on drives

[cattibrie]

my friend Henry's post about RAID failure reminded me of something that happened at a job i had down in southern california:

Comments

[relhok]

you're such a geek, honey.

That reminds me of when our office was up in the Santa Cruz mountains, and prone to frequent power failures in the winter when trees and shit would fall on the power lines.

We also had a UPS backup which fed our workstations, file server, etc. However! We had the added bonus of a gasoline-powered generator outside. We'd built a 220 volt cord/plug into the UPS, and when the power would go out, here was the drill:

1. power goes out.
2. I leap up from my cube and throw the 220 out the window in the electrical room (convenient, and dangerous during rainstorms! whee!) down 1 floor to the alley where the generator was.
3. Run outside and uncover the generator, plug in the 220, and pull the starter cord to get it going.
4. Run back upstairs (all this running was because the UPS had about 8-10 minutes of juice for a full office) and flip the cutover switch for the electrical.
5. Go back to work (until the gas ran out).

[hallucinosis]

Ouch!