Day 733, Rubbish RAID, rubbish disk

Marvellous.  Definition.  Something which has had any reason to marvel about it removed.

For some reason when I passed on one of my old PC's to someone else I configured it with a mirrored pair of disks using the on-board Marvell RAID controller.  I was obviously thinking at the time that this would save effort in the event that a disk failed.

Ha ha, what a thinking ahead smartypants I am.

Ha ha ha, what an idiot.

I wasn't counting on how piss-poor the RAID controller actually was - I'm used to enterprise grade RAID controllers that, among other things, let you know a disk has failed and can be used to rebuild arrays in a simple and time-efficient manner.

The Marvell RAID controller doesn't let you know a disk has failed other than at some point, an inexplicable time later, the PC refuses to boot as the BIOS decides to disable the on-board RAID BIOS.  This happens some time after the disk has failed, not on the first reboot.  It also gives no indication that there is a fault at the startup screen.

Re-enabling the RAID BIOS from the motherboard BIOS allows the PC to boot - sometimes.  It also enables access to the RAID BIOS utility (CTRL-M at startup), which would be good if it was of any actual use.  The RAID BIOS showed a single disk with no indication that there was a disk missing other than the state of the array being DEGRADED.  I worked out which disk had failed and replaced it with one of the multiple spares I'd left in the PC chassis.

The replacement disk was recognised in the RAID BIOS.  Unfortunately there was no option to rebuild the array, which was odd.   I could configure the single added disk as RAID 0, which was of no use whatsoever.

With the replacement disk added to the array controlled the PC then refused to boot.  I disconnected the disk, booted the PC, then plugged in the SATA cable after startup... It's a SAS disk so theoretically it should be possible to 'hot add' - your mileage may vary and I cannot be held responsible for you breaking anything, anywhere, at anytime, or indeed killing yourself due to a poorly earthed PSU.

I downloaded the Marvell RAID Utility from some place on the internet - easier than it sounds, the Marvell website was not in any way helpful.  The utility showed the working disk and the added disk.  However the added disk also appeared to be broken in some way as even though it was identified correctly there was no way to assign it to the array or even as a spare.  I had a further two spare disks in the chassis - this machine had had a large RAID array configured previously.  The next disk was recognised by the RAID Utility in Windows and did start to rebuild, although it failed shortly after 13% and then the disk was marked as 'unplugged'.

The final disk was connected.  This rebuilt completely.

Then shortly after the rebuild this disk was marked as 'shut down'.  There was no way to bring it back.  Rebooting into the BIOS RAID utility the new disk was marked as SPARE, which seemed hopeful, however there was still no way to change the status of the disk in what is supposedly the main configuration source for this type of RAID array.

A restart of the PC showed the disk still as 'shut down' and checking the properties of the disk showed that 'the disk is not well' and there would be risk if it was used.  So all three spare disks had given up the ghost, which is odd as they'd been sitting still for quite some time, they were all working previously and should have had plenty of life in them.

Bollocks.

"What did you do during your day off?"

I'm afraid I spent a substantial amount of it dicking about with a really crap array controller and some really crap disks, other than that it's been fine...

It's not as if there were pleasant, non-IT related things to do.

Argghgghhhhhhhhh.

Arrrrrrggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhh.

Arrrrrgrrgrgrgrgrgrgrgrgrgrrrrrggggggggghhhhhhhhh.

For official/internal use only:
7474
0-9

Day 732, Fallen leaves and candlesticks

As you put your winter drawers on and the nights turn cold it's time to break out the sole source of heating.  That's assuming the candles made from the rendered fat of the neighbours you had to eviscerate when they tried to steal you last tin of pickled quinoa haven't been eaten by mice.

Here in the post 'event' world oop-north things are tough, but not as tough as those in That London.  Even before the event That Londoner had to have bars on the inside of their windows.  The bars weren't, as was commonly assumed, to prevent entryists from swinging the balance of cheese ownership into the favour of someone else.  No.  The bars were there for when the Londonista waking from Stilton based nightmares realise the nightmare is less bad than the reality and proceeds to attempt to hurl themself out of the window, often with the effect that they fell upwards of a metre to the pavement.  Now however there is no cheese, things are very much worse...

With the candle successfully lit, after a brief battle with the ferrocerium rod, it's time to warm up the crisp autumn leaves.  Autumn leaves, according to Eddie McGee, can be a vital source of mineral nutrients when times are hard, particularly the minerals phosphorous, nitrogen, potassium and magnesium.  Grylls and Mears owe a lot to Eddie, without him they wouldn't be carrying so much adipose tissue after their visits to the woods and their mineral content would see their daily average intake being well below WHO guidelines.

