Tell me about Data security and integrity

Lumeycom

Lumeycom

Lumeycom

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Joined
31 Jan 2008
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1,327
Location
S Wales
Hi Guys

I was hoping if I outlined what I needed someone could point me in the right direction spec and possibly learning material ;)


We are currently tendering for a Building Management system installation which we have done several times before but this time the client has specified that they would like redundancy within the hard disks as they have lost historical data due to a drive failure before and are keen to move towards this not happening in the future.

They require around 2 years of historical data, rolling, which the software can do no problem. This will consume around 1tb of disk space based on they're current usage but I'd like to be able to offer them 50% more for possible future needs.

Now we come to the problem. I have a skills/knowledge defiency when it comes to things like this but I'm guessing I'd be looking at some sort of Raid arrangement that can survive a disk failure. The ability to hotswap is not required as a failed disk can be replaced in an agreed maintenance window.

Any ideas or pointers in the right direction would be much appreciated

Thanks

Lumey
 
Sounds like you need a minimum of RAID1 (a mirror) or RAID5 (a striped array with parity).

RAID1 is simple and effective needing only two physical hard disks. RAID5 has scope for many more drives. (there are many other RAID numbers)

Both implementations of RAID will protect against the physical loss of one drive.

More sophisticated solutions are available for high-performance applications or situations were you need to protect from multiple drive failure. (RAID0+1 etc).

You also need to implement a proper, thorough and regularly tested backup solution as well. RAID just keeps the data stable in the event of a hardware problem - but what about if someone accidentally deletes some data or changes a crucial setting or a patch to your BMS corrupts a database?

RAID won't sort these issues out unfortunately - please don't fall into the trap of thinking that RAID is all you need to protect your data.
 
External backups are being sorted by someone else, but will happen only weekly. I'm just trying to work out whats best for them given they're request. Tis all a bit confusing!! :)

Will raid5 and or 1 allow for the changing of a failed drive and rebuild itself?
 
yeah it should do. Make sure you have monitoring in place on the server so somone gets notified as soon as a harddrive fails. Personally I would go for raid 10 (mirror+stripe). It is more expensive as you will need at least 4 harddrives. I would lso ensure that you have UPS and Batteries in the array controller.
Not sure of the specifics of your project but is a weekly backup sufficient.
 
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