OT: server maintenance

[Fairlight]

With neither thought nor caution, GCC Consulting blurted:
> Just an observation.
>
> Most of you are running *nix indicate how stable you servers are and how
> some of you systems have been running for a year or more without shutting
> down.

Eight years and counting, with only a couple of lost sectors on one HD so
far that have been remapped in the last four months.  P166/128MB.  Aside
from actual power outages that exceed my UPS time, it's up 24x7x365.

> My question - How often do you shut down to clean the server?  You know ,
> get rid of those pesky dust balls from the fan openings, and inside the
> case.

Erm...whenever hardware needed to be added or replaced.  That hasn't
happened to arcadia in over six years.  Beryl went on for 2.5 years without
being tampered with and was simply decomissioned in favour of a machine
that was more powerful (and that didn't have flaky RAM...which came with it
at the time...it was used).

> Most of these servers are not located in clean-rooms.

That's an understatement. :) Arcadia Mk 1 lasted four years and was only
replaced because I hit a thermal IC crack on the AHA1542CF, and it was more
expensive to replace it with a 1542D than to get a new machine.  But that
machine was around before I quit smoking, and I used to smoke about 2 packs
a day right in front of it--and I guess I can honestly say there were days
I'd end up disassembling the mouse to clean it after rolling it through ash
and making it a bit flaky, but the main system never really got cleaned
unless I -had- to get into it.

> Do any of you do the same for workstations?  I find they are worse then
> the servers.

Let's just say I wouldn't recommend letting newer systems go like this. 
They run a lot hotter.  I surely wouldn't let an AMD go for more than six
months.  Actually, I'd just avoid AMD altogether.  

mark->
-- 
Bring the web-enabling power of OneGate to -your- filePro applications today!

Try the live filePro-based, OneGate-enabled demo at the following URL:
               http://www2.onnik.com/~fairlite/flfssindex.html