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Author Topic: LFO: 3 Drive Rotation  (Read 3187 times)

nfldson

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LFO: 3 Drive Rotation
« on: August 03, 2009, 08:07:20 PM »

Hi,

I am concerned that my HD's which were purchased @ the same time (ie manufactured @ the same time, serial numbers are close) could experience failures with close proximity as both drives experience the same read/write conditions under RAID1. Depending of the timing I could be in a tight spot. :'(

I was considering introducing a third drive into my NAS setup to provide backup in addition to the redundancy of RAID1. Basically every two weeks switch in a new HD with the third being stored off site.

In the case of total failure (HD,Fire,etc), I imagined I could use the 3rd drive to recover. I have assumed (and looking for feedback) I would be required to mount the HD in a system that supports EXT2 and recover the data. I do not think it is possible for me to use the 323 as it will reformat the drive.

Have I missed the mark ? More experienced feedback would be great.

Thanks in advance.
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fordem

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Re: LFO: 3 Drive Rotation
« Reply #1 on: August 04, 2009, 06:06:41 AM »
From a purist's stand point RAID1 should not be used in any scheme involving the "rotation" of drives, this is not what it was designed to do.

From a realist's stand point - rotating drives in and out of a RAID1 array on a DNS-323 should be avoided - sooner or later, this is likely to result in the wrong drive being formatted and the subsequent loss of data.

A drive removed from the DNS-323 may be connected to a system running linux or Windows with a file system driver and the data read - I have used Windows XP and the ext2ifs driver successfully.
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RAID1 is for disk redundancy - NOT data backup - don't confuse the two.

Arvald

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  • Posts: 108
Re: LFO: 3 Drive Rotation
« Reply #2 on: August 04, 2009, 03:03:17 PM »
Quote from: fordem on August 04, 2009, 06:06:41 AM
From a purist's stand point RAID1 should not be used in any scheme involving the "rotation" of drives, this is not what it was designed to do.

From a realist's stand point - rotating drives in and out of a RAID1 array on a DNS-323 should be avoided - sooner or later, this is likely to result in the wrong drive being formatted and the subsequent loss of data.

A drive removed from the DNS-323 may be connected to a system running linux or Windows with a file system driver and the data read - I have used Windows XP and the ext2ifs driver successfully.
Actually in older high end environments (which would be what older purist have used) that is a recommend process for backup and recovery.  I used to administrate a Compaq ESA10000 beautiful piece of hardware for its time... and we did not even have 1TB on it  :-)

But I'd agree with the realist standpoint... the 323 is not that smart to handle this kind of swapping.
Last thing you want is the unit getting confused and formatting the wrong drive.
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