From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Oct 5 23:07:47 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C513B16A403 for ; Thu, 5 Oct 2006 23:07:47 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from fbsd-questions@mawer.org) Received: from mail-ihug.icp-qv1-irony4.iinet.net.au (ihug-mail.icp-qv1-irony4.iinet.net.au [203.59.1.198]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1924843D46 for ; Thu, 5 Oct 2006 23:07:46 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from fbsd-questions@mawer.org) Received: from 203-206-173-235.perm.iinet.net.au (HELO [127.0.0.1]) ([203.206.173.235]) by mail-ihug.icp-qv1-irony4.iinet.net.au with ESMTP; 06 Oct 2006 07:07:45 +0800 X-BrightmailFiltered: true X-Brightmail-Tracker: AAAAAA== X-IronPort-AV: i="4.09,267,1157299200"; d="scan'208"; a="927865099:sNHT40814216" Message-ID: <4525903C.7060700@mawer.org> Date: Fri, 06 Oct 2006 09:07:40 +1000 From: Antony Mawer User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.7 (Windows/20060909) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Jonathan McKeown References: <200610051034.35795.jonathan@hst.org.za> <200610051056.52744.jonathan@hst.org.za> <200610050900.k9590TSJ011483@banyan.cs.ait.ac.th> <200610051131.10157.jonathan@hst.org.za> In-Reply-To: <200610051131.10157.jonathan@hst.org.za> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Removing removable ATA hard drives X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 05 Oct 2006 23:07:47 -0000 On 5/10/2006 7:31 PM, Jonathan McKeown wrote: > I should probably have said: we don't currently have offsite backups (we've > exceeded the capacity of our tape device and our budget), and the quick-fix > solution is dumping to this hard drive and then pulling it out and taking it > home. As such the removability is key to its intended function. I can't keep > dropping the main fileserver to fiddle with it, and the alternative in terms > of testing is to set up another box with the particular 4.9-STABLE snapshot > running on this server (to eliminate OS version-related variable effects). I looked into these options, and in the end opted for an external firewire hard drive for *ONE* of my offsite backup systems. I initially looked at USB, but found it to be somewhat flakey and didn't feel comfortable relying on it. I installed a firewire add-in card in the backup server, and am then using GELI to encrypt the data on the drive. I have a script which automates the attaching to the geli volume, mounting the filesystem, rsyncing from various sources, and then unmounting the filesystem... after which I can turn off the drive and take it offsite with me. This is on FreeBSD 6.1, so I don't know what, if any, firewire support is available on 4.x... ATA "hotswap", from what I gather, is only possible with specific hardware support, and even then is not something that it was originally designed for (as far as I am aware)... Hope you or others find some of this helpful! --Antony