Downtime 10/27/08-10/28/08

Unread postby **Shrink908** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 11:19 pm

I will be taking the system down sometime tonight overnight to install new hard disks and re-work the system in general for better stability. Thanks to donations from SickAndWrong we'll have a mirror set of 1TB drives for the data side and thanks to a friend of mine from NJ (not a member of the site) we'll have a mirror set of 500GB drives for the OS and other necessities... Giving us a total of 1.5TB of data storage on the server box between the 4 drives.. Also thanks to Shinnodeous who donated some funding that allowed me to upgrade the networking gear to new and reliable hardware (D-Link DGS-2208, and 2 TrendNet GigaBit PCI cards) as well as the D-Link DIR-655 Wireless-N/gigabit switch we already had (eliminating an old 10/100 hub that was dying due to old age).

The system will now be much more stable and reliable once all these changes are affected.

I greatly appreciate all the help you guys give us and wanted you to know who helped and what your input has gone to. Because of your support we'll have a much more reliable network for the forseeable future.

Unread postby **Shrink908** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 4:48 pm

Well, that went worse than expected.

1) OS wouldn't move to new drives, so had to reinstall.
2) One of the brand new 1TB Seagate's is having some sort of issue and I almost lost all the data because of it.
3) Had to re-install Windows >again< to correct problems caused by #2, due to this the entire system is currently handled by a pair of mirrored 500GB drives until I can get the sitch sorted with the TB drives. (I'm fairly certain that I need to just send the screwy one back for a replacement.
4) Microsoft's DEP (Data Execution Prevention) was preventing me from running PHP AND the E-Mail server. Finally managed to beat it into submission.

As a result, we were down over 12 hours.

Things I'm still working on:
1) The IRC server software we were using is no longer being produced and I can't even find an old copy to download (the original installer I had was lost in the first TB HD crash)
2) Mods to the forum itself.

Unread postby **Eoraptor** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 5:20 pm

what the frell is up with these terabyte drives taking big steamy dumps?!

Unread postby **Shrink908** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 6:57 pm

Eoraptor wrote:what the frell is up with these terabyte drives taking big steamy dumps?!

From what I've read since this last issue it seems about 1 in 5 1TB drives have some sort of issue that radically changes their life expectancy.

Unread postby **JayJay** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 7:21 pm

Yeah, that issue is called, "the post office being careless and dropping the package" *sigh*. Poor Shrink (and Rei if applicable), we don't mind being down, just as long as you can do what it is you need to do.

Unread postby **Shrink908** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 7:35 pm

JayJay wrote:Yeah, that issue is called, "the post office being careless and dropping the package" *sigh*. Poor Shrink (and Rei if applicable), we don't mind being down, just as long as you can do what it is you need to do.

More like UPS is careless...

Unread postby **Shrink908** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 8:03 pm

I got the IRC back now.. For fuck's sake this has taken a lot of effort.. Gimme a day or two before I get back to modding the forum itself.. I'm worn the hell out...

SickAndWrong · Unread postby **SickAndWrong** » Wed Oct 29, 2008 1:23 am

Glad the drives got there.

Wish they both worked...

Maybe 1TB is a little far out on the bleeding edge of what we're capable of building right now? Yeesh, I have one of those Seagates in my shopping cart at TD right now... Maybe I'll hold off, but I do need to replace my WD 500GB drive before it completely implodes.

Maybe it's an ish with TD. Like someone pointed out, they are known for buying up potentially questionable lots of merch, maybe some cases got rough-handled? Though, you'd think Seagate would be packaging the drives to withstand a little abuse, because shipping is after all shipping.

Anyway, thanks again for all the work you two put into the site. Pro bono as it were.

The end game here of course being that once we get running with the arrays, any unlikely hardware failures in the future will not be fatal to the site, it should be well worth the effort going into it now.

Triaxx · Unread postby **Triaxx** » Wed Oct 29, 2008 5:19 am

Hmm... Maybe we just need a lot of Solid State drives. For my use, a 250GB Seagate is working just fine, though I've managed to break the SATA cable. :oops:

Perhaps we are better off with one 1TB drive and two 500's for now.

SickAndWrong · Unread postby **SickAndWrong** » Wed Oct 29, 2008 1:30 pm

Meh, 2 of each should be fine, once they decide to start working... Then they can fail all they want, so long as they do it one at a time!

Triaxx · Unread postby **Triaxx** » Wed Oct 29, 2008 1:57 pm

I meant until the New 1TB arrives. Personally, make sure it worked, then box it back up and rig up the two 500's to read as one continuous drive. That way if something fails your backup has a backup.

SickAndWrong · Unread postby **SickAndWrong** » Wed Oct 29, 2008 2:09 pm

Data stripe across the two 500GB's and mirror that against the 1TB drive?

Ambitious.

Unread postby **Shrink908** » Wed Oct 29, 2008 4:07 pm

SickAndWrong wrote:Glad the drives got there.

Wish they both worked...

Maybe 1TB is a little far out on the bleeding edge of what we're capable of building right now? Yeesh, I have one of those Seagates in my shopping cart at TD right now... Maybe I'll hold off, but I do need to replace my WD 500GB drive before it completely implodes.

Maybe it's an ish with TD. Like someone pointed out, they are known for buying up potentially questionable lots of merch, maybe some cases got rough-handled? Though, you'd think Seagate would be packaging the drives to withstand a little abuse, because shipping is after all shipping.

Anyway, thanks again for all the work you two put into the site. Pro bono as it were.

The end game here of course being that once we get running with the arrays, any unlikely hardware failures in the future will not be fatal to the site, it should be well worth the effort going into it now.

Well, this is where we get weird.. The original WD 1TB drive I got was in a BOX and still had the problem, but it too came from Tiger... These seagates were OEM (in just a plastic box and anti-static bag, no cables or anything)... However, I bought my last whole computer as parts from tiger and have had no trouble, including with the hard drives.. So I dunno.. In hindsight I'd say we'd probably have been safer going with a pair of the 750GB drives as those are the same tech as the 500's and therefore are reliable... I've got like >4< of the Seagate 500's running around here (2 in Rei's computer and 2 in the server) and none of them have let me down so far...

Unread postby **Shrink908** » Wed Oct 29, 2008 4:08 pm

Triaxx wrote:Hmm... Maybe we just need a lot of Solid State drives. For my use, a 250GB Seagate is working just fine, though I've managed to break the SATA cable.

Perhaps we are better off with one 1TB drive and two 500's for now.

I'm going to ship the damaged drive back and get it replaced.. I can't see the point of just leaving it sit damaged... But I'll be bringing the single TB drive up in the next day or so for data storage purposes as well as to make sure it's undamaged. I haven't actually used it enough yet to know...

Unread postby **JayJay** » Wed Oct 29, 2008 6:20 pm

Shrink908 wrote:More like UPS is careless...

Yeah, true.

I don't know, would we be better off with a solid state drive? If these HDs keep failing, it might be a good idea to do away with the moving parts. Oh yeah, keep in mind that all of my "knowledge" comes from half a semester of Computer Hardware.

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