Christopher Chan wrote:
>
> Sorry, I did not read your mail through properly. Not mounted on the
> secondary, okay. Anyway, quite a fair bit off complexity there in making
> sure the network block device does not get mounted by both boxes at the
> same time.
>
> Is it really worth the complexity when you can have both servers online
> running off their own disks for the mail queue without having to worry
> about the other guy? If the primary is so badly whatever that a queue on
> mirrored disks cannot be brought back online with a simple reboot, what
> chances are there that the network block device won't be a victim of the
> whatever and mess up the queue so that the secondary cannot use it?
That's generally my reasoning in thinking that simple raid1 mirrors on
the primary with swappable disks and a spare powered-off chassis are
probably more robust. You do need someone on-site capable of swapping
the disks if you have a motherboard/power supply failure but with
server-class equipment and a good UPS those are pretty rare. You also
need additional backups, since an operator or software error could take
out your online filesystem including the mirrored side.
--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell at gmail.com