Originally Posted By: pitzel
Originally Posted By: rationull
Originally Posted By: pitzel
Since you mention that the machine is set up with RAID-1 (mirroring), then that will protect you against mechanical failure of the hard drives
Not to put too fine a point on it, but a mirrored RAID setup with 2 disks will protect you against mechanical failure of *one* drive.
Yeah, no kidding, and its very unlikely a computer is just going to, in the middle of the day, start screaming, "I lost a hard drive, I lost a hard drive!". A sysadmin (or someone with at least some basic expertise) needs to be actively monitoring the state of the server, reviewing event logs from time to time, etc. A RAID-1 (or even RAID-5) system will just soldier on, doing its work, not noticeably degraded in speed -- without 'telling' anyone, unless software has been installed and configured to provide for email notification.
Of course, any level of RAID does not protect against:
a) Viruses;
b) Malicious users;
c) Spyware;
d) Server admin messups;
e) Power surges or controller failure;
f) Operating system software bugs that can create filesystem corruption.
g) Drives being filled up, which can/often causes data loss when someone tries to save something to a directory that's full.
Seriously, if you're not a computer expert, this is not a place to DIY. A 5-year-old server, coupled with the modern tendency for people to use larger files, emails, etc., etc., may very well have some capacity issues.
A properly setup server will notify a responsible party in the event that anything serious goes wrong. I consider this part of the initial configuration. This goes hand in hand with drive redundancy, back-ups, power conditioning/UPS, surge suppression on WAN lines...etc.
Of course when dealing with somebody's "on the cheap" office server that they've setup themselves... well then all bets are off in regards to its current condition and configuration as well as the degree of implemented protection.