[dba-Tech] Opinions please

Drew and William,

Thanks for the training!

There was a lot more to this than I had guessed.  What I do now is simply
backup selected data files to a CD every 3 days using Disk-to-Disk.  So, if
my HD did crash I would still have critical files but my recovery time could
be a few days - so having a mirrored HD that would let me 'keep on truckin'
would be pretty handy!

Thanks for all this information,
Dan

-----Original Message-----
From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of William Hindman
Sent: Tuesday, December 30, 2003 9:02 PM
To: Discussion of Hardware and Software issues
Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] Opinions please


Dan

...assumes you have a MB which supports RAID which more and more do these
days (one of the reasons I still build my own) ...or you buy mirroring
software or a RAID card neither of which I've used except on servers ...its
a physical duplication of your master drive onto a slave as every write
occurs ...you pay a performance price for the second access and write of
course but its marginalized by the RAID read speedup ...and with a current
processor you won't notice it anyway.

...as Drew noted, its physical protection only since software corruptions
would occur on both ...but still, its cheap and once in play you hardly
realize its there doing its thing in the background ...if you've ever had a
HD crash, a mirror is a godsend since the hardware automatically defaults to
using the mirror and you just get a warning pop-up ...life and work go on
and you have time to address the problem at your convenience.

...since I now use XP Pro only and have System Restore automated, I don't
sweat the system software corruption problems ...but make damn sure your
System Restore is really working by actually testing it ...XP can be
misleading in the setup and leave you unprotected ...but it does work quite
well ...a recent bug in a Symantec auto-update kept giving me blue screens
...I stepped back through the restore points until they went away.

...I also use the built-in Backup scheduling facility to automate protecting
my critical data files ...its there, easy to use, and disk space is cheap
...I do it to a directory on the mirrored drive since that covers me both
ways from Sunday.

...a bit more trouble but the ultimate failsafe is "imaging" the data onto a
3rd HD using Drive Image which is cheap (I don't like Norton Ghost) ...when
you initially set this up, make sure the image drive is on a separate cable
and, after doing the first image, swap your bios boot sequence to that drive
and boot from it using the image ...then swap your bios back ...from that
point on, assuming your bios doesn't fail, you have the best of all worlds
...a mirrored HD that takes over immediately if the master HD fails, a bu of
your critical data that can be restored selectively, and a full software
image available with a simple bios change if all else fails ...this of
course doesn't address off-site storage but I don't worry about that anyway
...since I have fire sprinklers and only a hurricane could do the place in
...my computers are on my evac list right after Lai and the pets.

...needless to say I didn't do this overnight ...its evolved over time ...if
you really want the best info available on securing your data, I use
www.langa.com as my bible ...his archives have really solid info and he
gives you all of it, the good, the bad, and the ugly ...HTH :)

William Hindman
<http://www.freestateproject.org> - Next Year In The Free State!


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dan Waters" <dwaters at usinternet.com>
To: "'Discussion of Hardware and Software issues'"
<dba-tech at databaseadvisors.com>
Sent: Tuesday, December 30, 2003 6:41 PM
Subject: RE: [dba-Tech] Opinions please


> William,
>
> Can you talk a little more about a mirrored hard drive for backup?
>
> Thanks,
> Dan Waters
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
> [mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of William
Hindman
> Sent: Tuesday, December 30, 2003 4:04 PM
> To: Discussion of Hardware and Software issues
> Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] Opinions please
>
>
> ...not a file server :(
>
> ...mirrored HD costs less, is more reliable, and incomparably faster 
> than on-line bu :(
>
> William Hindman
> <http://www.freestateproject.org> - Next Year In The Free State!
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "KathrynAtGwens" <kathrynatgwens at socal.rr.com>
> To: <dba-tech at databaseadvisors.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, December 30, 2003 3:02 PM
> Subject: [dba-Tech] Opinions please
>
>
> > Gwen's son is going to fix her up with a new data server, and 
> > offsite
> backup. Here's what he has in mind. Any issues that you know of?
> >
> > A much simplified file server 
> > http://www.snapappliance.com/page.cfm?name=2200Main&nav=2200
> >
> > Online backup 
> > http://www.connected.com/solution/Home_User/Home_Getting_Started.asp
> >
> >
> > --
> > Kathryn Bassett (at work address) kathrynatgwens at socal.rr.com
> > kathryn at bassett.net (home)
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > dba-Tech mailing list
> > dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com 
> > http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech
> > Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com
> >
>
>
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