[dba-Tech] Petulant PC

Thanks, JC. I would love that feeling of security. At the moment I just copy
My Documents to another machine, but as we know there's a lot more at stake
than My Documents.

A.


On 6/3/07, jwcolby <jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com> wrote:
>
> Arthur,
>
> Just go for it.  For about $500 you can get a dedicated raid controller
> that
> will handle 8 SATA 2 hard drives.
>
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816131004
>
>
> You can now purchase 750g hard drives for ~$240.
>
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148134
>
> So for somewhere in the neighborhood of $750 you have the start of a
> kickass
> raid system. That is EXPANDABLE.
>
>
> Now add two more of these same drives in a few months.  Dedicate one to
> the
> RAID5 redundancy, and another to data storage.  Now any disk can fail
> without endangering your data.
>
> A few months later add another, and another and another.  Eventually
> dedicate another drive to raid 6.  You now have a raid array where any TWO
> disks can fail without endangering your data.
>
> You can end up with 6 x 700 (real) or 4.2 terabytes of raid 6
> storage.  That
> should handle your issues with saving your backed up images for quite
> awhile
> I would think.
>
> BTW, that controller card is wicked fast, real life read data streaming of
> >400 mbyte / second when fully implemented.  Reads can stream data off of
> all available drives so the read speed is cumulative, as you add more
> disks,
> the streaming read rises.  Writes OTOH are at slightly less than a single
> drive.  This kind of performance is great for a data warehouse kind of
> system where data rarely changes.
>
> I have two of these systems.  One has 8x 320 drives (300 real) in Raid 6
> with 6 of those drives actually available for storage.  I went with 320s
> for
> the first set because at that time (about a year ago) that was the sweet
> spot.
>
> The second one I am still building out.  It currently has 6x 500gb drives
> (~470 real) in raid 5 with 5 drives available for storage, and when I add
> the final two drives one will go to raid 6 and the other for storage so I
> will have 6 x 470g of storage.    ATM 500g is the sweet spot, but the 750g
> drives are dropping like a rock so they will hit the sweet spot within a
> few
> months I think.
>
> The second system I actually built from the ground up using the raid
> controller such that it actually boots off the raid, with a 200 gb
> partition
> for the boot disk.  The rest of the space is available for storage
>
> This fall I will probably build a system with two quad core processors on
> a
> single motherboard, and for that system I will build out a raid system
> around the 750gb disks, booting off the raid array like I do with the
> second
> system I built.
>
> Yes, I know that it is not cheap to get in to, but the redundancy is great
> peace of mind, and it is expandable so that you can do it a piece at a
> time.
> The nice thing about a dedicated controller is that it is portable.  If
> the
> system fails, the whole shootin match can just be dropped into another
> system.  With a raid based on a motherboard, this won't work unless you
> get
> another of the exact same board.
>
> John W. Colby
> Colby Consulting
> www.ColbyConsulting.com
> -----Original Message-----
> From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
> [mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Arthur Fuller
> Sent: Sunday, June 03, 2007 4:40 PM
> To: Discussion of Hardware and Software issues
> Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] Petulant PC
>
> The following is no help at all to your current situation, but since you
> have used Ghost for a while, and I never have, even though I had it
> included
> in a previous version of Norton, I thought I would ask:
>
> Let's say your current boot drive has 250GB capacity and 150GB is occupied
> when you Ghost. How big is the Ghost file? Do you need another HD upon
> which
> to plant said file?
>
> The reason I ask is this: a bare-bones installation already comes with my
> HP
> computer. (This is achieved by partititioning the HD, creating a read-only
> partition with the initial image on it, then allowing you to start over
> anytme by re-initializing drive c: from the r-o drive d:. However, even
> though I love this ability, it still means after re-initializing I have to
> spend the better part of a day reinstalling Office, Office Developer,
> SP1...n, NoteTab, winRAR, VS.NET, SQL 2005 and so on. So even though I can
> reinit the original, I still lose a day implanting the rest.
>
> So let's assume that the total install that satisfies me is > 50% of the
> disk. Does Ghost compress it? Even if it does, I think there is no
> alternative but a pair of disks of whatever size in the machine of
> interest.
> Ok. Given that if I'm talking about a box with a 500GB disk, therefore I
> need a pair, in fact three (the third on another box, so I can copy the
> Ghost file to safety).
>
> This sounds:
> a) like a recursive problem;
> b) reminiscent of the days of FastBack, when I needed 50 3.5 disks to back
> up my HD (currently the number of dual-layer DVDs is smaller, let's see
> 250GB / 4.7 GB = 50 + single-layer DVDs. That assumes the drive is full. I
> never let a drive get even 50% before I think it's time for another.
> Fortunately prices plummet in relatively direct proportion with my
> compulsive need to install more software and create new data.
>
> Either way, it seems that backup has been momentarily possible and then
> suddenly impossible, then possible, then impossible, then possible, then
> impossible (repeat until exhausted). Hofstadter, so to speak.
>
> Even the alleged massive storage of Blue-Ray apparently leaves us in the
> FastBack situation of multiple disks. 200GB to back up, 50GB on a
> Blue-Ray.
> Back in the FastBack situation. If disk 3 has a problem, I have a BIG
> problem.
>
> A.
>
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