On Fri, 07 Feb 2003 07:32, Rich Puhek wrote: > Jason Lim wrote: > > But how about the motherboards themselves? Is it often for something on > > the motherboard to fail, after 3-4 years continuous operation without > > failure? > > Normally, I'd say no on this point, particularly if the server is > continuously running.
I would agree most solid state components like motherboards should last years, I would suggest the weakest point would be cheap capacitors, just how you research a board to avoid this I dont know. > > 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? no, solid state. The biggest risk is mechanical failure. The two mechanical parts are Hard drives and fans. Failure of the cooling fans allowing parts to overheat has to be watched for One of the weakest ones seems to be the nasty little fans on the high end graphics cards, ive had enough pack up to be concerned. So when picking parts look for static heat sinks and good cases where possible I would suggest. For hard drives, hardware raid mirror the boot disks and at the very least raid5 the data disks, if you have the $ then RAID1+0. Given the life of a server is probably 3 to 4 years I dont know that there is really any PPM (planned preventative maintenance) possible. I would suggest the most likey areas to spend money on are external, 1) A good UPS 2) a clean environment 3) Air con / air tempering ie keep the box below 24 Deg C regards Thing -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
