2 B2 and B2-storage with RAID

[pcrene]

Hello All,

At this moment i am using a B2 and the connected B2-storage as a main backup, not in RAID yet because i don't know where to leave the data in between (/home get amptied upon RAID creation.

Now my second B2 will arive soon and i want to create a raid system with B2-storage in a way that if the main B2 crashes i kan do a fast switch to the second B2 and to a RAID recovery on the second B2.

Is this possible ?

Rene

[asparak]

Hi PCRene,

What you seem to be talking about (forgive me here if I misunderstand you) is a bare metal recovery, when Bubba A has a disk failure and you rebuild it from Bubba B.

Now, in theory, you should be able to take the Storage unit (for example) from Bubba B, insert it into the failed Bubba A and rebuild, but their are a few things to bear in mind.

I haven't RAID'd my Bubba2 yet, but my understanding is that you are only RAIDing /home in the Excito setup, so first you would need to re-install the OS portion, then re-build from RAID, but that assumes you don't damage your Bubba B disk in the process. This also assumes that the hardware components of the two Bubba's are identical and you know enough about System level hacking to get the two RAID disk to match serial numbers (software RAID disks, depending on how they are created are usually tied together using a serial number or similar in their data header). This can be done, but that way lies madness.

Might I suggest a simpler alternative for you?
1. When Bubba B arrives, set it up as RAID.
2. Now mirror your data from Bubba A to Bubba B and test that Bubba B works fully.
3. Now put Bubba B live with its RAID array, take Bubba A offline and rebuild with RAID, then mirror your data back.
4. You keep your Bubba's in sync regularly.

Now, if one Bubba fails, you simply swap the entire system into live, remove the failed one fix and rebuild and then that becomes your backup.

[pcrene]

Hello

Thank you for your reaction..

My intension was exactly asyou described.
I just wanted to know the risks, regulary sync of the RAID must be done to keep them
not to differtn from each other to bring the resync time to a minimum.

Rene

[asparak]

Well... The only real risk with the RAID as it stands at the moment is you are vulnerable if the internal drive fails as that contains the OS, but as long as you know how to make a USB boot device and can download the ISO image for the OS level, you should be good to go, so I'd suggest keeping a working boot USB stick as part of your disaster recovery plan.