Scheduled Downtime Today (8th Mar) 1730

Though I certainly do not object to down time for maintenance I do have to question the reason given.

If a system is raided i.e. the data is stripped across the disks and or mirrored where data from one disk is mirrored to the other I have to question the underlying architecture as;

All raids systems should be configured with a hot spare. So that if you use RAID 0,1,5,6 or raid 10, then should a single disk failure occur then the hot spare is used automatically. The only administration over head or user interaction is to replace the faulty disk and then run your raid software and assign the new disk as the new hot spare. This requires NO downtime.

You certainly should not have to take down a system to replace a RAID disk unless, you have not specified a hot spare. Then you really ought to kick the tech guy in the nuts and ask him what the hell is doing.

Just a thought incase someone is pulling the wool over someones eyes.

ArthursC

25 Years as A SAN Storage Systems Engineer.
 
Thanks ArthursC, the answer to your enquiry is that no, the RAID hardware in this case is not hotswappable. There is a reason they are able to offer such competitive rates for what equates to a very feature rich hosting solution and this, presumably, is it. It is more than made up for, in my opinion, by excellent and communicative customer support.

Our previous hosts would simply have pulled the plug, done the work, then denied anything happened when we ask why the site went down.

Hopefully I will not be made to eat my words and we will be back at 1750, if not before! :D

Alex
 
ok 1815.... near enough :oops:

Ideal..didn't notice the outage...wasn't on at the time.

I agree, having used many hosting companies before, that communications is the most important thing next to hardware.


Anyhow jobs a good'un.
 
Back
Top