[OT] Useable BIOS RAID 1 on the cheap?

[John Costello]

On Wed, 18 Jan 2006, Jacqui Caren wrote:
> John Costello wrote:
> > halt when you power them off.  $WORK had a longish enforced shutdown (10
> > days).  The day after the shutdown, a higher-than-normal number of people 
> 
> Even nastier - over heated disk bearings after very long run periods
> have been know to "seize". This is not to say that the platter no longer
> turns, but that starting friction is too great and the drive pulls too
> much juice or simply gives up. Sun pizza boxes were notorious for this
> when 2 drives were installed - the upper drive would overheat due to
> the lower drive and within a year of so they would fail to reboot
> to die "screaming" (worn bearings do scream)

There was a series of SCSI drives used in Apple systems, 7100s or 8100s I 
think, that had a fatal flaw.  The bearings would grind down over time, 
but not crash the system.  When the drive was powered down, the bearings 
would stick and the drive could not spin up.  The solution (demonstrated 
to me by my boss) was to remove the drive, tap it three or four times, and 
replace it.  The drive would spin up when powered up, and you had your 
chance to migrate the data.
 
> Taking a poll - do people here leave (home/desk) machines running 24x7 
> or do they power down when done for the day.

Personal laptop: Stays on unless I travel.
Home desktops:  Off unless I am using them.
Work laptops:  No pattern--sometimes on, sometimes off.
 

-----
John Costello - cos at indeterminate dot net