[linux-audio-user] AMD64 question: update

[Pieter Palmers]

carmen wrote:
> On Thu Jul 06, 2006 at 02:00:05PM -0400, Dan Easley wrote:
>> On 7/6/06, Pieter Palmers <pieterp at joow.be> wrote:
>>> Paul Winkler wrote:
>>>> On Thu, Jul 06, 2006 at 01:43:40PM +0200, Pieter Palmers wrote:
>>>>> Modern harddisks use a lot of write caching on the controller to achieve
>>>>> decent performance. So when power goes down when there is data in the
>>>>> write cache, it is lost. The file system however 'thinks' that data has
>>>>> been written correctly. This hence results in file system corruption.
>> Thanks much for this whole thread.  It's added substance to what I
>> previously thought was just personal paranoia and suspicion.
>>
>> I've been under the impression it's cheaper to buy used UPS's and buy
>> replacement batteries for them.  Has anyone done this to good results?
> 
> im guessing 2 drives , synched nightly via rsync, or in a RAID configuration, is cheaper, and friendlier for the environment than huge/heavy UPS batteries. i guess i'd invest in that if the electricity infrastructure in my area was particularly bad. or in combination with daytime solar replenishing to run completely off-grid.
>
The RAID does *not* help against power failures. been there, done that.

rsync will do, but then you have to make sure that the outage does not 
occur when running rsync. Anyway it lowers the chance that you'll have 
problems.

> soudns like overkill as a hedge against drive failure though. drives will fail. 

UPS'es don't prevent mechanical drive failure, but they do prevent 
'soft' bad sectors. My belief is that these are the most common.

I wouldn't think a 100€ UPS is more overkill than an extra 160G drive 
(costing about the same) for RAID/rsync mirroring.

I've made up my mind about this: 'this UPS is to stay', but feel free 
not to agree of course ;)

Pieter