Hi!

I used to have three raid1:

2 x 4Tb Ssd dedicated to store personal data

2 x 6Tb HDD dedicated to store “iso’s”, the eye patched ones.

2 x 4Tb ssd for backup.

Ext4 everywhere.

I run this setup for years, maybe even 20 years (with many different disks and sizes over time).

I decided that was time to be more efficient.

I removed the two HDD, saving quite a lot of power, and switched the four sdd to RAID5, Then put BTRFS on top of that. Please note, I am not using btrfs raid feature, but Linux mdadm software raid (which I have been using rock solid for years) with btrfs on top as if on a single drive.

I choose MD not only for my past very positive experience, but specially because I love how easy is to recover and restore from many issues.

I choose not to try zfs because I don’t feel comfortable in using out of kernel drivers and I dislike how zfs seems to be RAM hungry.

What do you guys think?

  • @solrize
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    95 days ago

    SSDs for backup? Being rich must be nice. More srsly if you have the upstream pipe for it, remote backups are preferable in case something happens at home.

    • ShimitarOP
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      25 days ago

      Yes I follow the 3 2 1 rule, one local backup on the hdd, one on another disk at home (connected to a openwrt router) and one offsite on my vps.

      I was using ssd for backup because I was dumb… I guess…

      Because needed extra space and added mindlessly the hdd without realizing I should have moved to a more efficient approach.

    • Justin
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      25 days ago

      Right, something like hetzner storage box is a good complement to raid 5 in order to follow the 321 backup rule. You can use rclone to sync your backup to hetzner, and even encrypt it, and they can do automatic snapshots on their end to protect against ransomware.

      • ShimitarOP
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        25 days ago

        I do my offsite on a vps I rent, all managed by restic / backrest.