Ok, the thought of losing data scares the bejeezus out of me. Not so with the o/s as that can always be recreated. So for my ex's business I set up a Ubuntu server that had /home and /group directories for 4-5 users who logged in from Windoz boxes. The server's storage was 2 by 250Gb hot swappable drives configured for Raid 1. Cool, me thinks, now if a drive crashes all is not lost and the chance of 2 drives going out at the same time is pretty slim.

Unfortunately, the business was in tornado/thunderstorm alley and a month ago the Almighty decided to send 500 megajoules down the power line. The jolt fried the power conditioner, the server mobo and one of the HDs. The other drive was damaged, but a tech managed to recover enough data to keep the business running, just. So my idea of having redundancy/backup didn't work 100%. In hindsight, I think a better option would have been not to RAID the drives but instead to have a master drive with everything on it and use the second drive as a backup that would only be inserted when the backup was to run and be kept in safe storage at all other times.

If I read this howto properly, this may answer my prayers, So let me run my plan past you gurus and feel free to shoot me down.

1. Rebuild the system, with all user info, data etc on a single drive.
2. On a weekly (or other convenient) basis, insert the second drive.
3. Run the code mentioned in the howto and backup EVERYTHING to the second drive,
4. Unmount the second drive and store it somewhere safe... like in grandma's knickers (nothing ever gets there).
5. Repeat steps 2-4 and wait for the next catastrophe.

Assuming the system does get slammed again:
6. Replace any damaged components and boot the server using a live-cd.
7. Retrieve the backup drive from grandma and insert into the second drive bay... mount if necessary.
8. Restore from the second drive to the new first drive as per this howto.
9. Shut the server down, remove the second (backup) drive and the live-cd.
10. Reboot the system.

Obvious questions is, will this work or is some other intervention required?

Regards