> A bit of downtime while I disconnect the old hda and move hdc to hda isn't
> a problem; I was more concerned about the noise, heat, and wear on the
> drive of a RAID setup. My hope is that by using the backup drive as
> little as possible, it would be as close to new when the main drive dies.
> If I could do mirroring, where I could only update the second copy a few
> times a day and spin it down between those times, that would be OK. I
> think all mirroring is live, though.
That's sort of the point of mirroring, so, yes, it would be "live". One of
the benefits of (true) mirroring is that placing the drives on separate
channels provides shorter data-read times. If you're working on a
shoestring budget, however, it's not generally the way to go for backing up
your system. Any type of RAID backup isn't a good idea on a shoestring,
unless the last-minute accuracy of a backup is critical, because it's just
not very cost-effective in comparison to other backup schemes (such as your
daily-backup system).
You could just create a disk image once a day, which would be quicker than
running a copy routine. Even cheaper than using a hard drive for daily
backups would be to use a CDRW (or series of CDRWs) to make backups, but
that requires a lot more administrative overhead, and I'm sure it's
something you've already considered and discarded by this point.
By the way, I don't think I've introduced myself to the list yet. Hi. I'm
Chad. I'm actually quite the n00b with Linux, but I like what I see so far.
Expect stupid questions from me at some point -- when I get sick of trying
to figure out seamless integration with a Windows workgroup and fax server
setup on my own, probably.
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