From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Jul 15 23:55:25 2005 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 B935016A41C for ; Fri, 15 Jul 2005 23:55:25 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from xfb52@dial.pipex.com) Received: from smtp-out3.blueyonder.co.uk (smtp-out3.blueyonder.co.uk [195.188.213.6]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 36F4743D45 for ; Fri, 15 Jul 2005 23:55:24 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from xfb52@dial.pipex.com) Received: from [82.41.37.55] ([82.41.37.55]) by smtp-out3.blueyonder.co.uk with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.0.2195.6713); Sat, 16 Jul 2005 00:56:07 +0100 Message-ID: <42D84CEB.60605@dial.pipex.com> Date: Sat, 16 Jul 2005 00:55:23 +0100 From: Alex Zbyslaw User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-GB; rv:1.7.8) Gecko/20050530 X-Accept-Language: en, en-us, pl MIME-Version: 1.0 To: lars References: <38171.1121430073@thrush.ravenbrook.com> <42D7EBDE.8030807@mac.com> <42D7F8F9.40004@dial.pipex.com> <42D80897.5030109@gmx.at> In-Reply-To: <42D80897.5030109@gmx.at> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-OriginalArrivalTime: 15 Jul 2005 23:56:07.0676 (UTC) FILETIME=[C49FABC0:01C58998] Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: better disk reliability on a desktop machine 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: Fri, 15 Jul 2005 23:55:25 -0000 lars wrote: > - /usr/ports/sysutils/smartmontools > can help you monitor your HDDs But if your disk is a hardware RAID of any kind, and you cannot see through the controller to individual disks, then you'll only be told about one of the disks, I would presume. That's where a CLI comes in, but I think they are scarce for the low-end controllers you see on desktop systems. Or just rebooting daily and hoping the RAID BIOS will report a SMART error in time. Even given that, smartmontools should be on everyone's list of "must have" ports. > - RAID 0 doubles the chances of HDD failure and thereby data loss > Agreed. But my presumption is that the actual chances of hardware failure are pretty small. Out of all the disks I've been responsible for in some way over the years (certainly hundreds), the actual number of failures I can remember is about a handful, and at least two of those came with some warning. Actually, I suspect a RAID 0 more than doubles the chance something bad happening. A single bad disk may be just good enough to be recoverable in some way, whereas the same errors in a RAID 0 could be curtains. I certainly wouldn't do 0 without a frequent, automatic back-up strategy on anything which wasn't truly disposable. > e.g. Mini-ITX boards are cheap and fast enough for this purpose. Or the PC you just replaced which now has an ebay value of not-enough-to-be-worth-it... :-) The real expense is usually time. Especially for home-based machines, backups become a chore, or you're up until 2am and just can't be bothered turning on the tape drive or whatever. And a disk just drive knows when it hasn't been backed up recently ;-) --Alex