: ?!? What if a drive fails while on those 12h/day where people are actually using them? This will be a fileserver where documents are constantly changed/added/removed during the work hours! have 2 file servers ... - your fans is more likely to die than the disk - the ethernet cable will be wiggled loose while you're on vacation - when a fan dies.. you're dead ... everything will die too - when a power supply fan dies, its a matter of months before your cpu, memory, disks, power spply( days ) to all start to die ( its fun to see people wonder why their system dies when the ps ( fan is dead .. always put 3-4 extra fans in the regular midtower box - lots of ways for things to fail ... disks being the least of the problems if you bought good stuff from known-good reliable stores Well, I never used it before, I tought it was somewhat smarter... like mirror UNTIL a drive goes bad. At that point stop mirroring, ignore failed drive, alert someone data is written to disk1 ... and mirror to disk2/.. but if disk2's disk sector arrives under the head first, it is written first and mirrored to disk1 later when disk1 is not bz - it's a 2 way mirror - how does the systme know that the file is bad/corrupted, vs the file you did mean to erase on both disks ( tricky stuff ... though it can be done when one is careful ) I see your point. Very good point! sw monitoring is trivial .. monitor anything and everything till you're blue and tired of monitoring it How diferent is a every minute cronjob rsync'ing content in both drives to RAID1 (regarding the problem you stated above): bad info gets sync'ed to the good disk anyway... doesn't it? manually doing 2 way mirroring is too whacky ... and non-trivial murphy's law says your primary disk will die ... if you do 1-way mirror A drive failure may lock the whole disk array? no ... it's not supposed to when you first build the raid system .. - pull each disk out one at a time while its rwritting a 2GB file and see if survives and does finish mirroring the file its supposed to be saving - you'd be doing these test to simulate disk failures and if you spent too much time to fix it... the others in the office will say why bother with raid, it didn't work and hopefully, the bean counters willg ive you another $100 to get a new disk to put on a different pc to backup and save to a 2nd disk that probably will not fail for the same reason that the other disk died - disks doesn't die nicely, it dies abruptly and randomly - there's lots of under-utilized pc in the office to save data onto c ya alvin -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: SCSI Disk/Controller advice please - fun
On Fri, 2004-10-29 at 16:48 -0700, Alvin Oga wrote: hi ya On Sat, 30 Oct 2004, Joao Clemente wrote: [snip] problem with raid1 ( aka mirror ) - if one disk goes bad, the other disk will copy that bad info onto the good disk the whole point of mirror, both disk is identical I've been using h/w RAID for 10 years, in everything from 60GB (using scads of 4GB devices) to 15TB SANs using 147GB devices, and have *never* *ever* seen what you suggest. I would, literally, fall over dead if I ever saw that happening. [snip] So, what's SCA? None of these controllers says SCA... sca is the silly removable connector on the disk and in the chassis to allow oyu to remove the disk A truly uninformed statement, by someone who must not have ever needed to pull a drive out of a running system. SCA is a great and useful idea, and I wish there was something similar for internal IDE drives. -- - Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson, LA USA PGP Key ID 8834C06B Tatoo in haste, regret in leisure. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: SCSI Disk/Controller advice please - fun
hi ya ron On Fri, 29 Oct 2004, Ron Johnson wrote: I've been using h/w RAID for 10 years, in everything from 60GB (using scads of 4GB devices) to 15TB SANs using 147GB devices, and have *never* *ever* seen what you suggest. I would, literally, fall over dead if I ever saw that happening. good , lucky for you ... i seen people do it ... and screw up their mirrors and data So, what's SCA? None of these controllers says SCA... sca is the silly removable connector on the disk and in the chassis to allow oyu to remove the disk A truly uninformed statement, by someone who must not have ever needed to pull a drive out of a running system. SCA is a great and useful idea, and I wish there was something similar for internal IDE drives. since you're the expert, perhaps you can tell everybody what that connector is called that is used in the hotswap drive bays - the connector that goes on the disk - the connector that goes on the drive bay or chassis and again, there is a silly equivalent thingies for IDE ... i have some - and again, on the ide drive bays, what is that connector called - but, the problem with IDE is that the ide drivers is NOT meant to hotswap and i've seen pepople pulling out disks too .. wonder why some of them call in a panic ? - and one can trivially do cold swap of ide disks or just buy better quality disk drives in the first place and add a silly $10 fan to keep its operating temp down ( should be about 30C or so ... ( hddtemp will tell you sorta what it is - and now days, too many vendors playing with ide cables to make it go out of spec ... from what the ide drivers can handle c ya alvin -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
