When transitioning from tape to disk-based backups (especially in Symantec Backup Exec environments), the RAID question becomes critical. Unlike primary storage where RAID is mandatory, backup systems present unique considerations:

• Recovery Speed vs. Cost: RAID 5/6 improves read performance during restores but adds 20-30% storage overhead
• Fault Tolerance Layers: Backup servers already implement redundancy through job rotation and versioning
• Controller Bottlenecks: Hardware RAID cards can become choke points during full backups

For cost-sensitive implementations, consider this PowerShell script to manage JBOD storage with integrity checks:

# PowerShell script for backup volume monitoring
$backupVolumes = Get-Volume | Where-Object {$_.FileSystemLabel -like "Backup*"}

foreach ($vol in $backupVolumes) {
    $health = Test-Disk -Number $vol.DiskNumber
    if ($health.HealthStatus -ne "Healthy") {
        Send-MailMessage -To "admin@domain.com" 
                         -Subject "Backup Volume Alert" 
                         -Body "Volume $($vol.FileSystemLabel) requires maintenance"
    }
}

# Schedule with Windows Task Scheduler to run daily

Our tests with Backup Exec 21.4 showed:

Consider RAID in these scenarios:

1. Multi-terabyte Exchange/SQL backups requiring fast item-level recovery
2. Virtual machine backups with instant recovery requirements
3. Environments with backup windows under 4 hours

For large-scale deployments, consider this Python snippet for implementing erasure coding:

import zfec

# Example with 6 data drives and 2 parity
encoder = zfec.Encoder(6, 8)
data_blocks = [b'chunk1', b'chunk2', b'chunk3', b'chunk4', b'chunk5', b'chunk6']
encoded = encoder.encode(data_blocks)

# Store each encoded block on separate physical disks
for i, block in enumerate(encoded):
    with open(f'/backup/disk{i}/block_{timestamp}.bak', 'wb') as f:
        f.write(block)

RAID arrays require:

• Regular patrol reads (weekly)
• Firmware updates (quarterly)
• Hot spare management
• Battery backup for write caches

When transitioning from tape-based to disk-based backups (especially with solutions like Symantec Backup Exec), the storage architecture becomes critical. RAID introduces both benefits and trade-offs that deserve careful consideration.

For backup servers handling large datasets, RAID configurations present interesting scenarios:

# Example Linux mdadm RAID5 setup (common for backup servers)
mdadm --create /dev/md0 --level=5 --raid-devices=4 /dev/sd[b-e]1
mkfs.xfs /dev/md0
mount /dev/md0 /backup

Key metrics to evaluate:

• Write performance during backup windows
• Rebuild times for failed drives
• Storage efficiency (usable capacity)

For environments where cost is paramount, consider:

# Simple JBOD configuration in Backup Exec
"Storage Device Configuration" → "Create Disk Storage" → Select individual disks

Advantages include:

• Lower hardware costs
• Simpler failure isolation
• No RAID controller bottlenecks

Case study of a 200TB backup server:

For Symantec Backup Exec specifically:

# PowerShell snippet for monitoring disk health
Get-PhysicalDisk | Select FriendlyName, HealthStatus, OperationalStatus |
Where {$_.HealthStatus -ne "Healthy"} | Format-Table -AutoSize

Best practices:

• Use RAID 10 for performance-critical backup targets
• Implement RAID 6 for capacity-oriented archives
• Consider JBOD with disk-level checksums for cost-sensitive deployments