[X4U] Cloned secondary drive?

[Eugene]

On Sun, Apr 02, 2006 at 08:29:38AM CDT, Jesse Leo <jleo at projectsupport.com> wrote:
: 
: We recently installed a second drive to our web/database server (OSX Tiger
: running Webstar, Lasso and Mysql). Using Carbon Copy Cloner we backed up the
: entire system drive, so we now have a complete replica of the drive in case
: of failure.
: 
: Here's the question, and it may be the dumbest question ever - is there any
: harm in keeping that second 'cloned' drive in place?  Sounds ridiculous, but
: a part of me thinks that it's running services, databases, processes, etc
: and doing things it shouldn't be doing when the system starts up. Is this
: the case? Or would the drive be doing nothing at all since it's not the
: system volume?

So the cloned drive is just a pure backup and is not being used
as the boot volume.  Theoretically, it should be fine.  But if
it's up and mounted, there's always the chance that a rogue
process (or a mistaken user) may alter the contents of the
cloned drive (e.g. delete old files, save new or temp files,
update other files like Spotlight indexes).  Also, if the cloned
drive is asleep, then you'll always run into pauses when Finder
does something that requires that drive to wake up (which could
take more than a moment to spin up).

If you choose to leave the cloned drive in the server, I would
completely unplug it (bus & power) to minimize wear-and-tear and
anything other unpleasantries.


-- 
Eugene
http://www.coxar.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/