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Date:      Wed, 13 Jun 2001 08:24:53 +1000 (EST)
From:      Rowan Crowe <rowan@sensation.net.au>
To:        freebsd-isp@freebsd.org
Subject:   keeping identical copy of second drive
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.4.21.0106130814390.14815-100000@velvet.sensation.net.au>

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Hello,

I am just about to take delivery of a new 1RU machine which has identical
20Gb drives, one of them in a removable caddy. Ideally I want the second
HD to be a mirror image of the first, either in real time or periodically
transferred over.

I've had a look at vinum but that seems to be out, as I need to be able to
boot from the backup HD immediately - the 2 HD arrangement is mainly to
minimise downtime in the event of a mechanical HD failure. BTW, can
FreeBSD boot successfully from the second HD if I disable the first in the
BIOS and boot -c? I'm not yet familiar with how 4.x works, are the ata
drives allocated dynamically or can you specify "probe this drive, and
ignore this drive"?

I take it that FreeBSD itself can't provide OS level mirroring, ie read
one, write both.

Is using dd to make a mirror image of the drive contents - whilst in
multiuser mode - a waste of time? What are the chances of the file system
on the destination drive being corrupted?

An occasional single user mode mirror image of the drive with regular cp
of files that have changed may also be an option.

Any suggestions appreciated...

Cheers.


--
Rowan Crowe                              http://www.rowan.sensation.net.au/
Sensation Internet Services                   http://info.sensation.net.au/
Melbourne, Australia                                 Phone: +61-3-9329-5498


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