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I have run out of disk space on my server.

It is running Ubuntu 10.04 LTS and hosting a handful of applications and their associated MySQL databases;

I currently have 2x 160GB hard disks. One is used by the OS and the other is used to backup the application data daily. This eventually get backed up to an external location.

The majority of the disk is being used by the application data which is located in a home directory.

I'm thinking of buying couple 500GB or 1TB drives.

I'm unsure whether i should leave the OS on the 160GB and mount the home directory on the new hard disk, using the second new disk as a backup.

The other option is to clone the two existing drives onto the new drives and continue as is.

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I would consider 2 x 1TB drives in a RAID1 configuration..

You should have enough room to breathe, and also have the redundancy of the OS & Backup..

My personal server was running for 3 years in Australia since i moved to Europe.. But it failed from a bad disk.. (my data is safe - RAID1) but the OS not.. its was on a single old 80GB.. To fix it..ohh..pain.. :( i wish i had the OS in a RAID1 too..

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Concur, but worth emphasizing you need RAID and backup. RAID can only protect you from failing hardware, any other failure such as data corruption RAID will gleefully do twice... – Gaius Nov 11 '10 at 5:41
More details would be helpful. So i should create a raid 1 array using the two new disks. Can i then clone my existing OS onto this? – Anthony Nov 11 '10 at 6:55
Personally.. i would.. install the 2 disks... and installa new OS ( while setting up a new raid ) Then moving everything over.. I like new fresh stuff, so i wouldnt clone.. If you need/want to clone - if your running LVM, its makes it very easy.. – Arenstar Nov 12 '10 at 14:55

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