Backing up and restoring volumes

Since we're dealing with servers, the data that's being stored on our storage devices is no doubt going to be extremely important. While it's normal to have a few test servers for use as test subjects in a typical environment, our servers usually exist to carry out a very important task. I can tell you from first-hand experience, never put too much trust in storage devices. In fact, I recommend not trusting them at all. I consider all storage to be temporary, as hard drives can and do break. If your important data is only stored on one device, it's not safe. In this section, I'm going to discuss some very important topics around backups.

First, consider RAID volumes. We haven't discussed them in this chapter because while the technology can still be beneficial, it's not as popular as it once was. Don't get me wrong, there's still a place for RAID, but it's just not as popular as it used to be (especially...