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2012-09-10, 23:50
(This post was last modified: 2012-09-10, 23:57 by bznotins.)
No discussion of simply running a fully redundant duplicate backup of the server? That's what I do.
Rather than buy expensive drives, I just use 2x the cheap ones and periodically mirror my server to a backup box. I keep the backup server unplugged from the wall (power, network, everything) so that if my house takes a lightning strike, the backup doesn't get cooked alongside the primary. No RAID solution is protected from this scenario.
With the price premiums the WD Reds are running right now, it is almost the same price to just double-up on your capacity using cheap(er) drives in an isolated box.
I simply grandfather drives to the backup as I grow the primary. Once a 2TB starts to approach capacity, I replace it with a 3TB drive and send the old 2TB to the backup server.
Truly irreplaceable files (pictures, documents, etc) are backed-up to various media (I have 4x redundancy on that, using the backup server, optical, and external disks).
While losing the media server wouldn't be catastrophic (it's all replaceable), it would be a giant pain in the butt. Thus the backup.
I just picked up a Seagate 3TB from NE for $127 shipped, which is about half of the cost of its WD Red counterpart.