What’s the best way to build a computer with multiple redundancy?
Question by Carlton your doorman: What’s the best way to build a computer with multiple redundancy?
I just lost my business computer to a massive mechanical failure. The hard drive was ruined (I opened it. One of the heads was completely gone!) The mother board was trashed and even the RAM chips were burned. I had backups but not for everything. It will take me time to rebuild all the software and records and some of the files are gone forever. So, I’m thinking of building a computer that will have a lot of redundancy so if something goes down there will always be a backup. I’m tired of buying off-the-shelf computers that are inadequate for my uses. Of course I will get an external hard drive and do backups that way but I’m thinking of a “supercomputer” style setup with multiple hard drives and maxed out RAM and if at all possible multiple mother boards and operating systems. If at all possible I’d like to have not only Windows but Linux and a MAC OS so I can have multiple lines of defense from malicious programs like virus, trojans, malware as well as all the best features of each system. I’m definitely doing a RAID or several RAIDS if the “supercomputer” actually turns into several computers linked together. I’d like to say that money is no object as this will be funded by my business and will be a tax write off but realistically… Hardware is not a problem as I’m a hardware “geek” with a lot of electronics and fabrication skills as well as a fully equipped shop (Aluminum plate case with all the cooling being done with condenser / evaporator HVAC style units) but the software part is not exactly my forte. I should add that the computer will not be used as most computers are used. No gaming, very little if any music / movie downloading. Instead it will be used for business records, programming industrial devices, email correspondence, power and HVAC management and telecommunication. The largest factor is the computer’s ability to recover from failures.
Best answer:
Answer by Nick
RAID 0 is a good option in response to hard drive crash, but they are not that common.
If you want to really secure data, you should backup your system to a remote location. You could hire a VPS for that purpose and setup automatic backup yourself or use any remote backup service provider. You should be able to fine one easily: http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=remote+backup&ei=UTF-8&fr=moz2-ytff-tyc
For this purpose, you will need a decent broadband connection. That will not only protect your data from HD crash, but also fire, theft, terrorist attacks or your your own mishaps.
As for running multiple OSes on the same box, I think VMWare is a good option.
Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!