In Linux you can use the dd command to copy MBR from one hard disk to another. You can also use dd to backup your master boot record to a different (or same) media. One of the common use of MBR copying is to ensure transparent fail-over in RAID-1 hard-disk array, should one hard-disks fail. Read more for examples.

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I currently use RAID1 with LVM on Fedora Core including RAID 1 on boot partition. This provides a fully redundant storage system with the ability to expand volume size in future. However RAID & LVM has to be managed from command line tools like mdadm in raidtools package. EVMS (Enterprise Volume Management System) on the other hand provides a single, unified system for handling all of your storage management tasks. EVMS recognizes all of the disks on your system and allows for a variety of partitioning schemes. Software-RAID and logical volume groups can be managed in EVMS. Filesystems can be created and checked, and are automatically updated when changes are made to the underlying volumes. With EVMS, there is no longer a need for several individual utilities for performing each of these tasks.

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SystemRescueCd is a Linux system on a bootable CD-ROM for repairing your system and recovering your data after a crash. It aims to provide an easy way to carry out admin tasks on your computer, such as creating and editing the partitions of the hard disk. It contains lots of system utilities (GParted, parted, partimage, Sfdisk, fstools, …[details below]) and basic tools (editors, file managers like midnight commander, network tools … [details below]). It is very easy to use: just boot the CDROM. The kernel supports most of the important file systems (ext2/ext3, reiserfs, reiser4, xfs, jfs, vfat, ntfs, iso9660), as well as network filesystems (samba and nfs).

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Partimage is a Linux utility which saves partitions having a supported filesystems (see below) to an image file. It is a free and open source alternative to the popular software Norton Ghost or DriveImage. Most Linux and Windows filesystems are supported. The partition image file can be compressed with the gzip / bzip2 programs to save disk space, and can be split into multiple files to easily copy them on CDs / DVDs. Partitions can also be saved across the network using the partimage network support, or using Samba / NFS. If you don't want to install Partimage or you don't have a running Linux installation then you can download and burn SystemRescue CD. It is a live cd, like Bart's Rescue CD, that allows to use Partimage immediately even if your computer has no operating system installed (useful to restore an image), and it also allows to save an image on a DVD on the fly.

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One of the main challenges of managing multiple dedicated web / database servers is the ability to centrally monitor and manage them, automate tasks which requires out-of-band access like rebooting the server or find out if the server is dying and arrange for replacement ahead of time etc. Unless you are a very big web service provider, chances are you are using dedicated servers from one or more of dedicated web hosting providers. For example, I use two dedicated web servers from LayeredTech (not recommended) & EasySpeedy.

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Seagate announced availability of Terabyte disk drives at 7200 rpm; separate models targeted for enterprise and consumer desktops. The enterprise drives features serial attached SCSI interface option. Last week Samsung announced terabyte disk drives. A brief overview of the offerings and key differentiators.

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I am in the last stages of assembling have assembled my dream computer. The final hurdle is a DVI to VGA connector which turned out defective. I wanted a strong Java development system with reasonable costs and high quality tested components. I also have plans for am also using it for high throughput data processing. Here is the specification:

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I have been evaluating both Xubuntu and Fedora Core along with Cent OS (Open Source version / fork of Red Hat Linux Enterprise Edition). The key value and differences between these releases are:

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The basic idea of RAID (Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks) is to combine multiple small, independent disk drives into an array of disk drives which yields performance and recoverability exceeding that of a Single Large Expensive Drive (SLED). Redundancy is also provided (unless RAID 0) which allows easy and often automatic recovery from hard disk crash. With the reduction in price of ATA and SATA drives it is often a good idea, even for desktop computers, to setup a RAID 1 system to allow you to function in the event of hard disk failures. In RAID 1 two harddisks (or portions of them) mirror each other. RAID 1 is essential for our environment. I have tested both Windows software RAID facility as well as Linux RAID capability. Linux RAID support is way superior to Windows and should by itself be the reason to switch to Linux. I have given 4 reasons to support my claim below.

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My desktop computers hard-disk crashed today morning without any warning. The S.M.A.R.T. diagnostics showed perfect health all along. One of the 128 GB partition of a newly purchased Barracuda drive (from Seagate) is not showing any files. In fact whenever I click on it Windows 2000 it is asking me if I want to format it. Even the NTFS is not being recognized.

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