Howto: amanda sata backup server

Hi,

I am interested in figuring out the best way to implement a "hard drive"amanda backup server.


Currently all of our hosts are wired over 1Gb ethernet.

Notation:
/                         (the root partition)
/data                  (the partition where data is stored)
/backup             (the partition where amanda backups are stored)
/holdingdisk      (the amanda holdingdisk partition)

Main question: What is an example of a "good" default configuration fora "hard drive" amanda backup server?


Specific questions:

1. What raid-level should be used for the /backup partition? Is raid5OK, or should raid6/raid10/raid0+1 be used? Should /backup be on itsown raid device?

2. Should /holdingdisk be stored on a separate raid device from /backup,/, and /data?

3. Is it usually standard practice to have "hard drive" amanda backupservers be solely responsible for holding backups? Or is it verypossible to use a single server to due amanda backups, and also performother tasks (number crunching, file serving, etc.) ie having /, /data,/backup. /holdingdisk on a single server while also allowing users tologin and perform work?

4. Would this lay-out be OK for a server that would back-up clients to/backup, and also back its own root partition to /backup? Otherwise,what is a good default layout, or what are you using that works well foryou?


/dev/md10   /                          (2x 1TB raid 1)
/dev/md20   /backup              (4x 1TB raid 5)
/dev/md30   /holdingdisk       (1x 500GB holding disk)

5. When amanda finishes writing to the holding disk, does it stop allreads from all clients (including possibly itself), until it is finishedwriting to /backup, before resuming reading/writing to /holdingdisk?



Thanks for your help!

--
Snorre Stamnes
Assistant System Architect
SRCIT@Stevens
srcit AT stevens DOT edu