8 Oct
2012
8 Oct
'12
3:47 p.m.
> RAID != backup != offsite backup!
Entirely.
We are agreeing. It makes little sense to do a backup
and leave the
backups in the same place the computer system can get burned up. ;-)
That depends on why you're doing backups, the value of what you're
protecting, and the cost of offsite storage. In my case, that means no
RAID, but live mirroring to the backup machine, with live mirroring
from there to a removable disk which I swap weekly with
an identical
disk on my desk at work (a fifteen-minute bicycle ride away). I've
had
two? three? drives fail since I started doing that, and all the bits
have been safe each time.
But then, I've specifically decided to not keep backups for historical
archives or accidental deletion purposes (those being the other two
reasons I've been able to come up with to keep backups). Ocasionally
I've been sorry, but so far the cost of those incidents has been well
below the estimated cost of keeping backups suitable for handling them.
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