[TriLUG] New computer...finally!

[Alan Porter]

> Basically, I'm looking for a desktop with at least 4
> cores and 6-8GB of memory and 2 drives in a RAID1 for OS.

Remember, RAID is not a backup strategy.  Fat-finger a command
like "rm -rf /" and you'll lose two RAID copies just as fast
as you'd lose one on a non-RAID disk.

RAID is for high availability.  If you lose a disk, a RAID
system can keep running while you hunt down a replacement
disk.  If uptime is important to you, then RAID is the way
to go.

What's much more likely for home use is the need for a backup
strategy.  In that case, you'd be better off setting up the
two disks as separate partitions, and run something like
rsback to make TimeMachine-like copies from the primary to
the backup drive.  This would give you the ability to restore
a deleted or changed file from one of many snapshots in the
past.

If you lost a disk using the non-RAID primary/backup strategy,
you would lose a little time replacing the bad disk, and also
while copying files from one to the other.  But that's not
catastrophic for a home system.

Again, RAID != backup.  For home, I would choose "backup".

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