That Tuesday when 4 hard drives died in one shift

Last month I had a day where I walked into a small law firm and three of their workstations had clicking drives, plus the server backup drive failed during verification. I spent 10 hours straight swapping drives and restoring from backups, and the partner kept asking if I could have prevented it. Has anyone else had a single day that made you rethink your whole approach to scheduled replacements?

3 comments

3 Comments

jana_fox502mo agoTop Commenter

Ngl I had a very similar day with a medical clinic a couple years ago and it completely changed how I do things. Honestly after that shift I sat down and figured out the average lifespan of the drives I was seeing fail most often, then I started pushing for scheduled replacements at like 3 years max for mechanical drives. Tbh it's not perfect but since I started recommending swaps before they actually die the panic calls have dropped by a lot.

alicecooper2mo ago

Oh dang, did the clinic actually go for the scheduled swaps or did you have to fight them on it?

finley7291mo ago

Three drives in one shift sounds like my record, but four is just showing off. @alicecooper, you ever have a partner hover over your shoulder asking if you could have prevented it while you're elbow deep in a server rack? I'd tell them next time I'll just bring a ouija board to commune with the dead drives instead.