real life application Re: [G4] EIDE and Ultra ATA RAID

[shopdog]

Can anyone give advice on an inexpensive way to set up a RAID array 
with hot-swappable drives that can be added to easily.  And then also 
how to do an offsite backup from that?

I would like to set up a system comprised of many small drives, so that 
I can use inexpensive drives but have them be seen as one large drive 
(my understanding is that this would be "striped", or perhaps 
"concatenated").  I would then like to have this "mirrored" so that 
redundancy of data is always present.  I would also like to be able to 
then have the drives be hot-swappable, so I can switch drives at any 
time.  I would also like, if it is possible, to be able to add drives 
at any time, to increase the overall size of the "drive" that is seen 
by the computer.  Perhaps the last part can be done if I "concatenate" 
the drives?  (My problem is that when the array is full, I want to be 
able to simply add an inexpensive drive and starting saving files 
again, without having to set up a new array, or save to other disks.)

Then I would like to be able to make (or take away) a backup of the 
array so that I always have an offsite backup in case there is a fire, 
etc.

Any help would be appreciated.

On Apr 25, 2005, at 4:47 PM, Ralph Garrett wrote:

>
> On Apr 25, 2005, at 3:34 PM, Steve Goldstein wrote:
>
>> And the messages confirmed in my mind that I did the right thing in 
>> recommending Raid 1 to him--there will always be a hot backup, even 
>> if the controller card goes south.  In addition, I will outfit one of 
>> the 5.25" face plates on the Dell box with a removable HD rack, and 
>> we will get at least two 160 GB HDs (Samsungs are only about $80 each 
>> at newegg.com) with cassette carriers to fit it (about $35 plus $15 
>> per carrier), so that he can do rotational/generational backups every 
>> night
>
>
> For that application, that is a very good configuration. Speed is not 
> an issue, redundancy of data is.
>
> Ralph
>
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