external storage for linux

[David Vincent]

Bart Silverstrim wrote:
> The solution I use is:
> 
> A) my workstation (Ubuntu 7.10) has a 3ware card in it for hardware 
> RAID-1.  Not cheap, but I have had good luck with 3Ware in the past.
> 
> B) I have 2 USB drives (Western Digital Mybooks), 250 gig each, attached 
> to the workstation.
> 
> I don't have a "from bare metal" restore.  I keep my files organized on 
> my system so 90% of what I keep is under ~/files.  I run "sync" to copy 
> (via rsync) the data on ~/files to drive A.  The rest of my files I keep 
> under a couple directories on drive A (so A has a A/myfiles, 
> A/workfiles, etc.), and the sync script then does an rsync from A to 
> drive B.

thanks bart.  that's pretty similar to what i'm doing right now.  i keep 
multiple copies of my documents. media, and /home across a few machines 
and external drives in case of a single drive failure.  if there is a 
fire i can grab just the external drives and save my critical stuff.

do the mybook drives spin down or go into any power-saving mode?  i'll 
confess i really really like western digital as a brand, they have 
always been good to me.

-d