running degraded RAID to save power

[Matthew Gillen]

Dan Ritter wrote:
> Two different approaches:
> 
> - Don't use the RAID layer; rsync the disks as desired.
> 
> - Don't use the RAID layer, and don't copy the whole disk. Use
>   rsnapshot to get copies of /home, /etc and a package list.
> 
> I'm doing the second of those approaches right now on my home
> workstation. The second disk is spun down except for once every
> 24 hours, in the middle of the night.

Jack Coats wrote:
> Also, consider purchasing a 3rd similar drive in 6 months or a year to 
> on-purpose get one from another manufacturing run. Mirror one old and the
> new, and use the 3rd drive to power up and rsync or use raid to sync with
> on occasion. Or as an 'off site' drive in an external enclosure.

Thanks for the inputs.  I see now that RAID would be kind of dumb to be used 
that way (plus, I suspect it would do a whole-disk sync, regardless of how 
much was different or how much of the filesystem was unused).

Not using RAID will give me some more freedom to tinker with alternative 
filesystems too...

Matt