23:21

Death and the Server

22 July 2008

A friend of mine once bought a $200 beater car. On the way to a very, very important job interview, this $200 car broke down on the freeway. My friend blamed this on “bad luck.”

Needless to say, this was not truly bad luck.

A server failing is not “bad luck.” Computers fail. All the time. Bad luck is a meteor hitting the data center, or Godzilla rampaging through an Internet connection facility. A single, un-backed-up server losing its single, non-RAID disk is not “bad luck.” Depending on how prepared you are, it is either as boring as a kitchen light bulb burning out, or as disastrous as my friend’s experience. It is, however, something that you will have to confront sooner or later if you have any kind of public web presence.

Before you pick a $9.95 a month hosting plan, you might want to reflect on that.

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