Ahh, food of the old, pre 'event', world.

We can now only dream.

But we're the lucky ones.

If only they had such luxuries in That London as trees, candlesticks, and neighbours.*

* This is what happens when you don't speak to anyone all day and you've run out of different ways to put the tea cosy on your head.


For official/internal use only:
7474
0-9

Day 731, Devalued

Just got some of those new fivers from the cashpoint, it's clever how they make them devalue in real time.

No five pound notes were harmed in the making of this gif.*

* Unlike by this brexit lunacy.


For official/internal use only:
7474
0-9

Day 730, Phew, it worked

If you are going to do backups of your data you also need to be sure that you can recover that data.

Don't laugh, there are lots of people that never check whether backed up data is recoverable or not.  In fact most people are so blasé about the subject that they never bother to check, or if they aren't the people doing the backup they don't ask those responsible whether they have checked.  Ok, yes, this is anecdotal evidence.  However, it is based on over 20 years experience of working in IT in a variety of different environments and businesses.

If you can't recover the data then why bother spending any money on a system or method of backing it up.  The reality is that more effort, and cash, should be put into designing and building the process to make sure that recovery is possible.  Focus on recovery if the data is of value.  Once you understand what you want from recovery then work on how to do the backup in as non-invasive a manner as possible to give you the platform for the recovery.  This will ensure that the way that backup is carried out is more appropriate to your requirements, and actually works in a timely manner.

What is it you want from the process?

All your data back in exactly the same form as before?

Every system back and running in the same form as before?

Bear in mind that any changes to data and systems since a backup was taken will be lost, unless there is a much more costly 'continuous data protection' type backup in place.

Below is just a desktop PC that has the C: drive occasionally imaged off to a backup disk  Here the recovery of the entire image was successful after booting from a pre-configured USB stick.  This is not something that it's convenient to test that often, but it works.  The general changes to the system, patches and reconfiguration, haven't broken the software and it is simple enough that it is recoverable when needed - in this case migrating to a larger SSD.  It is still time consuming and fiddly, but it is manageable for a single system.

Imagine recovering tens of hundreds of servers, and hundreds of TeraBytes of storage.  However well thought out the process to recover that scale of data it is going to take some time - assuming that the hardware is available.

What's the lead time on enterprise grade hardware from multiple different vendors...

Obviously, if your data has no value whatsoever then forget about it, in fact why not just set fire to your computer right now, clearly you don't need it.

For official/internal use only:
7373
0-9

Day 729, Now you see it

Where did it go?

What did I do?

Get-command for Powershell on the Mac shows Get-MacOsXsysteminformation appeared as an available function.

Now you see it.

Then some minutes later it has mysteriously disappeared.

I have no idea why.

And now you don't.

For official/internal use only:
7373
0-9

Day 728, Not a broken octopus

This is an absolutely astonishing piece of kit, it's top quality, you don't get many of these to the pound, and if you want this one you're going to have to buy it in USD.

$$$

No way am I accepting your stinking sterling, the longer you take to hand over the cash the less it is worth.  Any transaction could be devalued by 10% before the money has been exchanged, to the detriment of the seller, which is why I would've banged a 50% premium on it if selling in pounds, but sod that, who needs instability in their currency?

Alternatively, if you have a handful of Matabele gumbo beads or a fistful of Rentenmarks then we can do business.

This fine piece of late twentieth century MIDI technology was used by bands such as:

Hotslack Crimsofiends
Neurofester
And the Deeply Hip
The Hawkfelchers
Nutty Slack

and the quite overrated, no idea why they would make any list let alone this very select one

Cromford's Undergarments

Indeed this very beat-box could possibly have been used by, maybe, almost certainly, perhaps, one of the better of the well known bands listed above.

It even has such sublime and exotic features as aftertouch threshold, dynamic bend, velocity curve, and morning glory.

Yours for only 100 US Dollars.

You know it makes sense.

Buy it.

Buy it now you wanker.*

* A typical eBay technique is to abuse customers as it increases the number of watchers, viewers, and potential buyers.  Check it out, I never make anything up, not ever.


For official/internal use only:
7373
0-9

Day 727, What's next

I expect everything is going to get more expensive.

By how much?

Plenty.*

And the rest.

* That's just become an odd word, in the way that they do.


For official/internal use only:
6363
0-9