New file server coming soon

[Conan]

FA has finally acknowledged that it is nearly out of storage space (something we knew about in February) and that a new "12TB storage server" is on it's way for later "this month" (Today is the last day of "this month", perhaps they meant "next month"?).

Of course, they haven't said anything else, like how it's going to be configured. IIRC, the existing server was advertised as having 12TB at first but once put in a RAID array that dropped to 1.7TB. Furthermore, at last check, they were using almost all of their allocated power, how do they plan on powering another large server? Or are they going to "retire" their Dell?

Speculate away!

[ab2525]

Some food for thought.

<Dragoneer> *nods* The main issue is the restoration issues. FA was not designed with... well, let's just say it wasn't designed. 

<Dragoneer> Frankly, I want to redo all of FA's network and server structure. More focus on redundancy/failover. Sadly, takes a bit of time and money, and some hardware.

<Dragoneer> *nods* Yeah, that's part of it. We're going to be replacing our data servers with three like boxes (each 12+ TB) for redundancy.

[kayfox]

I wonder if this has anything to do with that:
https://forums.vivisector.org/index.php/topic,520.0.html

[Conan]

Some food for thought.

<Dragoneer> *nods* Yeah, that's part of it. We're going to be replacing our data servers with three like boxes (each 12+ TB) for redundancy.

buh what.

whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat.

Two is more than enough. This isn't a mission critical government computer system, there's no need for three. I also notice there's no talk about database server redundancy, which seems to be the biggest problem they have at the moment. Database server crashes? Site is offline for an hour. When's the last time they had trouble just serving files?

Priorities are all in the wrong places. How big are these servers anyways?

[Conan]

Earlier this evening people began to report that uploads were failing and giving a "Failed to write to disk" error. Since then, the users have started a  campaign to "save" FA by deleting scraps and other submissions has sprung up to help free up space.

Meanwhile, the new server is sitting on Dax's bedroom floor, something he and Dragoneer were joking about this morning.

Despite knowing this could happen for months, they were once again too slow to act and let something embarrassing happen. *le sigh*

[a pigeon]

Meanwhile, the new server is sitting on Dax's bedroom floor, something he and Dragoneer were joking about this morning.

So zany
So wacky

[Jim Demintia]

Dax is like Dragoneer. He shoulda been fired years ago for being a shithead but somehow manages to muster a talent for self-preservation.

The legendary American worker, folks!

[Conan]

The new fileserver is racked, but apparently not yet in use.

We've brought our new data server online (8X 2TB hard drives) online, and will begin porting over data immediately. There should be minimal to no impact on the site while we transfer data over.

Once we have the new data server online, tested, we will be pulling Trogdor offline to upgrade its drives (6X 2TB) to offer better data redundancy.

   
Administrator notice:
FA has acquired a new data server (12+ TB) for increasing our available storage capacity. Site downtime is possible in the next few days while we migrate data over.

Notice how there's inconsistency in how much capacity the server has, there's no mention of RAID, and they still haven't addressed database redundancy, which is arguably trivial to deploy when it's a function in PHPMyAdmin, allowing the kiddiest of script kiddies to do it.

[Spip]

Escapades like this are why, whenever somebody proudly points me to their FurAffinity account, I gently suggest they backup their work elsewhere. You know. Just in case THE WHOLE FUCKING SITE GOES UP IN A MUSHROOM CLOUD.