Hard Drives, mirroring and SATA

[William O'Higgins Witteman]

On Fri, Apr 21, 2006 at 03:18:06PM -0400, Andrew Hammond wrote:
>>The next question is, how do I mirror a hard drive
>
>You probably mean clone, not mirror. Mirroring is done through the  
>RAID subsystem. However it's a bit messy to retro-fit a mirror. I  
>suspect you don't want to go this route.

Good to know, thanks.

>>(rather than go
>>through the hassle of reinstalling)?  Can I do a dd from one drive to
>>another?
>
>If they're identical drives, absolutely. However, you probably don't  
>want to try it while they're mounted.

Good point.

>>Do I need to do this with a live CD?  Or is it easier to just
>>reinstall?
>
>If you've backed your data up then a re-install makes more sense.  
>Gives you an opportunity to throw in an upgrade while you're at it.  

I use Debian, so I don't need to upgrade - I do that a a couple of times
a week.  I generally only reboot when my kernel gets upgraded.

>>Lastly, should I just buy another IDE drive, or should I get an SATA
>>drive (the difference seems to be about $4 more SATA)?  Thanks.
>
>SATA offers higher IO as well as smaller and easier to manage cables.  
>The SATA disk subsystem in Linux is substantially better than the  
>other disk subsystems. Assuming you have a supported SATA controller  
>already on your motherboard, then it's a no-brainer.

Good to know - if only my motherboard supported it :-(  Next upgrade,
for sure.
-- 

yours,

William

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