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Transition away from RAID to single SSD, what to consider
Mosting wondering about errors, in general. In considering moving away from RAID and instead using a single SSD on my SBS 2008, the first thing I wonder about are errors. The last 4 years with this current set up, I don't know of any errors, other than my RAID failing last year. What I am thinking about are whatever errors I am reading about. There is something I am still foggy on with regard to errors. The database seems to work fine and all the apps. Is there something about an SSD that may generate errors that don't typically occur in a standard HD's in RAID array? My basic plan is to have Acronis keep a constant (every 15 minutes) incremental backup that can be bare metal restored in a couple hours. I think that is realistic and we can do with 2 hours downtime, no problem. Will that eliminate any concerns I may have have SSD errors? I have zero problem with losing 15 minutes of data.
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Running on SSD hard drives shouldn't cause any errors you wouldn't otherwise see, however I'd be reluctant to run anything "mission-critical" on non-raided drives, even just running RAID1 on 2 identical SSDs would give you a much better level of protection than Acronis - even just using Windows software raid would be a reasonable approach in this instance - the only reason i say this is by doing away with the RAID you turn a hard disk failure which would with raid be a simple case of replacing the drive into a high-pressure restore operation, with all the pitfalls that entails.
I'd be wary of this:
"Acronis is an enterprise level software company and I trust their software to work."
I've been troubleshooting an Acronis setup all week, it's media/archive management leaves a lot to be desired when backing up to external hard drives, and even with careful design of the retention scheme I've seen backups fail to run - the problem then becomes: how soon do you notice that Acronis hasn't bothered to backup - this, rather than the 15 minutes, is the potential maximum data loss if the drive fails.
"Acronis is an enterprise level software company and I trust their software to work."
I've been troubleshooting an Acronis setup all week, it's media/archive management leaves a lot to be desired when backing up to external hard drives, and even with careful design of the retention scheme I've seen backups fail to run - the problem then becomes: how soon do you notice that Acronis hasn't bothered to backup - this, rather than the 15 minutes, is the potential maximum data loss if the drive fails.
RAID is not essential if one has a 2-hour downtime window; it is desirable if continuous uptime is necessary for the business.
Problems with backups vary with situations, and I have not had problems with Acronis. It comes down to a statement of personal opinion.
Problems with backups vary with situations, and I have not had problems with Acronis. It comes down to a statement of personal opinion.
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