Server 2003 backup solution

Does anyone see any problems with the following backup solution?

HP Proliant DL380 G3
Xeon 3.06 GHz
2 GB RAM
6 300 GB 10,000 RPM SCSI drives in a RAID 5 configuration (1.5 TB total!)
Running Server 2003 and Backup Exec 9.1

Can anyone see a reason why this wouldn't work for an enterprise backup solution? Thanks.

 

Yup. If you have a major hardware problem and lose two drives at the same time, you are toast.

Tape is slow and sorta clunky but still has lots to recommend it for backups.

 

I didnt do the math. How many of those drives are members of the array and how many are Hot Spares?

 

Sounds like you need one of these

This is what the Dept of Defence uses at their DISA office here in Montgomery, Al. This facility handles all the data for Armed Forces Accounting including Payroll. I think there are 4 or five sites world wide. They carry their tapes 50 miles off site (Incase of a direct hit) every day.

 

Raid 5 uses one disk's worth of space (stripped over all the disks) as parity. As 1.5Tb is 5 x 300Gb (though not strictly - depends on your definitions of Gb and Tb), that leaves one disk for parity. In other words all disks would be used.

However, I think ssmith10pn and Newt have both made excellent points:

It is worth having at least one hot spare in a mission critical server. If you kept with six disks that would give you about 1.2 Tb of useable space (5 in the array + 1 spare).

Tape is always a good idea on a mission critical system. Two reasons in my opinion. 1. you can take copies off site. 2. it provides a system for you to recover files that may have corupted or been eroneously deleted many days (or even months if you design your tape rotation strategy carefully) previously.

Also invest in a good RAID controller and set up alerts that will e-mail or page you as soon as a disk fails.

 

Thanks

I appreciate the input. I think I could go with the 5 RAID and 1 hot-spare drive. That seems to be the concensus. Thanks.