Just another day at the (OMG) - Office
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So, it appears that in the course of replacing my SonicWall, I found a server about to drop it's hard drive.... GASP are.you.kidding.me?
Just....One....146GB....10k drive? Are you kidding me??
As if the 4 servers, and 6 desktop file share 'servers'... I have to deal with **** poor planning on someone else's part.
Ordering 3 replacement drives for RAID support... now if I can just get this recovered before payroll is due and the damn thing crashes
Boy do I love IT....
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Have you made sure that backups are being taken, are working and that restores are possible?
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@Reid-Cooper said:
Have you made sure that backups are being taken, are working and that restores are possible?
Can I borrow your Sonic Screw driver?
Sadly - no I haven't. While I admit I moved the box (physically) I never really paid much attention to it. The whole site is in need of a overhaul. 2 t610s a t620 and various file servers.
No domain...I'm doing the best I can,.. but I'm getting there.
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I would check backups right away before doing anything else. The replacement drives will take time and if there is only one drive in there now.... what are you going to do? You can't just add a second drive to a running server. You will need to rebuild the server to get to any RAID level. So a good, tested, backup will be needed before being able to leverage those new drives anyway.
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Been having some issues with the site
It is something I'm thinking about. I thought about imaging the drive as is, but what will I end up with later?
I have a twin t610 box I can move the app and db to and repurpose this box to AD.
While I'm not seeing log data saying there is a drive failure, no diagnostic software is installed and nothing shows really in the event log.
But I hear it,.. The system is slow..
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Could be fragmentation. How full is the drive?
Definitely image now. Get to a recoverable state before looking at anything else.
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@Reid-Cooper said:
Definitely image now. Get to a recoverable state before looking at anything else.
This. Making a drive image is a read only process and will leave you with a copy to guard against hardware failure. It is not a backup, but it is better than nothing.
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@JaredBusch not a full backup but closer to a backup than to "not a backup".
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@Reid-Cooper said:
@JaredBusch not a full backup but closer to a backup than to "not a backup".
true. I meant not a restorable backup to other equipment. You would be tied to the server still.
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I've talked with Andrew and Scott at xByte and discussed what I am seeing versus what I expect.
While the issue of only one hard drive is reason enough to rebuild the box, maybe I don't have a hardware issue with the drive.
No Events are logged. Dell OM reports no issuses in health other than the psu1 being down (unplugged) and SAS firmware update needed.
The drive seems to be 'norml' other than the drive health indicator isn't on. Not orange or green,.. Completely off...
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Running off of a single drive definitely will make things slow. That's a desktop class bottleneck.
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Just going to RAID 1 alone will double your read performance.
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If you don't have any type of back now.. definitely do a clone with something like Clonezilla (Free), True you won't be able to just through that image back onto any hardware you like, but you'll have all the files, and could probably stand it up pretty easily inside a VM.
I hope when you said that you needed three more drives it wasn't so you could install a RAID 5 in that server?
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@scottalanmiller said:
Just going to RAID 1 alone will double your read performance.
@Dashrender said:
If you don't have any type of back now.. definitely do a clone with something like Clonezilla (Free),
This is what I would do. Clone the drive to a USB drive, or any other spare drive that is larger than it.
Then add a second drive and put them in RAID1
Then get a real backup going. Just use Windows Server backup. It is included and works just works, well on Server 2008+ it does. 2003 had issues last time I tried it.
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Looks like my predecessor used the vol shadow copy, and 'x-copy' to an external drive. Which I just don't know about...
Backups are a serious issue.. but then so is the whole network. no AD, no central point of management... Different user name schemas ... and I'm still finding stuff..
I'm going for a full network build... as best I can with what I have if I can.
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If you can get a few hundred dollars (Ok a grand would be great) there are some pretty decent deals on ebay that would allow for a transitional piece of equipment.
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You can get a nicely equipped Dell R620 for about $1200 from XByte.
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@JaredBusch said:
You can get a nicely equipped Dell R620 for about $1200 from XByte.
Yes - I actually spoke to Andrew and Scott there earlier this week about the drive and system. I've worked with Andrew in the past, and it's nice that they are so responsive.
There is 'plenty of space' on the 146GB drive, but I feel that going with 300GB drives is better, besides, it's only $40 more at $99 a drive.
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$40 is a large percentage of a $99 drive!
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@scottalanmiller said:
$40 is a large percentage of a $99 drive!
Yea,.. nearly 50%.
146GB is $59
300GBis $99..
