RAID / Secondary Hard Drive Backups

[rweiss]

Hi there,

I currently have CPanel running on a box with two 80GB drives and RAID1 (software) on RedHat 7.3. It works well.

I'm thinking of getting a server at RackShack. I'm looking into one of their packages that includes dual hard drives.

Unfortunately they don't setup software RAID. While it may be possible to do this remotely, somehow I don't think it would be a lot of fun.

So, here I ask for your opinions:

1. Anyone know a good method for setting up software RAID remotely? Is it even possible?
2. If not, it wouldn't be so bad to do backups to the secondary hard drive... Still, restoring after the primary drive crashes would probably take a while. I like the idea of RAID better. Any comments?
   [/list=1]
   
   Please let me know your thoughts / fill me in on previous experiences.
   
   Thanks,
   Russell

 

[Sash]

I think if you are going to do virtual hosting RAID is essential. A few hours(keep in mind it is RS) of downtime can piss off people a lot.

We run RAID 1 and do remote backups just in case.

HTH,
Mike

 

[rweiss]

Sash,

I agree with you, but in that case I'm wondering how people who are doing virtual hosting are using places like RackShack. Do they really not let this bother them? To me, it's a major concern.

Sure, you'd have a backup, but between the time that you realize something is wrong, get RS to restore the primary drive, re-install CPanel (in my case, anyway, because RS is out of CPanel boxes, so I'd install it myself), and run the restoration (and hope all goes smoothly) it could definitely be a few hours if not more.

To me, this is sub-optimal. But I'd really LOVE to go with RS. So I'm stuck trying to decide what to do.