From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Jan 2 08:37:28 2004 Return-Path: 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 7491416A4CE for ; Fri, 2 Jan 2004 08:37:28 -0800 (PST) Received: from smithers.neuro.mcw.edu (smithers.neuro.mcw.edu [141.106.106.66]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 13FBB43D55 for ; Fri, 2 Jan 2004 08:37:27 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from bacon@smithers.neuro.mcw.edu) Received: from smithers.neuro.mcw.edu (localhost [127.0.0.1]) i02GaNXg039096; Fri, 2 Jan 2004 10:36:23 -0600 (CST) (envelope-from bacon@smithers.neuro.mcw.edu) Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by smithers.neuro.mcw.edu (8.12.9/8.12.9/Submit) id i02GaLgP039095; Fri, 2 Jan 2004 10:36:22 -0600 (CST) From: Jason Bacon Organization: MCW To: Francisco Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 10:36:21 -0600 User-Agent: KMail/1.5.2 References: <3FF31E4B.1070305@edgefocus.com> <200312311706.25677.jbacon@mcw.edu> <20031231200259.H59076@zoraida.natserv.net> In-Reply-To: <20031231200259.H59076@zoraida.natserv.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200401021036.21287.jbacon@mcw.edu> cc: Sean Hafeez cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: What do you use? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 02 Jan 2004 16:37:28 -0000 On Wednesday 31 December 2003 02:04 pm, Francisco wrote: > On Wed, 31 Dec 2003, Jason Bacon wrote: > > 3ware IDE RAID. > > Agree on the 3ware controllers. > > > No such thing as cheap tape backups. :-( > > If the amount of data can compress into a CD or DVD you could consider a > burner. > > Moreover, although not a replacement for a tape backup or burning to > CD/DVD you could also consider having an extra disk outside the RAID for > backups. For example to keep multiple days of data on the second disk for > easy/quick access. We're using external USB disks for medium-term archival, and various optical media for long-term. DVD-RAM is the most convenient, albeit slow and non-portable (R/W UDF support isn't quite there yet, so we're stuck with UFS for now). With a USB2 interface, the USB disks are pretty fast, and you can't beat the convenience. One has to be very careful with USB disks on Unix, though, since they can be unplugged without warning while the filesystem is mounted, causing serious filesystem damage. I experimented with various solutions (e.g. automounting and unmounting with synchronous write enabled), but nothing gave 100% protection. Our RAID systems (ICP Vortex SCSI and 3ware IDE) are backed up on Mammoth or AIT tapes with autochangers using afio and chio. Not a cheap solution at ~ $10,000, but there's no other way to automatically back up 1/2 terabyte on media that can be easily stored off-site. Good luck, Jason