Fault-Tolerant Hardware Versus Software

The following are points to consider when deciding between a fault-tolerant hardware or software solution:

  • Fault-tolerant software is available only on Windows 2000 Server.

  • Hardware fault tolerance is faster.

  • Software fault tolerance is less expensive.

  • In a hardware fault tolerance implementation, some vendors support hot-swappable disks when there is a disk failure.

Regardless of whether you implement fault tolerance by using hardware or software, implementing fault tolerance does not reduce the need for backups.