Another option might be to make two of them into a RAID1 set,
 	with the third as a hotspare, and then have a nightly script
 	to mount the fourth and rsync across onto it... to save you
 	from the 'oops, just deleted that' case...

On Mon, 20 Mar 2006, Brian Buhrow wrote:

> 	I would suggest making thre of the 4 disks into a raid5 set, with
> 300MB reserved at the beginning of each disk for a small boot partition.
> This would give you the required space, would allow any of your disks to
> fail, and give you a spare to save to, so you would have a fully functional
> raid while you swapped out a bad disk. This configuration would allow you
> to lose up to half your disks, 2 of them, and still retain your data.  This
> is what I did on one of my production servers about 4 years ago, and it's
> worked great!
> -Brian
> On Mar 20,  4:46pm, Henry Nelson wrote:
> } Subject: optimal (safest) RAID setup for 4 idendical ide disks
> } I have four identical 3GB HDDs.  Six GB is more than enough space for
> } what I want to do with this machine.  Originally I was thinking that
> } setting up two RAID 1 (mirroring) sets would give me the greatest
> } safety factor against failure of a disk, but, on the other hand, having
> } a "hot spare" available also sounded like it would give good insurance.
> }
> } Also, I wonder if I did pair up the 4 disks into two RAID sets, what
> } would be the best physical configuration, i.e., should each set be
> } master-master (or slave-slave) on the primary and secondary ide
> } controllers, or should each RAID set be on the same controller?  (Or
> } it doesn't make any difference at all?)
> }
> } Any suggestions/advice on how to use four 3GD HDDs (total 12GB) to get
> } 6GB of usable space with the maximum amount of protection against the
> } failure of any one of the disks much appreciated.  Also, if you know of
> } good URLs pointing to NOT-too-technical discussions on this topic please
> } throw them my way.  TIA.
> }
> } --
> } henry nelson
> }   WWW_HOME=http://yuba.kcn.ne.jp/~home/
>> -- End of excerpt from Henry Nelson
>
>

-- 
 		David/absolute       -- www.NetBSD.org: No hype required --