[svlug] new disk is installed - raid

[Scott Hess]

On 9/21/06, Alvin Oga <alvin at mail.linux-consulting.com> wrote:
> - but since the current system is already installed ..
>         - our choice is:
>                 - tar up the new system and save to the current operting disk
>                 - install the new drive
>                 - re-install with raid setup
>                 - untar the current new system onto the raid config

I've been there, you can instead build a degraded RAID1 on the new
drive, copy everything over, reboot from it, and add the old drive to
the RAID1 volume.  Works swell...

>         - or build a 2nd whole system ( my preferred choice )
>         since it has to be done no matter what  ...

That would be my preference, too, if I were doing the work.  In fact,
after running for years with RAID1 on my primary machine, I switched
to using a pretty minimal dedicated backup server running rsnapshot.
RAID1 is a good solution if you need strong uptime guarantees, not so
helpful if what you're looking for is a good _backup_.  At least for
me, having my systems down for 4 hours or so, while painful, isn't
nearly as painful as losing data.

And I'm right with you on the increased admin overhead of RAID1.  I
was always finding yet another edge case which I wasn't monitoring
correctly.  Better to be simple.

-scott