On Mon, Oct 19, 2009 at 9:18 PM, Alex Dean <alex@crackpot.org> wrote:

I make regular backups to a software RAID1 disk array. I'd like to periodically store some backups offsite. Been thinking about buying 2 extra drives, and adding 1 of them as a hot spare to the RAID1. Then remove it from the array, store it elsewhere, and add the other disk in its place as the hot spare. Every week or so, I'd plan to swap the offsite disk with the current hot spare.

It seems like this should work. Anyone care to comment? If I buy a hot-swap drive bay for the server, can I add/remove normal SATA drives without restarting the OS?

I was looking at something like this StarTech caddie, which protects the disk a bit more than other disk enclosures.
http://www.startech.com/item/DRW110SATBK-Black-Serial-ATA-Drive-Drawer-with-Shock-Absorbers-Value-Series.aspx

thanks,
alex

Hi Alex,

I have regularly used the hardware RAID in HP Proliants and Dell 6850/2850 servers for backups.

The benefits are:

1) No local network load/bottleneck requiring backend backup networks or VLANS.

2) No upstream bandwidth costs.

3) Can be rebuilt while the server is running, if you lose one partition for instance.

4) Are especially good in HIPPA and PCI Compliant networks, where I/O and access must be limited and encrypted.

Of course for mission critical data, I recommend RAID 5 or RAID 1+0 at the very least.

AND ALL BACKUPS REQUIRE A RESTORE TEST - laugh! You all can appreciate this point?

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