Hi all, I was wondering what kind of failures you experience with long-running hardware.
Most of us run servers with very long uptimes (we've got a server here with uptime approaching 3 years, which is not long compared to some, but we think it is pretty good!). We're looking at "extending" the life of some of these servers, but are reluctant to replace all the hardware, especially since what is there "works"... Most of these servers either have 3ware RAID cards, or have some other sort of RAID (scsi, ide, software, etc.). The hard disks are replaced as they fail, so by now some RAID 1 drives are actually 40Gb when only about 20Gb is used, because the RAID hardware cannot "extend" to use the extra size (but this is a different issue). Now... we can replace all the fans in the systems (eg. CPU fan, case fans, etc.). Some even suggested we jimmy on an extra fan going sideways on the CPU heatsick, so if the top fan fails at least airflow is still being pushed around which is better than nothing (sort of like a redundant CPU fan system). But how about the motherboards themselves? Is it often for something on the motherboard to fail, after 3-4 years continuous operation without failure? Or is there some other part(s) we should look out for instead... would the CPU itself die after 3 years continuous operation? Or maybe RAM? Or even the LAN cards? We keep the systems at between 18-22 degrees celcius (tending towards the lower end) as we've heard/read somewhere that for every degree drop in temperature, hardware lifetime is extended by X number of years. Not sure if that is still true? Any input/suggestions would be greatly appreciated. TIA. Jas -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
