OS/2, eCS & ArcaOS - Technical > Storage

RAID 1/Mirror under OS/2

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ivan:
Hi David,

We are looking at the Arech ARC-1883i card and the LSI 9380-8e card (between 600 to 800 USD).  These are SAS controllers but can be used SATA disks if you are prepared to lose a little performance.

The Arech card has the advantage that there is a web based UI for setup and control.  The LSI requires either win or linux to be able to use the supplied setup software (these can be run in a VM and are only used to setup the RAID type and how the on card memory is allocated).

Dave Yeo:
Hi David, if you're only thinking about backups, be aware that a mirror is not the safest, your power supply goes and takes out both disks is one common scenario, same with a lightning strike.
Safest is just to get a USB enclosure/hard disk and use rsync every night to keep them in sync. Even better have 2 or 3 and rotate them, even keeping one off site.

emerald:
Thanks everyone for the replies.  They are all helpful.   It looks like either one of the controllers might be the way to go and/or a combination of RsyncBackup/2.   My goal is to have the running data drives mirrored, and then I also have another disk internally in the server to backup the mirror to.  This won't help if I get the dreaded power zap as mentioned, so I do some snapshots to another PC on my network to have another box with the data on it.  I am close to 2 TB of data, so getting a full backup in a timely fashion is a challenge, and I don't think USB 2.0 will ever complete in a reasonable period of time.  I will revisit updating my USB drivers and seeing how throughput is, but sadly, I've never had good luck moving any quantity of data to a USB device under OS/2.  I'm probably better pulling to a USB drive hanging of a PC running Windows that's on my network.  I dug in a little deeper on the VRAID that's on hobbes, and at least on BMT's site, it is listed as no longer available to register, so this might be a "no-go" option.   The pair of disks I'm using are Hitachi HUA723020ALA641 - enterprise class 7200RPM/6Gb/2 million hour MTBF - data sheet here for anyone interested:  https://www.hgst.com/company/resources/ultrastar-7k3000-data-sheet.  I'd like to get as much performance out of them as possible, so a modern controller or using the motherboard's own interface is attractive.  Given the quantity of data and the controllers etc., rysnc may be the best route, since I can get my baseline and then let it just transfer the differential changes.  Looks like I have a busy weekend ahead.

Thanks again for the input.

Dave Yeo:
Another option for backups is a eSATA connection, as fast as internal but on OS/2, no eject/unmount so you have to shutdown to mount and unmount.

ivan:
If you are prepared to use external storage you could do what we do in the service department, RSYNC the daily work over to a couple of D-Link NAS boxes with 3TB drives setup as RAID 1 in each.  They are backed up weekly to our HP storage array again using RSYNC.

I have the same D-Link backup at home and the cheap and cheerful NAS boxes have been working away without problems for the last 4 years. I do have them hooked up to a UPS, a hold over from when the electric supply wasn't as good as it is since they re cabled the village. 

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