Linux Server Survives Total RAID Failure
November 7th, 2007 by James HicksIt looks like a perfectly normal day, until I hear the screaming RAID failure alarm blaring out of the server room as I walk past. My pace picks up considerably…
“Hey, who’s screaming in the server room?” I shout as I get to our office area.
“Ah that’s Strawberry - Joan thinks its RAID controller died so she’s building a replacement from backups now.”
My brain begins to race. Joan thinks the RAID controller is dead? It’s dead. I’ve worked with Joan for over a year and I don’t bother questioning her diagnosis anymore - I can safely assume she’s correct. She’s rebuilding it from backups? Ok fine - I can’t make that go faster than the tape drive, leave her to it. How can I help her? Log in, see if I can retrieve anything.
Cos here’s the twist folks. A linux server can totally lose all access to its storage - and keep going. Today though, even I am in for some surprises.
del.icIo.us
Posted in Systems Administration | 9 Comments »
The Ultimate Systems Administrator (So you want to be a Systems Administrator? Part 4)
November 3rd, 2007 by James HicksThe Ultimate Systems Administrator doesn’t exist. There’s always someone better than you at something - or some aspect of it. But don’t ever let that stop you trying.
I wont let it stop me from trying to paint a portrait of this fictional server-ninja.
I’ll take the best traits from the best SA’s I’ve ever worked with, from myself if I have to, and where that falls short… I’ll put down what I wish we had - with the full benefit of hindsight. Strap in - we’re gonna do a little genetic engineering, a little personality engineering, a little training and a lot of building the ultimate career.
del.icIo.us
Posted in Systems Administration | 7 Comments »
3Ware 24 Disk 600MB/sec RAID6: An affordable mini-SAN?
November 1st, 2007 by James HicksThe last time I worked with a 3Ware RAID controller it was 2004, and it was a 9000 series SATA. It lived up to its marketing hype - I personally benchmarked it exceeding 100MB/sec on RAID5 writes - an impressive result for the time. The largest controller available was a 12-port job, so the largest array you could build was an 11 disk RAID5 - if you wanted a hot spare. Still, the combined seek performance of 11 drives was significant.
3Ware have built on this performance. Their 9500 series card claimed approximately 500MB/sec RAID5 writes, and a 16 port model. Now, with their 9650SE series, 3Ware are claiming 600MB/sec RAID6 writes (800MB/sec reads) and 24 disks in an array.
What does this mean?
del.icIo.us
Posted in Storage, Technology Choice | 3 Comments »