Date: Thu, 06 Sep 2001 08:17:45 -0700 From: Darryl Okahata <darrylo@soco.agilent.com> To: freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Vinum vs. hardware RAID (was: RAID5) Message-ID: <200109061517.IAA16078@mina.soco.agilent.com> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 06 Sep 2001 04:34:21 BST." <20010906043421.C73353@titus.stade.co.uk>
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Adrian Wontroba <aw1@stade.co.uk> wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 05, 2001 at 03:00:55PM -0700, Darryl Okahata wrote:
> > [ It's strange, considering that many "RAID users" are home users. I'm
> > constantly surprised by the number of hackers setting up "home RAID"
> > systems (using the "on-motherboard RAID controller", the Promise
> > controller, or something else like vinum or 3ware). ]
>
> Backup devices and media are expensive, wear out, and if they were big
> enough when you bought them, soon are not, leaving you with the pain of
> swapping media during backups. Tape stackers etc are expensive.
>
> If you decide that what you really want to protect yourself against is
> disk failure, RAID becomes an attractive option.
Yes, but (as others have pointed out):
* This only protects you against hardware disk failures (assuming RAID
1, 5, or 10, not RAID 0).
* If someone steals your system, you're screwed.
* If your power supply fails catastrophically, you're screwed (unlikely,
but possible).
* If someone compromises your system, you're screwed.
* If your filesystem gets corrupted, you may be screwed (not likely
under normal circumstances, but power failures and enabled write
caches can cause wonderful problems).
I'm sure others can think of other problems.
[ Still, I've got to confess that I'm using RAID 1 with a 3ware card, as
a method of "avoiding backups". ;-) ]
--
Darryl Okahata
darrylo@soco.agilent.com
DISCLAIMER: this message is the author's personal opinion and does not
constitute the support, opinion, or policy of Agilent Technologies, or
of the little green men that have been following him all day.
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