This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Agile Buzz by Jared Richardson. Original Post: Lost the server again... ext3 corrupts... the importance of backups Feed Title: Jared's Weblog Feed URL: http://www.jaredrichardson.net/blog/index.rss Feed Description: Jared's weblog. The web site was created after the launch of the book "Ship It!" and discusses issues from Continuous Integration to web hosting providers. Latest Agile Buzz Posts Latest Agile Buzz Posts by Jared Richardson Latest Posts From Jared's Weblog

For the second time this year I've lost a server install to an ext3 corruption. The odd thing is that I had two boxes corrupt ext3 Linux installs yesterday. One was on it's own hardware and another was on my Mac (running inside Parallels). In both cases I did turn the power off before Linux was done shutting down (once accidentally, once on purpose), but I'm still shocked that the file system could be completely trashed that easily. That's not been my experience on Windows or Linux. And to be fair, I did stop fsck after an hour or so on both boxes. I suppose it's possible it would've fixed things in half a day or so... :(

I've re-installed the server with a boring old ext2 file system. I'm probably wasting tons of space on a 200 gig drive, but I've never had an ext2 install corrupt on me. I'm using Kubuntu on that box and the install didn't offer Reiser as an option, so I'll stay boring and, hopefully, safer.

I also lost about a month's worth of data. Fortunately, I've been too busy to blog much. But I've also been too busy to get the backups for the server automated. That'll teach me. :)

I think I've recreated my blog entries and used "touch" to fool my blogging software. With any luck, your aggreagator won't even notice. :)

My current lan server is a very small form factor PC that doesn't have room for a second internal disk drive. Traditionally I add a second internal disk and have Linux back up key files to the second disk. This means I'd have to lose two disks to lose my data. Since my last server upgrade, I have to use an external disk that I'm trying not to leave on 24/7. I think it's time to find a better solution. :/

I always tell people to only back the work they can't afford to lose... heh. That'll teach me!

Jared