Quote:
Originally posted by CarolCox
Yes, there is a small chance your back-up hard-drive may go. But he was asking about backing up a a desktop and not a server. There is a big difference on the life of a drive depending on it's use. I highly doubt that both drives will go at the same time. We've been mirroring all our home drives for years, and have never had a problem.
I was providing an inexpensive and simple solution, nothing more. Like any advice or comments, he is free to accept or disregard it.
Carol Cox 
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A slower tape drive is still a better bet then an ide drive or even a scsi drive.
In general IDE drives have something like a 20% failure rate averaging over 2 years of usage. Another joy about ide drives are lower manufacturing tolerance than scsi drives because they're "desktop" class hardware.. Cheaper bearings & lubricants, less control on cleanliness of manufacturing plants in terms of acceptable airborne particles, etc..
A good cheap solution is a cheap promise IDE raid card, mirrored, and a daily backup onto a scsi tape drive.
Cheap is nice and good.. But how much money do you lose when your entire hard drive is wiped out due to virii, electrical surge, clumsiness, wear, mechanical failure, circuit failure, hyperactive cats?
The last time I lost a drive that was crucial was 3 years ago, giving me a week of inproductivity and $2500 to have the disk restored.. I learned my lesson that day.