Re: [cobalt-users] Hard drive duplication

[Kris Dahl <krislists@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

on 4/21/00 1:23 PM, David Hall at dhall@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> I have been contemplating in the event of a hard drive
> failure on my RAQ3 what I would do.
> 
> I would have to think with price of ide harddrives being only a couple of
> hundred US $ the best method would be to make an exact duplicate of the
> existing harddrive.
> And then simply swapping the hard drives in the event of a failure.
> Being (DOS) rather than (LINUX) trained I need advice if this would this be
> possible?
> And what would be the best method (i.e. removing the hard drive and copy it
> off the server, etc.) to go
> about doing this?

Well, it seems to me like you'll need to take the system down, remove the
hard drive, duplicate the hard drive, and put it back into the raq every
time you want to make a backup.  If you have a Raq3i (with a SCSI port) this
isn't as hard to do.  All you need to do is have a drive and duplicate the
file systems.  But this is not really an acceptable backup solution because
a) they are at the same location b) the are both fairly 'failable' c)
theoretically a catastrophic failure of the Raq could take out both drives.

Really you need to have off-site backup, in the form of a tape drive or
otherwise.  I would highly suggest keeping a hard drive offline and ready to
replace the current one if it fails.
 
> My other thought would be to purchase a preloaded hard drive from Cobalt as
> a spare but with them
> charging $99 for a simple restore CD, I hate to think what they would charge
> for a preloaded harddrive.
> Has anyone ever tried to purchase a preloaded harddrive from Cobalt?

I did not know that they offered this service, so I haven't tried it.  It
sounds like something to consider--will keep your downtime to a minimum.
All you have to do is replace the hard drive, snag you latest cobalt full
system backup and restore it.

> Also has anyone actually ever done a restore with the CD with a harddrive
> failure and what was your results?

I have done restores before on systems that have been hosed by the customer
(in the case of demo units).  I have not had a failure of any production
cobalt gear (I have had a ac adapter on a Qube fail, and a ethernet port
doa).  I have tried to 'replicate' a Raq2 to another Raq2.  I ended up just
swapping the hard drives because I was having a hard time with the backup
software.

> I just can not justify spending $99 for a restore cd, when the server does
> not even have a cd player.
> Plus duplicating the hard drive method would contain all my files and system
> changes.

Compared to the cost of downtime, $99 is a bargain.  And I bet however much
they charge for a pre-loaded harddrive is a bargain as well.  Can you afford
to send your server back to the distributor for them to replace the
hardware?  Ideally you should purchase the unit from an authorized Cobalt
VAR who should be able to provide you with the restore CD should you need it
and assist you with restoring the drive.

FYI, the restore CD is run from a remote machine, using a 100mb crossover
cable.

If you have a Raq3i, I would really suggest hooking up an external tape
drive and using some software like Taper to backup the system to tape.  Then
if the drive fails, replace it (with the preloaded one or you own, restored
one).  Install taper, restore from tape, you're up and running.

Its all dependent on how much downtime costs you.  If it doesn't much
matter, then no backup solution is necessary, or a very simple FTP
replication perhaps.  If it matters, then you should at least be using the
backup util to an offsite machine.  If its important, I would suggest
dumping to tape (stored offsite), and having a spare drive around.  If it is
critical, you should probably not be using a Raq solution, and jump to
something with online failover (raid mirrored, or striped with parity).

-k