8 Feb
2002
8 Feb
'02
8:50 p.m.
I have a problem - am I the one at fault?
I am upgrading to a "newer" system and one of my concerns is adequate
backup. Normally, I do a full backup about once a day - or once every
other day. It has been suggested that the "newer" have a "RAID 1"
controller which would use two 40 GByte EIDE drives. A "RAID 1"
system uses two disk drives and keeps two copies of ALL files
at all times. This provides a duplicate set of images - so that
even if there are only intermittent errors with one drive, I would be
aware of the problems before both drives became bad and (normally)
have time to make a complete backup before I replace the bad drive.
However, I am experiencing two difficulties:
(a) The firmware/software for the "RAID 1" controller seems to
NOT have anything that will alert the user to be able to identify
which disk drive might be bad even after a drive failure, let alone
intermittent errors.
(b) Even though my current files are (seemingly) all correct and
I have two duplicate copies, when I said that I was was going to
restore from my initial back-up from CD (I currently have no
data files, just the installed software), I was looked at as if
I was a bit crazy - why would I do a recovery if there is nothing
wrong? Even though I attempted to explain that a full back-up
includes the total recovery from scratch - at least a few times
at the beginning to establish that the procedure works, that attitude
is considered overcautious to say the least - at the worst it is:
"So what if you loose all you files, you can always rebuild the
system from scratch if you have to?" These individuals seem
to have never heard of data files - like in a legal office, the
client records don't need to be kept since everything in published
law books is how to start all over again after a fire.
Is this attitude common in industry? Am I wrong? I know that
my wife has a cousin who works for an accountant who
NEVER makes a back-up of the client files.
If I am correct, is there any way to get my point across or is
this a Catch-22 situation?
8 Feb
8 Feb
9:43 p.m.
New subject: What am I missing?
Be aware that while RAID-1 is adequate (for small definitions of adequate)
protection against HD failures, it does NOTHING about filesystem errors. If
you have a stray process that's capable of writing to the drive, you can
just as easily wipe out both drives at the same time. A good instance is
one or two recent kernel versions of Linux that caused corrupt filesystems
because of journalling problems.
--John
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org
[mailto:owner-classiccmp@classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Jerome Fine
Sent: Friday, February 08, 2002 21:50 PM
To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org
Subject: OT: What am I missing?
I have a problem - am I the one at fault?
I am upgrading to a "newer" system and one of my concerns is adequate
backup. Normally, I do a full backup about once a day - or once every
other day. It has been suggested that the "newer" have a "RAID 1"
controller which would use two 40 GByte EIDE drives. A "RAID 1"
system uses two disk drives and keeps two copies of ALL files
at all times. This provides a duplicate set of images - so that
even if there are only intermittent errors with one drive, I would be
aware of the problems before both drives became bad and (normally)
have time to make a complete backup before I replace the bad drive.
However, I am experiencing two difficulties:
(a) The firmware/software for the "RAID 1" controller seems to
NOT have anything that will alert the user to be able to identify
which disk drive might be bad even after a drive failure, let alone
intermittent errors.
(b) Even though my current files are (seemingly) all correct and
I have two duplicate copies, when I said that I was was going to
restore from my initial back-up from CD (I currently have no
data files, just the installed software), I was looked at as if
I was a bit crazy - why would I do a recovery if there is nothing
wrong? Even though I attempted to explain that a full back-up
includes the total recovery from scratch - at least a few times
at the beginning to establish that the procedure works, that attitude
is considered overcautious to say the least - at the worst it is:
"So what if you loose all you files, you can always rebuild the
system from scratch if you have to?" These individuals seem
to have never heard of data files - like in a legal office, the
client records don't need to be kept since everything in published
law books is how to start all over again after a fire.
Is this attitude common in industry? Am I wrong? I know that
my wife has a cousin who works for an accountant who
NEVER makes a back-up of the client files.
If I am correct, is there any way to get my point across or is
this a Catch-22 situation?
9 Feb
9 Feb
12:08 a.m.
New subject: What am I missing?
>>>>snipo<<<<<<<<
>
> Is this attitude common in industry? Am I wrong? I know that
> my wife has a cousin who works for an accountant who
> NEVER makes a back-up of the client files.
>
> If I am correct, is there any way to get my point across or is
> this a Catch-22 situation?
>
>
We had a pC with a dos based program for character generation at the tv
station I worked at. Program had a nasty habit of corrupting its files
when you ran out of disk space or memory, causing random hits and making
life miserable.
First time I slowly worked through all the hits, and over several days,
got it to work okay again. Then we got a bigger hard drive. I
suggested a backup of some sort, but not floppies. Request ignored.
Second time the file (which was loaded as one gigantic mess) was bigger
than the 16 meg we had in the machine and caused the same problems.
Again it took days to work out the bugs. Again I strongly recommended a
backup system, one easy to use, and was ignored again. Management
wasn't happy, with the bumpy road for a week, and I said the other
alternative is to reinstall the software and system from scratch and
loose ALL the gfx files in the process.
People will never learn until it goes up in smoke. Then afterwards they
do what was needed and blame you for not doing it in the first place.
Doc Daneeka was right telling Yossarian.
Gary Hildebrand
ST. Joseph, MO
10 Feb
10 Feb
11:32 a.m.
New subject: What am I missing?
Gary Hildebrand wrote:
If I am
correct, is there any way to get my point across or is
this a Catch-22 situation?
We had a pC with a dos based program for character
generation at the tv
station I worked at. Program had a nasty habit of corrupting its files
when you ran out of disk space or memory, causing random hits and making
life miserable.
First time I slowly worked through all the hits, and over several days,
got it to work okay again. Then we got a bigger hard drive. I
suggested a backup of some sort, but not floppies. Request ignored.
Second time the file (which was loaded as one gigantic mess) was bigger
than the 16 meg we had in the machine and caused the same problems.
Again it took days to work out the bugs. Again I strongly recommended a
backup system, one easy to use, and was ignored again. Management
wasn't happy, with the bumpy road for a week, and I said the other
alternative is to reinstall the software and system from scratch and
loose ALL the gfx files in the process.
People will never learn until it goes up in smoke. Then afterwards they
do what was needed and blame you for not doing it in the first place.
Doc Daneeka was right telling Yossarian.
Gary Hildebrand
ST. Joseph, MO
8357
days inactive
8359
days old
3 comments
4 participants
participants (4)
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ghldbrd＠ccp.com -
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jhfine＠postoffice.idirect.com