I don't understand, you had a backup HD - that means you had a RAID setup. Why didn't your host replace the damaged hard disk ? In my experience hosts usually monitor RAID health on their servers and if there is a problem they replace the bad hard drives at the quickest opportunity.. and I'm talking about budget hosts. EDIT: Too many to respond to below so just editing in here. The author mentioned that the primary h…
Our Server’s Hard Drive is Dead. We didn’t have a backup.
41–50 of 88 posts
Re: Our Server’s Hard Drive is Dead. We didn’t have a backup.
#42"Technical support informed me that my first HD died 20 days into my contract. The backup HD hummed along for a year." That sounds more like RAID than a backup HD.
This doesn't sound like RAID at all. How are you guys coming to this conclusion? At best it sounds like a server with a master/slave hard drive setup...you know, something from the early 2000s.
Two mirrored disks is technically a RAID level that can survive failure of one disk. I worked at a company in the late 1990s that had mirrored disks, they would "split" the mirror at the end of the business day, backup to tape from one disk and run nighttime batch jobs on the other disk. Before start of next business day they would backup the batch disk to tape, then resync the mirror.
Re: Our Server’s Hard Drive is Dead. We didn’t have a backup.
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean that Systems Administration is as thoroughly exhausting a career path as programming. They didn't lose information because they coded something wrong or inadequately.
Perhaps it's me, but I don't see the roles of SA and Dev as interchangeable. Yet, HN seems to present a world where all Devs are SAs. As a SA, it's frustrating. All of that to say; I agree with what you're saying. I just wonder how to get the message across that maybe both roles aren't the same...
It's very difficult to have your foot in both worlds and remain current in either. I did for a while, but I'm more firmly planted in the dev world now. So I can say, with some confidence, that they aren't very interchangeable.
Re: Our Server’s Hard Drive is Dead. We didn’t have a backup.
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean that Systems Administration is as thoroughly exhausting a career path as programming. They didn't lose information because they coded something wrong or inadequately.
Perhaps it's me, but I don't see the roles of SA and Dev as interchangeable. Yet, HN seems to present a world where all Devs are SAs. As a SA, it's frustrating. All of that to say; I agree with what you're saying. I just wonder how to get the message across that maybe both roles aren't the same...
I think the point is when you're starting off you have to wear many hats, and since HN is a lot about start-ups, you'll see that often here. At a certain size/load I think most people on HN would recognize that you need specific talent sets (and they might not be interchangeable).
Re: Our Server’s Hard Drive is Dead. We didn’t have a backup.
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
glad I wasn't the only one who had that as a first thought. as an ops guys I wasn't sure if I should be offended or just shake my head at the irony of it.
Well apparently someone didn't like my comment since it got down-voted. Whatever. As someone with a background in systems administration, it bothers me when this profession gets left out of the equation, far too often.
As someone with a background in programming, it bothers me when your profession gets left out too :-)
Re: Our Server’s Hard Drive is Dead. We didn’t have a backup.
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
The most basic backup would be to have a remote backup of your files and databases. That's a simple shell script and cron job combination. I can understand that one may not get around to setting it up (I had a massive project and only started doing this after about 7 years of running it..) but it's definitely very important and doesn't need a ton of Sysadmin experience or setup time.
It also isn't a backup unless it's tested.
You're right and the cosmos has just proved it. I just went in to check my backups and found some that hadn't been running since Nov. 19th 2012. Well, lesson learnt :) - gotta test those backups!
Re: Our Server’s Hard Drive is Dead. We didn’t have a backup.
#47"Technical support informed me that my first HD died 20 days into my contract. The backup HD hummed along for a year." That sounds more like RAID than a backup HD.
This doesn't sound like RAID at all. How are you guys coming to this conclusion? At best it sounds like a server with a master/slave hard drive setup...you know, something from the early 2000s.
Where did it say these were mirrored drives?
Re: Our Server’s Hard Drive is Dead. We didn’t have a backup.
#48"Technical support informed me that my first HD died 20 days into my contract. The backup HD hummed along for a year." That sounds more like RAID than a backup HD.
This doesn't sound like RAID at all. How are you guys coming to this conclusion? At best it sounds like a server with a master/slave hard drive setup...you know, something from the early 2000s.
Looks like RAID 1.
You probably expected something like RAID 5, well, you are right, it's not.
Re: Our Server’s Hard Drive is Dead. We didn’t have a backup.
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean that Systems Administration is as thoroughly exhausting a career path as programming. They didn't lose information because they coded something wrong or inadequately.
The most basic backup would be to have a remote backup of your files and databases. That's a simple shell script and cron job combination. I can understand that one may not get around to setting it up (I had a massive project and only started doing this after about 7 years of running it..) but it's definitely very important and doesn't need a ton of Sysadmin experience or setup time.
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Re: Our Server’s Hard Drive is Dead. We didn’t have a backup.
#50I see this too many times.. and have read about this more than once on HN in recent memory. Hire a proper system administration company early to work with you on these types of things. There are many companies out there that do this. I happen to run a company that does this, so I know that you can add an expert admin to your team for $100-200/mo.
> you can add an expert admin to your team for $100-200/mo
Hahaha.