Re: [gentoo-user] smartctrl drive error @60%

[Bill Kenworthy <billk@iinet.net.au>]

On 26/06/14 06:16, Dale wrote:
> Neil Bothwick wrote:
>> On Wed, 25 Jun 2014 17:44:48 +0100, Mick wrote:
>>
>>>> Install a simple forwarding MTA like ssmtp to have all mails from cron
>>>> and friends sent to your ISP mailbox.  
>>> ... and when you find out please tell us:
>>>

> 
> What I really need to do, set up a RAID or some other backup method so
> that even if this happens again, I don't risk losing anything.  Then
> again, that will take time as well.  Also takes money.
> 

Repeat after me ... RAID IS NOT A BACKUP

There are many ways to do a backup - various raid forms, mirrors etc can
help in some (and only some) instances but only a spatially separated
copy of the data is relatively safe.

Have two computers? - cross backup between them. (keep an old machine as
a file server in the back room, start it up a couple of times a week and
run a backup script - can even be automated)

Have a friend/relative nearby? - take your PC over, create a backup and
then sync the differences across the net using rsync etc - most normal
people do fill up todays large disks, or have large "personal valuable
data" requirements.

You dont need to backup the whole machine, just the valuable bits
(configs, personal data, email archives, ...)

There are many ways to do it - if you only have one disk and no backups,
the data by definition is not valuable :)

Ive just been caught by an old 1G WD green drive failing (possibly the
MB's fault as the sata interface died as well - seen a few of those
now!) that took out the middle drive from a striped LVM.  Didnt bother
to recover, just built a new machine from leftover bits, bought another
drive and rebuilt it using btrfs raid 1 on the two orignal WD 2G green
drives and a new WD red, and restored from backups on another machine -
over the years this type of event has happened a few times - you only
need to get burnt once to learn!.

BillK