I was asked to set up a new backup server using Symantec Backup Exec that stores to hard disk instead of tape, because the backup size is outgrowing tape capacity.
I was wondering does it really make sense or are there any advantages for the backup server to be running RAID of any sort as it is the "backup"?
To me, the benefit is not that great to justify the added cost.
I'm interested to see what others think.
Thanks!
Best Answer
Imo, there's a massive benefit to using raid.
If the backup machine has a disk failure without raid then you'll lose all your backups. How long will it take you to rebuild them?
Also, what if you lose all your backups due to a disk failure, successfully rebuild them, and then need to find something that was backed up previously but got lost cause of this disk failure.
If nothing else, disks are now so cheap that the cost of an extra disk to put the system in raid 5 will probably cost less than your time in the event you needed to recover from a failure.