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This Type of Backup Possible?

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by philldmc 2 views

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I am wondering if this type of backup is even possible.

Long story short I have a server that is running a RAID 1, two in the set and a hot spare.

I want to rotate a 4th drive. In a nut shell the 4 drive will be my backup drive. In the event of a server failure I can take that 4 drive and move it over to a different server box and "boot" off that drive and resume working until my current server gets fixed.

I know there is Symantec System Recovery and Acronis True image but I was more like referring to just taking the 4 drive plugging it in and just booting off that drive and the server is read to go.

Is this method even possible?

8 replies

by kenone

Your second drive is a mirror (copy) of your first drive. If you wanted to plug it into an identical machine you could. Never seen that, even if a drive completely failed I just replaced the drive, the RAID rebuilt itself, and away I'd go.You already have a spare so if a drive was failing the controller would start recreating the drive on the spare. Maybe I don't understand the question.

by jdclyde

and a nod that doing what he knows will work, will work.

by philldmc

I understand the RAID concept and yes in theroy you should be able to take a RAID 1 drive and boot off of it IF you are plugging it into the same exact system.

Raids only protect against HDD failure, not system failure. This the reason for the 4th drive, if the primary server's motherboard blows a transistor. Is there a method where I can take that 4th drive that I've been rotating and plug it directly into a different server and boot off of it and resume working?

by older mycroft

Whether your storage medium is RAID or a simple solitary physical drive, you are still subject to the confines of the HAL regime.

Why would you assume the 4th drive to be any different to those already forming parts of the RAID ?

by darryl~

pull the drives out of the server with the "blown" motherboard (or whatever was the cause of the system failure which is not related to the HDD) & install them into the "identical" server you have sitting there just waiting for such a failure to happen....you fire up the new server, you lose no data, don't have to do any restores, carry on working & continue to do backups on the "identical" server while the "original" server is out for repairs?

Must be nice to have that "identical" server just laying around doing nothing though.

by kenone

You could keep the maintenance contract paid up so if a mobo did blow out, (never seen it) you could just have them overnight a replacement to you and you could be back up and running in 24 hours . . . nah that would never work.

by older mycroft

So that it doesn't get damaged in the earthquake.

Gotta be prepared y'know. ;)

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