[SGVLUG] Suggestions for business application server

[DYN: Jim Workman]

We are planning to replace our current Dell RHEL 4 server (keeping the
old server as a nightly-rsynced hot backup).

 

I'm looking for suggestions on some questions from those who have recent
configuration experience.

 

Current system has 8 SCSI 73GB 15k drives in RAID5.

 

Has anyone replaced SCSI with SATA in high-reliability environment.
(Non-SQL files with lots of record-based I/O.)

 

I have read that RAID5 is less preferable to RAID10 or other
configurations due to its slowness.

 

Also read that it is better to not keep the OS on the main RAID array.

 

Are there significant advantages to go to RHEL 5, and can the backup
system stay RHEL 4?

 

We are currently making nightly full backups onto DLT VS1 tapes.  (2
week rotation and archiving the Month-End tape.) 

Because tape drive & tapes are relatively expensive, I am investigating
a cron-driven backup to USB hard-drives as a replacement.

Anyone doing this?

 

We have an option to make incremental backups to an enterprise-level
hard-drive archive system, but I have concerns about restoring
individual files from such a system.  Has anyone dealt with data
recovery from EMCsquared?

 

Experience-based comments to any of the issues above are welcome.

 

 

Jim Workman

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