I once started work somewhere where they did software releases by RAID.
Their systems involved shipping a server (effectively an appliance) to the customer with all of the working components on it. However, there was no build or deployment process for these components - so the only way to create a new server was to take an existing one and create a copy.
This was done by opening up a working server running with RAID 1, removing one of the disks and installing the disk into a new server. Let the RAID recover the data onto the other blank disk then remove it and put the other blank disk in and let it rebuild.... result, a copied server!
It is amazing how even fairly technically-savvy people get sucked into the "RAID=backup" mentality. This story (in the above link) ended up costing the business owner tens of thousands of dollars.
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I once started work somewhere where they did software releases by RAID.
Their systems involved shipping a server (effectively an appliance) to the customer with all of the working components on it. However, there was no build or deployment process for these components - so the only way to create a new server was to take an existing one and create a copy.
This was done by opening up a working server running with RAID 1, removing one of the disks and installing the disk into a new server. Let the RAID recover the data onto the other blank disk then remove it and put the other blank disk in and let it rebuild.... result, a copied server!
http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/RAIDing_Disks.aspx
Same story; different company: http://www.erica.biz/2009/common-mistake-in-business/
It is amazing how even fairly technically-savvy people get sucked into the "RAID=backup" mentality. This story (in the above link) ended up costing the business owner tens of thousands of dollars.