It was bound to happen...

[RossRoy]

Remember about a year ago when I said I was building myself a NAS?

It died 2 days ago.. 

It shut down and now won't come back up.

I switched out the power supply, still won't start.

Unplugged all hard drive, CD-Rom and removed all expansion cards.. still won't start.

Unplugged case fans and removed RAM.. still doesn't start.

Removed CPU.. still won't start.

That's when it dawned on me - maybe the replacement power supply is defective - switched PC - no it works.

So I guess the motherboard is dead. After only 1 year.. And at 59$ for a new one - do I really want to go through the RMA procedure?

Still undecided......




..... also kinda hard to take a decision without my music! 

[Dragonfire]

Oh no....I'm sorry that happened.

I remember you talking about doing this even though I didn't understand most of what you were talking about.

[Achim]

Sorry to hear that. 1 year just doesn't seem enough. Probably warranty expired last week too...? (My PS3 motherboard dies after barely 2 years, not enough by far either... ; that was last November though).

So I assume you can get to tthe data by "just" plugging the hard drive(s) into your PC? In that case I understand that you're hesitant to go through the pain again...

[RossRoy]

So I assume you can get to tthe data by "just" plugging the hard drive(s) into your PC? In that case I understand that you're hesitant to go through the pain again...

Well it's a little more involved than that - I have to the plug all four hard drive into a system where I can run a ZFS aware OS (basically BSD or Solaris)..

But no.. I do want to go through that again. I love having the server there. So I'll probably switch out the motherboard this weekend, and I may take the opportunity to change the case for a somewhat more inconspicuous one.

[Jimmy]

So it's your turn, last year (or the year before ) it was me. But at 59$ it's less costly that it was for me (of course you can do the job yourself wich make a big difference )

[snowcat]

Sorry to hear that, I hate computers because they do silly things like this all the time!!

[Touti]

The problem with RMA is that it's gonna take weeks before you get a replacement and in the meantime you won't have access to your files. 

[MEJHarrison]

I can make you feel better! Here's how my June went:

- Truck needed a new battery.
- Truck needed a new alternator.
- PS3 stopped playing Blu-ray discs (and Blu-ray games)
- The laptop on my wife's computer died.  No backup.  But a lot of the important stuff is on the main computer!
- Fixed wife's laptop and tried to copy stuff back from the main computer and discovered it died while fixing her laptop. FUCK! No back of that either.  Several years of photos, important documents, digital downloads from Amazon, etc. all gone.
- Put new hard drive in main computer and discovered the power supply went while I was replacing the drive.
- iPhone updated to new OS, but all my backups were bad.  Lost photos that were backed up on the main computer (now gone), and all kinds of other stuff.
- Hit the patio door with a rock while using the weed whacker and destroyed it.
- Other family issues.

There may be more.  I've been trying to forget June even happened this year.  All efforts at data recovery on the hard drives from the main computer and laptop have been unsuccessful.  I have a device to plug them in through a USB port and they just spin but don't ever get assigned a drive letter in Windows.  Talked to a friend who runs a computer repair place and we tried everything (including freezing them overnight).  So I either need some luck here or send them to a place that will charge thousands to recover the data in more advanced ways (i.e. NOT going to happen).

Still need to fix the PS3 (going to attempt it myself), the patio door and get a real backup solution in place.  Something beyond making sure important stuff is on the main computer and my wife's laptop.  Still, if not for the incredibly bad luck of having both hard drives go at the same time, it wasn't a horrible plan.

Glad I keep a copy of DVD Profiler running on my work computer!!! And the one bit of data I was able to recover from the dead computer was my Quicken backups folder because I backed them up to the other hard drive, so that was awesome.  Maybe I'll try reading the bad hard drives again now that June is gone.

[RossRoy]

Maybe I shouldn't complain then.. after all, as it stands, I haven't lost anything - I just have to replace a motherboard!

And I've already decided on buying a new one. the RMA procedure is not worth it - not for 60$

[MEJHarrison]

Maybe I shouldn't complain then..

[kahless]

OMG! That reminds me that I'm constantly postponing a backup solution for my family network - such as a NAS or at least an external hd...   
Next month I'll take care... 

[MEJHarrison]

I would put a backup solution in place ASAP.  Of course both machines have brand new hard drives and there's really nothing to backup anymore!

What we've accumulated in under a week could probably be backed up on a floppy disk.

Plus my next expense is going to be a new laser for the PS3.  An external drive can wait.  I'm tired of not getting to watch my Blu-rays! Or play my new game.

[Achim]

I have a good back up plan (not perfect though). I have external drives of the exact same size as the computer's drive and simply mirror them. While not in use the drives are turned off.

The problems:
a. the backup must be manually performed.
b. I am still lacking a plan to get the drives checked regularly. For the PC I had SpinRite, but while it works for OS X drives it needs a Windows computer to perform.
c. I keep the drives at home. So I am not protected against theft or natural disaster.

[RossRoy]

Well, about a month later, I finally fixed it!

And damn! I should've fixed it earlier! Something must've been fishy with the previous motherboard right from the get go. I couldn't break the 10MiB/sec transfer speed when writing, no matter what tuning I tried applying. I could read at a decent enough speed, around 40MiB/sec but writing was always locked at around 10MiB/sec.

The new motherboard? It's currently transferring 1 months worth of new data to the NAS - at what speed? hovers around 45MiB/sec!!!! 

Me very Happy!

[Kathy]

I have no idea what you are talking about but I am very glad you are happy...Congratulations!