[Box Backup] Raid Config

[Steve Nelson]

On 3/16/06, Ben Summers <ben@fluffy.co.uk> wrote:
> How would you recommend making this point clearer? The Documentation
> Project Needs Your Help!

Indeed - I did create a user on the wiki and am happy to help, once
I've got to grips with everything and understood and digested the
documentation that's available.

As for making it clearer, that's perfectly clear, however, I didn't
pay much attention to the feature list after the first time I read it.
 I see it also says:

"The server does RAID in userland for that extra bit of reliability."
further down.

It could just be me, but it just hadn't even occurred that the program
itself might offer its own built-in raid-like redundancy - its a very
cool feature, but unexpected.  When I see RAID I just assume its
hardware or perhaps software.  I think I would put something like:

"For maximum reliability it is recommended that the location where
bbstored keeps data be on a redundant filesystem.  This can be
accomplished in one of three ways:

1) Hardware RAID - obtain a hardware RAID controller.  Most
server-class machines will have this as standard.
2) Software RAID - several tools are available to achieve redundancy
the software/os level - this includes Sun's SDS/SVM, Veritias Volume
Manager, the *BSD vinum project and raidtools under linux.
3) Box Backup's own userland RAID setup - Box Backup offers its own
RAID solution by writing data to three independent physical
disks/partitions."

You could then continue as before - although I might put in an extra
bit that says:

"Box Backup defines where data is stored in /etc/box/raidfile.conf.=20
If you are using Software or Hardware RAID, or if you have less than
three disks available, this file will simply point to one location,
either mounted on a RAID device, or just a lone filesystem."

This is just my initial suggestion - feel free to ignore / flame it as
much as you wish!  Hope its of some use!

> Ben

S.