2007-12-12 03:01:43 · 5 answers · asked by edwin b 1 in Computers & Internet ➔ Hardware ➔ Add-ons
You use RAID to provide reliability to your system, not as a backup solution.
1. If Most or all of the drives were to crash, then you are screwed.
2. With backups you can save weeks of information, that can be restored if something were to go wrong.
3. If you like your job, then you will have a good backup plan. That plan includes backing up and actually testing the backup to make sure it can be restored. It doesn't do anyone any good if you can't use your backups.
2007-12-12 03:17:58 · answer #1 · answered by CatNip 6 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Yeah, sounds like homework to me too but I'll help on this one anyway.
1) RAID is an expensive solution compared to a tape drive and a couple sets of tapes
2) RAID only protects against hardware failure in several configurations (i.e RAID 0 striping does not provide hardware redundancy while RAID 1 and RAID 5 do). A user can still delete a file or corruption can occur on an active disk volume. Tape backups are made and stored off line (we'll ignore "near line" for now) and often in a rotating tape set to allow for longer data retention periods.
3) Most importantly, a robotic tape library system is way cooler looking in the data center than a rack of RAID.
** Edit **
Note: With my #2 answer above, this does not take into account the option of combining a "snap shot" system. Snap shot will allow for periodic "snap shots" of the volume so you can go to a "point in time" for a file. This can be useful but still should not replace an off line backup.
2007-12-12 11:12:52 · answer #2 · answered by Jim Maryland 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
RAID is more about speed than stability. At best, you could use mirrored (raid 1) and if a drive fails, you still have the other. This is the slowest of the raid levels though. Striping is not good for backups because you are SOL if just 1 drive fails.
2007-12-12 11:13:45 · answer #3 · answered by jaden smith 2 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Homework?
Using RAID in the striping mode (which copies some info to one hard drive, and some to another hard drive) can cause you to lose data if one hard drive fails.
2007-12-12 11:04:19 · answer #4 · answered by floppyorangehat 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
u can lose data with raid if you are not in mirror mode... and raid also has a higher hard drive failure rate.
also with a backup machine... you dont have to worry if your computer gets fried... just get a new one and restore from ur separate backup machine. if it was raid.. it woulda went with the computer.
2007-12-12 11:07:27 · answer #5 · answered by sam in the 619 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