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BRFCS

BY THE FANS, FOR THE FANS
SINCE 1996
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Well done getting it going again.

One complaint - instead of resetting the clock to 2014 couldn't you have gone back to 2009 ?

Then we could all pretend Venkys, Steve Kean and the coalition govt were all just a bad dream.

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  • Backroom

Don't you just love computers. My pal who is a computer expert reckons computers are now where cars where in about 1915. I think he's being generous there.

To be fair, with the introduction of SSD drives and plenty of secure back up facilities there is no reason for any business to be worried about going digital. Unfortunately most large server systems and back up drives still rely on traditional mechanical hard drives, as SSD drives at such a size are either expensive or not available at all. Mechanical drives haven't really changed since the 60's, in terms of how they work. It's just a magnetic platter and an arm with read/write heads accessing and writing the data. If this gets damaged or crashes it's pretty much game over for the drive, and it's worryingly easy for the drive to crash, hence the need for reliable back up and checking to make sure that back up is working.

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To be fair, with the introduction of SSD drives and plenty of secure back up facilities there is no reason for any business to be worried about going digital. Unfortunately most large server systems and back up drives still rely on traditional mechanical hard drives, as SSD drives at such a size are either expensive or not available at all. Mechanical drives haven't really changed since the 60's, in terms of how they work. It's just a magnetic platter and an arm with read/write heads accessing and writing the data. If this gets damaged or crashes it's pretty much game over for the drive, and it's worryingly easy for the drive to crash, hence the need for reliable back up and checking to make sure that back up is working.

Was reading something the other day on one of the online tech sites regarding ssd drives that they are not a reliable solution long term as they wear? out quicker when continually being accessed for reading and writing? just ordered a new laptop with ssd but as I always back up my back ups etc not overly concerned as it will be used for booting and running programmes from ,all data is saved to extenal drives

Congrats to the techy people on the site for getting things up and running again

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To be fair, with the introduction of SSD drives and plenty of secure back up facilities there is no reason for any business to be worried about going digital. Unfortunately most large server systems and back up drives still rely on traditional mechanical hard drives, as SSD drives at such a size are either expensive or not available at all. Mechanical drives haven't really changed since the 60's, in terms of how they work. It's just a magnetic platter and an arm with read/write heads accessing and writing the data. If this gets damaged or crashes it's pretty much game over for the drive, and it's worryingly easy for the drive to crash, hence the need for reliable back up and checking to make sure that back up is working.

There are companies such as TeleCity plc, which I helped to start up, where data can be backed up off site. It's not cheap but a lot better than losing everything in a crash or worse still a fire.

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  • Backroom

Was reading something the other day on one of the online tech sites regarding ssd drives that they are not a reliable solution long term as they wear? out quicker when continually being accessed for reading and writing? just ordered a new laptop with ssd but as I always back up my back ups etc not overly concerned as it will be used for booting and running programmes from ,all data is saved to extenal drives

Congrats to the techy people on the site for getting things up and running again

Modern SSD drives aren't likely to wear out any faster than a mechanical drive takes to fail. Unless you're writing literally 30-40GB a day, in which case it may be less. For the modern consumer, an SSD should last the full life of their laptop/PC. The other positive of an SSD is that when/if it dies due to overwear, it'll literally just stop writing to the drive - the contents can be retrieved fairly easily as the drive should still be readable if not writable. A mechanical drive, by contrast, has a higher chance of damaging the platter/arm when it dies and therefore rendering the data difficult or impossible to retrieve.

There are companies such as TeleCity plc, which I helped to start up, where data can be backed up off site. It's not cheap but a lot better than losing everything in a crash or worse still a fire.

Absolutely, off site back up is by far the best option. Of course in theory even off site drives can crash, but the companies should be keeping an eye on the health of the drives to ensure data is backed up and ready to access should the main server die.

That is why one should use RAID :)

RAID is a good option, but can also fail! Data corruption is surprisingly common with RAID systems... it all comes down to having a good, consistent back up procedure in place.

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You can be assured you won't lose any data with TeleCity. The backup systems are fantastic and there are separate sites all over Europe and the trump card is that my son works for them.

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Given what Ste, myself and Ian all do for a living, it was all rather embarrassing, but as we all have day jobs, BRFCS doesn't always get the attention it should and we cut corners.

We made a mistake the any rookie sysadmin knows is unforgivable, we had a nice automated off site backups and an audit they were happening. But we'd never tested them. Only when we came to restore them did we find an essential database hadn't been included in the backup. An utter rookie mistake on our part.

So, this time, we've actually spent some money and implemented some ideas Ian made a few months ago, which include a second server,

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  • Backroom

These things happen Glenn. Seeing as you guys all do this on a voluntary basis and don't ask for any donations, it's a credit to the staff members of this site that it generally runs so smoothly. Fingers crossed the solutions you've put in place will stop a catastrophic failure wiping out data in future.

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  • Backroom

Given what Ste, myself and Ian all do for a living, it was all rather embarrassing, but as we all have day jobs, BRFCS doesn't always get the attention it should and we cut corners.

We made a mistake the any rookie sysadmin knows is unforgivable, we had a nice automated off site backups and an audit they were happening. But we'd never tested them. Only when we came to restore them did we find an essential database hadn't been included in the backup. An utter rookie mistake on our part.

So, this time, we've actually spent some money and implemented some ideas Ian made a few months ago, which include a second server,

As I said in another thread, might it be the case that Abbey has been accidentally re-banned? Not seen him post since the downtime.

Well done in getting it back up so quickly though! Don't worry about the mistakes, they happen to us all :)

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Given what Ste, myself and Ian all do for a living, it was all rather embarrassing, but as we all have day jobs, BRFCS doesn't always get the attention it should and we cut corners.

We made a mistake the any rookie sysadmin knows is unforgivable, we had a nice automated off site backups and an audit they were happening. But we'd never tested them. Only when we came to restore them did we find an essential database hadn't been included in the backup. An utter rookie mistake on our part.

So, this time, we've actually spent some money and implemented some ideas Ian made a few months ago, which include a second server,

Pick up your cards on Friday, you're fired.

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  • Backroom

Software bug, I'd guess. The forum software will have been reverted back to where it was in May '14, so any updates/fixes done after that date will now be gone (hence the return of the 'like' button).

I do seem to remember a sign in problem last year being addressed... though I can't remember whether it was forum wide or user specific. The forum isn't remembering my login details, either.

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Software bug, I'd guess. The forum software will have been reverted back to where it was in May '14, so any updates/fixes done after that date will now be gone (hence the return of the 'like' button).

I do seem to remember a sign in problem last year being addressed... though I can't remember whether it was forum wide or user specific. The forum isn't remembering my login details, either.

Cheers DE!

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