New webhosts are not using RAID 1 mirroring, is that bad, or common?

[Clint1]

(Because of the limited subject lines, I had to make two posts!)

Hi all, I'm having to change hosts due to so many problems, and one of the hosts I'm looking at and seemed to possibly have settled on (WebzPro Hosting - Web Hosting Services and Domain Name Registration (http://www.webzpro.com/network.html), comments welcomed), said they don't use RAID 1 mirroring. That seems bad to me. I asked what happens when a server's HD fails and they said "We use R1soft back up system this will explain what is done in case of HD failure. Bare-Metal Restore - Technical Papers - R1Soft Continuous Data Protection - Docs - KB Articles - Technical Papers (http://wiki.r1soft.com/display/TP/Bare-Metal+Restore) ". Yet they still guarantee 99.99% uptime. Now I haven't checked in the past to see what kind of HD backup/redundancy hosts use, so I don't know if RAID 1 is what most use or not.

One other thing, they allow their servers to be fully pingable down to the last traceroute hop. Every host I have ever had has not allowed this, they've blocked the last ping on the traceroute hop with a firewall. So this is cause for concern to me that they do not.....or is it? This seems like a security issue to me. They said they do use firewalls.

Thanks.

[danlefree]

No RAID mirroring = irresponsible host too cheap to spend on RAID controller and redundant drives (note: RAID 1 is not the only mirroring configuration - review the RAID Standard Levels (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID#Standard_levels) if you encounter a RAID configuration which you are not familiar with).

Avoid them like the plague.

[Clint1]

I did. The host I ended up changing to has RAID mirroring, plus a lot more.

[michael_dans]

I think that it is good for you, but every thing has a good and a bad aspect. If you think that you should use it then your shifting of host will prove a good step. Moreover, you are getting a lot more than what you were getting earlier then I am sure it is beneficial for you.

[Clint1]

I thought I mentioned it here but I didn't, I ended up going with Web Hosting - Shared cPanel Linux Web Hosting (http://www.hostgator.com/shared.shtml), they're not the cheapest but had the best reviews.

[webhost.uk.net]

Yes good idea to have RAID backup ..but the problem with it is ..if your RAID drive is corrupted you can end up loosing all the data.

[Uncle Dog]

..if your RAID drive is corrupted you can end up loosing all the data. Nonsense. RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks) 1 means your data is stored in duplicate on 2 drives. Unless both drives fail simultaneously, highly unlikely, then your data is always recoverable.

[danlefree]

I believe that webhost.uk.net is talking about a RAID array in which the RAID controller manages to die horrifically - it's a genuine concern, however, it's a far less likely occurrence than the death of a disk in the array.

[Clint1]

Yes good idea to have RAID backup ..but the problem with it is ..if your RAID drive is corrupted you can end up loosing all the data.
That doesn't happen with RAID 1 mirroring, that can happen with RAID 0 striping (for speed, when the data is written to the HD's in parallel, one bit here, one bit there, one bit here, one bit there, etc.). In RAID 0 if one HD fails, the data is lost. That's why servers use RAID 1 (and sometimes RAID 0+1). EDIT: You can look at this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID) for more info.

[danlefree]

A faulty RAID controller can produce corrupted data, and render useless redundant data on the mirror. Whereas the corrupting influence of a faulty controller might seem obvious, this issue merits mention given the importance of data backups.

- Bad RAID Controller Can Corrupt Data (http://kb.perforce.com/AdminTasks/BackupAndRecovery/BadRaidCanCorruptData)

As I said, not that common but it still happens - I've seen two occurrences over the past two years in a datacenter with several hundred servers running RAID1, RAID5, and RAID10 mirroring.

[hpham]

Meanwhile we are using raid10 for all our shared hosting, VPS servers, I would say: if they do use R1soft, it's still good. Check with them how frequently they do backup. R1soft can be used for multiple backups per day, so if something wrong with your server, they can restore your data to another server quickly.

[Clint1]

.....I would say: if they do use R1soft, it's still good. Check with them how frequently they do backup. R1soft can be used for multiple backups per day, so if something wrong with your server, they can restore your data to another server quickly.

See my post #5 and #3 above. ;)

[conortreacy]

I know it's an older thread but I thought I'd pop in and let you know that we had a server fail here recently that was in RAID1 and BOTH drives took the dive. Thankfully we use r1soft on all our servers and we were able to restore data to an alternate machine for users, but the failure of raid can and DOES happen, even when you've taken the precautions.

Also, if you're checking for RAID, be sure to ask for HARDWARE RAID and not Software. If you use Software RAID and one drive fails, BOTH fail, even if in mirror mode :) Promise Raid was notorious for that.

At the end of the day, ALWAYS have a backup none the less. A host likely has it in their TOS/AUP that they're not responsible for lost data, so protect yourself and have your own backups. There's also services out there that offer website backup services to remote locations.