Near Disaster!

I logged on to create a blog post earlier today. As I was creating the post I was getting a timeout issue. Sometimes it would save, and other times it wouldn't. I logged into the VM server to see what was going on.

The server also seemed to have issues as well. I immediately checked the backups, and I didn't have a backup since mid-January. I tried to kick one off, but it kept failing. I tried rebooting and everything came up normally, but I was still getting the same error.

I checked the front of the server, and it appeared one of the drives was starting to have issues. There was an additional blinking light on it. I texted GBH where I bought my server and asked if they had additional drives. They didn't, 300GB drives for $5, which is a pretty good deal.

I ran over there and also grabbed some plant stuff, and some canned air to blow out all the computers.

I hot-swapped the drives, and the drives all spun up to rebuild the new drive. It's always nerve-wracking doing this, but especially when I know I don't have backups. Luckily everything worked great.

It turns out the backups were actually having a file size issue. The SUB was formatted at VFat file system, and it wasn't allowing me to have over a 4.5ish GB backup file. I reformatted the drive and got a good backup in. The crisis was hopefully averted. I may look into a seconds server though as a hot spare. GBH had a T310 server for $60 which would work great.

I got a new tripod today. It's really sturdy and has a lot of cool features. Warren wanted to play outside, so it was the perfect time to test it out. Him and the neighbor were riding skateboards down the driveway across the road, so I had to make sure no cars were coming.