Replacing a drive in a Raid 1 Set
I have a Mac Pro running Leopard Server with 4 hard drives which are each 750 GB. 3 of the hard drives are set up in a RAID 1 set. The 4th drive is used in conjunction with Time Machine to back up my data folders. If my place of business (this where I keep my server) burns down, I loose all my data.
Question:
1) Can I purchase a 5th drive and swap out the various drives in the RAID set by simply removing a drive and inserting the swap drive or do I have to do something more?
2) If my Mac Pro was destroyed could I purchase another Mac Pro and simply put in "5th" drive and start from it from the point it came out of the machine? Meaning if I swapped out every day then I only loose only what was missing from the previous day including my OS?
My concern is loss of date. Any other recommendations would be appreciated.
Question:
1) Can I purchase a 5th drive and swap out the various drives in the RAID set by simply removing a drive and inserting the swap drive or do I have to do something more?
2) If my Mac Pro was destroyed could I purchase another Mac Pro and simply put in "5th" drive and start from it from the point it came out of the machine? Meaning if I swapped out every day then I only loose only what was missing from the previous day including my OS?
My concern is loss of date. Any other recommendations would be appreciated.
Comments
I have a Mac Pro running Leopard Server with 4 hard drives which are each 750 GB. 3 of the hard drives are set up in a RAID 1 set. The 4th drive is used in conjunction with Time Machine to back up my data folders. If my place of business (this where I keep my server) burns down, I loose all my data.
Question:
1) Can I purchase a 5th drive and swap out the various drives in the RAID set by simply removing a drive and inserting the swap drive or do I have to do something more?
2) If my Mac Pro was destroyed could I purchase another Mac Pro and simply put in "5th" drive and start from it from the point it came out of the machine? Meaning if I swapped out every day then I only loose only what was missing from the previous day including my OS?
My concern is loss of date. Any other recommendations would be appreciated.
Drobo: set up 2 hot-swappable cartridge HDs as RAID1, and, after the first complete backup cycle and mirroring, extract one of them and store it physically off-site (not next door, but preferably a couple miles distance or more; planes do fall out of the sky now and then! Shit happens).
A bank safety deposit box is a good, safe place to store what effectively is a copy of your entire company's data!
You can also store it at a friend's or relative's place (while you store their off-site backup data set for them in return), but you must pay attention to data security/accessibility*, because you don't want any third parties browsing your data. A high quality, locked, attaché case may add an extra, physical layer of protection. Encryption is better.
Stick a third cartridge HD in the empty slot of that Drobo. It will immediately be updated by the RAID1 system.
Now you have three identical backup data sets: two completely up-to-date mirrored ones on location, and one off-site that's maximum one month old (depending on the swapping schedule you determine). That's pretty safe!
Swap the off-site one, say, once a month, or more frequently if you like, with one of the other two, so that you have a complete, fresh, up-to-date data set off-site again. The 'old' one immediately gets updated – fully automatically – in the Drobo RAID1 system.
More convenient, but probably much more expensive, would be to mirror your local backup HD (set) to (an identical) off-site backup HD (set) via the internet or some other network. Here, too, data security/accessibility is an important (and expensive) factor to consider.
* The last time I needed to restore backup data to an internal HD was 3 months ago (new internal HD because the original one crapped out – not 3 months old!). With an excellent Time Machine copy that restore was a matter of one-and-a-half hours (YMMV: it depends on the amount of data to be restored, obviously) and (then and still) Leopard's Time Machine required login name and system administrator password. So if you've set up your Mac appropriately, that's pretty secure access denial to third parties, down the block.
With the acronyms – the big fed agencies and their supercomputers – all bets are off, of course. Although to run those supercomputers for 12 weeks solid just to crack your passwords would cost 'm millions. I don't think they would like to incur that kind of cost unless you're Osama bin Laden...