UPS

[doodab]

Power outage with write caching on the disk killed my Win 2k servers (I think).

Yes, I know that it cause corruption of the data on the disk and need to restore your backups, but you can use the the same disk cos it still physically works. I've had that happen too. But I'm talking about it physically knackering the disk so it's not reusable. Unless it's actually moved or dropped while the heads are unparked or the power outage inherently causes a head crash or there is a surge that fries the electronics I can't see how a power outage physically destroys a hard disk.

[doodab]

I'm still building my home SAN, beginning to think its impossible without spunking potloads on expensive cast offs....

If you want FC you'll be paying a fortune for last generation stuff. If you can live with iSCSI it seems to be a lot cheaper, though not so much if you want 10 gig Ethernet in the mix.

[doodab]

P.S. I didn't read the whole thread so pls forgive any dumbness!

Not at all. Those were pretty much the ones I was looking at.

I'm basically lucky in that I've eschewed NAS devices. I can see the point of them for some people but I've always had a well specced desktop that's beefy enough to run all the VMs I need (I would need a pretty decent box for that anyway, microservers won't quite cut it) and also perform server duties like filesharing etc, so for me a NAS would be redundant. For any given technology generation the workstations have always worked out more powerful and capable of holding more disks than any cost comparable NAS or even entry level single socket HP or Dell servers. The current one only pulls around 90-100W when idle and 250-300W flat out so I have no qualms about leaving it on all the time.

I used to have a proper hardware RAID adapter and RAID5 set in the old workstation but these days don't bother with the RAID, I use SSDs for IOPS and big disks with two backups for the other stuff.

Anyway it turns out yesterdays power cut was caused by the toaster (it tripped the main RCD somehow rather than just the downstairs ring main) and as it's very inconsistent as well I think I'll spend the money on a new toaster instead

[Platypus]

I think I'll spend the money on a new toaster instead

Nice one!

[stek]

If you want FC you'll be paying a fortune for last generation stuff. If you can live with iSCSI it seems to be a lot cheaper, though not so much if you want 10 gig Ethernet in the mix.

Actually got the fabric fairly cheaply, it's the SATA disks that are killing me, around £250 for a seccy-hand 2TB dual-port.

[doodab]

Actually got the fabric fairly cheaply, it's the SATA disks that are killing me, around £250 for a seccy-hand 2TB dual-port.

Ouch. I suppose they are still current though so your paying business prices not salvage prices.

[d000hg]

I think I'll spend the money on a new toaster instead

Weren't you looking for birthday present ideas? Get one that does hot-dogs.

[vetran]

There is zero benefit to that for me, all I would lose is the ability to post on CUK and read my email on the desktop and I can live without that for days. I might even do some work

OK, I suppose I'd lose the terminator but that hasn't been booted for months anyway.

I use VPN so it makes a difference, its not so much the power outage as the intermittent issues taht gets you.

Years ago working for a UPS manufacturer we had a load of spare UPS units that couldn't be sold, I put them on the PC's (we already had one on the servers and infrastructure) and the intermittent issues more than halved.

Telecoms supplies are quite different to UPS due to historical 48v rails (they are the same in principle but the hardware is more expensive) and are normally actively monitored.

Most UPS nowadays can be actively monitored, try getting Nuts Network UPS Tools - Welcome if the supplied software is not enough.

[doodab]

Weren't you looking for birthday present ideas? Get one that does hot-dogs.

I don't really like hot dogs. It would be nice to have one that hot cross buns fitted in properly and you could get crumpets out of without burning your fingers though.

[d000hg]

SPECIELL Cooking tweezers - IKEA



£0.40! And genuinely really useful.