July 08, 2005
New backup drive
We use 3 forms of backup on our network.
Most of the data is housed on "Tera", our 1,000 gigabyte
(or 1 terabyte) RAID-5 array. Ireplaceable data, such
as digital images, source code, email coraspondances,
ext., is regulearly mirrored to a seperate computer. The
Black Dragon
holds a 100 gigabyte RAID-1 array, which serves this purpose.
The third backup layer is an external USB-2 hard drive
typically stored in a fireproof box. This was a Western
Digital 120 gig, 7200 RPM drive. Although
the Red Dragon
by itself has some 777 gigs of data, only about 82 gigs
is ireplaceable. The Black
Dragon mostly holds backup data on it's 100 gig RAID-1
array which sits at about 62 gigs. The webpage data, which
sits on the Indigo-Dragon, has been steadly growing and
currently sits at about 8.3 gigs.
Most of the growth of data has primarlly been in digital images. Since we started with a digital SLR just over a year ago, we have taken and store over 20,500 pictures. And with the recent upgrade of the camera from a 6.3 megapixel camera with an 8 megapixel camera-- the space needed will continue to rise. The webpages also continue to grow, mostly due to digital photography. In addition to our own photography, other site served by DrQue.net have also been adding their photography.
The new drive is a Hitachi 250 gigabyte, 7200 RPM drive with 8 MB cache. This will more than double our current external backup capasity. After installing the drive, we were quite suprised on how quiet the drive operated. After powering on the external enclosure, we questioned weather or not we had hooked up the drive power correctly because we were unable to here it spin up. Needless to say, we were plesently suprised when moments latter, the USB picked up on the existance of the external enclosure.
Syncrosation is completely automated using Rsync. Once begun, there the backup takes care of itself. After several hours, the drive was syncronised and back asleep in it's fireproof enclosure. Two question remain about my method of backup, despite my research efforts. One: What is the life expetancy of a hard drive's magnetic media? While the commen number I came across for hard drive's life expantancy was 3-5 years, that was for a running drive-- our drive spends most of it's time in storage. Second question: What temperatures can hard drive media survive? Special fireproof media safes exist for the purpose of storing magnetic media-- but this enclosures are designed to protect floppy media, such as tape. Hard drive platters would likely warp under high heat, but it seems they could certinly withstand higher temperatures than floppy disks. I've been unable to answere either question to my saticfaction.
Most of the growth of data has primarlly been in digital images. Since we started with a digital SLR just over a year ago, we have taken and store over 20,500 pictures. And with the recent upgrade of the camera from a 6.3 megapixel camera with an 8 megapixel camera-- the space needed will continue to rise. The webpages also continue to grow, mostly due to digital photography. In addition to our own photography, other site served by DrQue.net have also been adding their photography.
The new drive is a Hitachi 250 gigabyte, 7200 RPM drive with 8 MB cache. This will more than double our current external backup capasity. After installing the drive, we were quite suprised on how quiet the drive operated. After powering on the external enclosure, we questioned weather or not we had hooked up the drive power correctly because we were unable to here it spin up. Needless to say, we were plesently suprised when moments latter, the USB picked up on the existance of the external enclosure.
Syncrosation is completely automated using Rsync. Once begun, there the backup takes care of itself. After several hours, the drive was syncronised and back asleep in it's fireproof enclosure. Two question remain about my method of backup, despite my research efforts. One: What is the life expetancy of a hard drive's magnetic media? While the commen number I came across for hard drive's life expantancy was 3-5 years, that was for a running drive-- our drive spends most of it's time in storage. Second question: What temperatures can hard drive media survive? Special fireproof media safes exist for the purpose of storing magnetic media-- but this enclosures are designed to protect floppy media, such as tape. Hard drive platters would likely warp under high heat, but it seems they could certinly withstand higher temperatures than floppy disks. I've been unable to answere either question to my saticfaction.