NT29 Home Drive replacement

[dvanburen]

The home drive on NT29 will be replaced shortly. This is a critical situation and cannot wait. Due to the condition of the drive I do not know how long it will take but expect significant downtime.

[HerComServ]

any update - please ...

[dvanburen]

We will update when we have more information, there is no point is asking.

[dvanburen]

Server is going down now.

[dvanburen]

OK, didn't go so well. I'm taking another approach that may run into tomorrow. No downtime, but no write access to the disk either.

[Brangwyn]

but no write access to the disk either.

So no log files, no-one can use dynamic sites that write to a local database e.g Access or XML file etc ... That's definitely downtime IMHO.
Clearly something is wrong with this server but is it really the drives at fault?, this is the 3rd drive replacement in 5-6 weeks which makes it kinda suspicious to my way of thinking, has anyone done the basics yet and changed the RAM out, checked 12/5v PSU rails etc ?

[dvanburen]

No offense Brangwyn, leave it to us. This is completely new hardware minus this drive that has just now failed. It may not even be bad, just corrupt, but the resulting chkdsk would keep it down for hours. It wouldn't suprise me at all if all the powerboots from when the System drive was failing caused the current corruption.

Dynamic sites work fine unless you write to your users directory structure, the temp folders are on another drive. Obvious problems are session files, logs and access databases.

[Brangwyn]

No offense taken, merely stating after having two drives go in relatively quick sucession I personally would have been suspecting hardware long before it got to a point that a 3rd drive potentially went bad and needed to be swapped in, sure you can get bum drives occasionally, but with the relatively high MTBF's on drives it's unusual. RAM and PSU's on the other hand I probably RMA every couple of months myself due to failures.

[dvanburen]

Heh, rereading my previous statement I think I came accross a bit harsh. I think what I meant was that you didn't have all the information... but it very well could have been that the old controller set this drive up for failure before it was ever moved to the new server.

[dvanburen]

Now the 'official' thread update. Sorry for the thread neglect, I was under the impression it was updated earlier today. Only recenlty was it brought to my attention that I had not brought it to the morning techs attention Say that 5 times fast! The robocopy went smoothly and the drives were swapped early this morning. I do not know the exact time but I suspect it was around 8AM EDT. Backups are working smoothly and there have been no hickups since, and no critical errors in the logs. Thank you all for your patience while this issue was resolved.

[Brangwyn]

Fingers crossed, thanks for the updates David

[mresell]

So...did this look to be a controller issue? Or is that not 100% sure yet? Thanks.

[PENorwood]

I don't know what is going on with that server ... but because of the constant problems I lost my biggest client which will make it very difficult to keep my hosting accounts ... this is really irritating and I think that those of us with sites on NT29 should be due SOME credit.

I don't like not being informed via email when this sort of trouble happens. A post on the messageboard is really insufficient since we don't all check this board on a regular basis.

My two cents

UPDATE: I did contact Vortech and they generously issued a credit due to the downtime. Vortech, I really appreciate it. Thanks!