There is a new guide on how to install and configure SnapRAID on Ubuntu Server. Snapraid is a snapshot RAID opensource project that provides the following features:
Beside the ability to recover from disk failures, the other features of SnapRAID are:
- You can start using SnapRAID with already filled disks.
- The disks of the array can have different sizes.
- You can add disks at any time.
- If you accidentally delete some files in a disk, you can recover them.
- If more than two disks fail, you lose the data only on the failed disks. All the data in the other disks is safe.
- It doesn't lock-in your data. You can stop using SnapRAID at any time without the need to reformat or move data.
- All your data is hashed to ensure data integrity and to avoid silent corruption.
Source: SnapRAID
The difference between a standard RAID system and a snapshot RAID system such as SnapRAID is described below:
SnapRAID is what is called a snapshot RAID system. Many, if not most, RAID systems operate in real-time whereby the parity information used to re-construct your data is updated as soon as you make any changes to that data. This means that the Array is always up to date and all data can be re-constructed from parity if required. A snapshot RAID system on the other hand operates very differently. Any changes you make to your data are not reflected in parity until you manually force a re-synch of the Array. It follows that until such time as the Array has been re-synched then any changed data is at risk since it cannot be re-constructed from parity. Once the Array has been re-synced then all data in the Array is once again protected.
Source: SnapRAID install guide
If you are looking to switch from FlexRAID now that FlexRAID is no longer free - checkout this guide to installing SnapRAID as a FlexRAID alternative.
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