[CentOS] Re: Opteron Mobo Suggestions -- the follies of typical tape backup (it's the 21st century)

Bryan J. Smith wrote:
> That means it's ideal for when you're just throwing data around.  Things
> change though if you're doing more buffering (like RAID-5).  That's why
> 3Ware introduced the 9500 series (to add DRAM buffer to its existing
> ASIC+SRAM design).

Another poster (sorry, could find the name, was it Peter?) mentioned the 
lack of hot-swap support in most of the hardware raid out there. If this 
is the case, what's the point of raid 1 or 5 if a failed drive will hang 
the system? What's your experience with the 3Ware cards?


> What I was stating was that you _never_ want to use "consumer" buses for
> server storage.  Despite Apple's insistence that FireWire is server-
> grade, they've had lots of issues.  Yes, it's better than USB and far
> more intelligent (e.g., USB can't do device-to-device, FireWire can).

Okay, okay, you win! You're right and I'm wrong! I will never consider 
IEEE-1394 again. You and the other posters have convinced me. Every USB 
cable in my server room will be removed and destroyed. Every USB port 
will be filled with glue.  :)

> 2.  Backup over NIC to a "near-line" device with the tape drive

What about LVM snapshots? I've been using these for awhile with no 
problems. Yes, I understand that it will consume disk bandwith but 
that's not a limitation in my installation.