Backup and recovery strategies for your SageTV server

[michaeldjcox]

I have windows 7 desktop which is the family desktop PC and my SageTV server.

I have the following storage:

• C: 128GB solid state (windows system disk, program files, app data)
• D: 1.5TB in RAID 1 mirror of two 1.5TB drives (User data and SageTV recordings and import directories - home video/music/photos)
• J: 1.0TB where I have ripped copies of DVDs I own
• K: 0.5TB free available for backups

Currently my strategy is:

• D is mirrored but not backed up so I am protected against a hard drive failure - would be very unlucky if they both crashed.
• C plus the user data on D is backed up daily using windows 7 backup
• J not worried about as these are on DVD disk anyway.

Can I do any better (without spending too much more cash)

Very grateful for any advice.

Michael

[mikejaner]

Originally Posted by michaeldjcox

Can I do any better (without spending too much more cash)

Very grateful for any advice.

Michael

Probably not. Your solution is pretty elegant and simple.

[Skirge01]

Personally, I would get away from RAID and use a real backup solution for the data you don't want to lose. If you're okay with losing the recordings, then you're setup is perfect. However, if you really don't want to lose the data, I'd back it up to another hard drive(s).

RAID is intended to maintain uptime on a system, so that data is still accessible when there's a drive failure and users can continue their "work" uninterrupted. However, RAID is not a backup solution. Many things can go wrong with an array which cause all the data to be lost. A backup solution is meant to account for those situations.

That said, I don't currently backup my recordings directory because, while I would be upset at the loss, the current financial requirements to backup 13TB of recordings is not reasonable. Now, when I upgrade my current drives to larger, faster, fewer platter versions, I may very well use the old drives for backup purposes and duplicate the entire 13+TB.