Computers, etc..
So, Peterbilt (mail and file server) had a bad video card that was resulting in spontaneous crashes and reboots. After about fifteen of these, the RAID array showed a failed port, and couldn’t rebuild. Finally, after much tearing out of hair (and a attempt to build a backup server that failed – although I hope to get it done soon – I’ve ordered another 3Ware card after attempts with motherboard fakeraid and rocketraid card both ended badly) I backed it up – almost all of the data was intact – and am now restoring it after reformatting.
I ended up formatting with a 256K stripe. Last time I was running 64K, and I had some trouble with mp3s skipping on playback when users were accessing their mail spools – and I found somewhere (http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/perf/raid/concepts/perf.htm) that suggested that filesystems with lots of small files should use a large RAID stripe, somewhat counterintuitively. We’ll see what happens. I’m certainly not wanting to go through the whole backup-format-restore process again.
Interestingly, the restore process went much faster than the backup process even though the array was initializing at the time.
I have this problem.. once I start spending money on computer equipment, I really don’t know when to stop. Today I had to bite my fingers to avoid buying:
* 2 extra disks for PB, to replace any bad drives that come up
* A 3.0Ghz PC to replace the 1.8Ghz one that currently drives our TV set
* A 14-drive rack of 15k RPM 18GB SCSI drives.. (I was just thinking, what a swwweeet video editing array that’d make..)
The sad thing is, I don’t yet know that I’ve totally resisted – all three sound good. But I’m still not out of debt…
maybe when I get back from the U.K.
For those of you interested, we’re going to the UK on the 6th of Aug and returning on the 14th. We will be visiting Enyc (in Swindon) and Madrory (in Gasglow)