Western Digital "MyBook" as RAID?

Thanks! This could be even better than a RAID solution. It's actually all I am looking for, something that silently writes a backup the instant a file is updated. Saves that dreaded backup wait at night.

Found a fly in the ointment: "Second Copy application should be installed and run on each system. It should not be run from a shared network drive."

Drat. So it may not work here. Have to check though. This drive on the LAN is supposed to become the central file repository and backups to be made from there to another location.

It's across a network, lots of CAD files. Auto shutdown is an option but it will take some building of hardware because I also turn off part of the network.

Yeah; of course, I was just talking about the "software shutdown" that computers do when told to. I'd prefer a real power off as well.

robert

It is a combination of both. The card identifies itself as a SCSI device to the BIOS and is accessible as such (so it is possible to clone the array with GHOST). After Windows (or any other supported OS) is booted, the drivers kick in and do software RAID.

You must really hate TVs, radios, and 99.44% of all other consumer electronics too.

It depends. Let's see, the Astor BPJ here in the office has a real on/off switch that cuts the mains line. So does the old Sachsenwerk in the lab. And the one in the garage which even has that newfangled FM band. Oh, and the radio in the kitchen. This here PC as well, no standby. The laptops go into hibernate when off and their consumption drops to zilch so you can turn of the desk power.

:-)

You're Welcome. Also, IIRC, it said it could schedule backups when Windows was told to close as part of a Profile. So you can get a final clean-up as the machine is shutting down.

Robert

Don't know about that. You might be able to install it locally and just back up the files on the Network drive to the other location. Nothing said the files have to be local to the machine you install it on. They might have to just be accessible from the machine it's on.

Don't know.

Robert

Thanks.

Robert

Yes, then it would be fine. I would like to be able to start the backup from any machine but if that's the only sacrifice to make, oh well, it would be ok.

You *can* start the Program from any machine. Activate the built-in remote control app from Microsoft or install the free VNC Server on that machine

and from the VNC client log onto that machine and you'll see it's desktop on yours. You can do anything in that desktop that you can do sitting in front of the machine.

Robert

Not sure if that would work, but it might. The "machine" in this drive is essentially a small PC running Linux. It cannot run Windows AFAIU. When doing a backup no other PC on the LAN may be on anymore, except for this little PC inside the LAN hard-drive.

They do say they are "cross platform" compatible. With:

Automatic SSH tunneling on Unix. The Unix version of TightVNC Viewer can tunnel connections via SSH automatically using local SSH/OpenSSH client installation.

Robert

Never Mind

Just realized you were talking about running the "Second Copy" Program on the Unix Box. Which they don't support. But, as I said before, it may be able to run on your local machine and make the backup between the two others as long as it can see them.

Robert

Who's Emily?

I should work. I probably just have to have a simple backup program on each machine and then on nights where I don't want to hang around use a PC that goes into sleep mode when done. Or better yet into hibernate.

Sorry. Wrong Spelling. Gilda Radner in one of her early SNL characters.

But, given your background and little TV viewing it's not likely you'd have heard of the character.

Robert

True, never heard of her. I guess once our analog TV is turned off and the digital doesn't reach into the hills here it'll only get worse ;-)