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Looking For Quacks In The Pavement

Day: September 21, 2002

  • What I feared has come to pass

    A bit less than 6,000 files into a 25,000 file transfer, Beast’s RAID controller crapped out. I was forced to hard-reset the machine and start the transfer again. Luckily I’m using ‘rsync’ so only files that aren’t already on the Netware server will be copied over. If I had to start the whole transfer over after every crash, I’d never get this done.

    At least, that’s the way I’m looking at it now: that Beast crashes are inevitable after X amount of data moves off the drive in one steady stream. Apparently sustained data transfer is a big no-no with this 3Ware RAID controller. Dammit.

    Oh yeah. You don’t know what Beast is. Well, the Enco broadcast audio system has a central server, in our case a Netware server named KGON_FS. (Clever, wot?) I was tasked with building a cheap standby server in case of emergencies, and so Beast was born. It’s a fairly large chassis with a fairly large quantity of drive space packed inside. It runs RedHat Linux 7.0, with some customization of course.

    Every night during the week, Beast synchronizes its storage to match precisely what’s on the Netware server. And in cases like tonight, where the Netware server’s large storage volume has been rebuilt, Beast is the source for restoring data to the newly created volume.

    I’m praying there aren’t any crashes while I’m at home later today. Well, I would be praying if I believed in a particular deity to pray to. You get the idea. I can’t live here at the office, really I can’t.

  • I’ll say!

    Ginerva seems to have tapped directly into my usual rant to the company salesforce about printing technique…
    Helpful Printer Tip

  • Where I stand, or more accurately where I sit.

    As things stand at about 4pm Pacific time, the massive file transfer is just over halfway done. My phone will let me know if for some reason the Samba share on Beast disappears (a clear sign that the 3Ware RAID controller has barfed again). Knocking on wood, if I get no such message then I’ll be able to confidently walk into the office tomorrow and prepare to finish this damnable project. After a decent night’s sleep, of course. (So far I’ve clocked about two hours’ sleep in the last 35.)

    Then I can prepare for the retreat. Turns out I’m staying overnight at this mountain resort. (It really is. The place is named “The Resort At The Mountain.” And I’d love to know how they got their hands on that domain, since I’m sure that other resort owners would gladly kill for it. But I digress.) Wendi is sure that I’ll end up sharing a room with somebody. I think that if that were the case we’d have been asked about who we want to buddy with, but then again communications isn’t always the strongest part of our company hierarchy. We’ll see. I’d really really like to have a room of my own. I like my fellow department heads well enough, but I’m almost certain I don’t want to sleep near any of them… and I can almost guarantee they feel the same way about me.

    Note to self: Don’t forget to dub that tape, change your voicemail greeting and look at Matt Lund’s PC. Okay, self? Do you think you can handle all of that? Good boy.

    I could really use a decent night’s sleep. Or hadn’t you noticed?

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