On Dec 26, 2009, at 8:43 AM, Fred Holmes wrote:
What do you do when uptime is important? Do today's drives never fail?
When is uptime important? Was uptime important when M$ lost all the files used to run the Sidekick cell phone system? That was running on a "storage array" and I'm pretty sure that RAID would be one of the features of such a system. Did it help? It took them a week to get their fancy-pants system back in operation.
If uptime is so important should you be using a mechanical hard drive? Would SSD be better? What components of an uptime critical system are most likely to fail? Drives are much more reliable than they used to be. What is the reliability of the RAID controller? Of the power supply? Fans? The mobo? Do you have multiple spares for everything? Does reliability increase or decrease as the complexity of the hardware/software increases? Does complex hardware/software increase or decrease the time it takes to restore service?
I believe that the best strategy for maintaining uptime and reliability is to keep it simple and to have competent help administering the system.
Is there really anybody on this list who needs that kind of guaranteed uptime? Would a momentary hiccup really be so traumatic? Or is it just playing computer macho?
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