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If you noticed (or not) the list is down:

The eNews from the Pantera Club of Northern California is a periodic report on the news and events of interest to the PCNC in the coming weeks.



The following is a note from Dave Bell who runs the on-line DeTomaso mailing list forum.



You may or may not have noticed that the Detomaso List server has been off-line since this afternoon sometime (Monday, Feb. 12). I just got off the phone with Andy Poling who filled me in on the problem and its resolution.



Apparently the internal hard drive for the Detomaso List's dedicated server suffered a total failure (head crash). The repair will not be easy or quick, as after the drive has been physically replaced and started, all of the List software and Archives will have to be reinstalled and then configured from scratch. The Detomaso archives were stored on the same crashed hard drive - but luckily in a different partition from the system software that got nuked. Fortunately, Andy thinks (though isn't completely positive) that the Archives are probably recoverable. The process of replacing the disk drive, reloading the List software and Archives, configuring, and then restarting the List will take three or four days at a minimum. It could take as long as a week. The Detomaso List will be completely inoperative during that time.



I will be out of pocket (traveling internationally) for the next several days and in my absence John Taphorn will be following the repairs. Also, I will send you a notification email when the List is back in operation.



Dave Bell

Forwarded by Chuck Melton
Original Post

Replies sorted oldest to newest

Can I make a suggestion on hard drive replacements. Go with Seagate they have a 5 year warranty, while Maxtor on have 1 year and Western Digital on has 3 year. I have had numerous 2 year old Maxtor drives give me issues and crash. I figure if a company is willing to give a 5 year warranty their product is going to be more reliable. I know all drives will eventually fail, but I've not had a Seagate fail and they are only a few bucks more. TigerDirect.com is a great source and has some pretty good sales on drives.

Sorry to hear the database crashed, that is no fun recovering from it. Just my two cents.
As you may know the List server hardware is currently (or was) managed by Andy Polling.
POCA has aquired control and management (maybe just the virtual ? components), but anyway...

Disks are cheap (I recently got a 500 gig for just over $100)
and the list content is valuable.

My personal system has RAID, (a redundant or mirrored drive pair) when a disk crashes (not if)
the system switches over to the good copy and continues.

Being that I had a disk crash recently, this was benefitial. Although not everything was set correctly (a recent MS update had turned off my automatic system restore checkpoint schedule - Jeez what Jerks!)

I believe our tech gurus will resolve the issue, and POCA should spend the money to "do it right" even if that means buying an upgraded motherboard that has RAID. (My motherboard cost $100.)

Many list members may not know what has happened, hopfully they will know to visit here.

One good idea is to have the status of the list serv checked periodically (every hour ?) and the status made available on another server/website. So if people don't get their mail, before their skin starts to crawl like an addict they can check the offsite indicator.

I'd be willing to host the status page on my (newer) website, but the POCA website should be the first choice.

Chuck
The SCPOCA club offered to pass the hat to get the list back up. I'm attaching David Bell's replies:

The hardware is actually owned by a separate company that leases dedicated servers. We are just one of many of their customers. The server leasing company is responsible for all the hardware and Linux operating system stuff. They will make the physical repairs to get the server back operational on their dime. We (Andy Poling actually) just have to reinstall everything and get the List going again after the repair. The List software install/configuration will probably require significantly more time & effort than replacing the disk drive.

Thanks for the offer to pass the hat, but I think we’ve got that part covered.

Dave


The server is leased and is only backed up if you pay extra for that service, which we don't. As a matter of fact, POCA currently doesn't pay anything as Andy Poling still supports the Detomaso List as well as a Miata list himself. I've been after Andy to make a recommendation on a dedicated server that POCA would pay for but so far he's been too busy to mess with it.

We may want to rethink the backup scheme (or lack of) when we move the List to a POCA paid server.

Dave
Hmmm, seems to me a website with valuable archive information for the Pcar enthusiast should be backed up frequently Confused. It's OK for an individual user to shirk that responsibility, but NOT a dues-supported organization. That's a poor management decision. Hope you haven't lost much data. I KNOW how much everyone needs to know where to get 15" tires Big Grin
Doesn’t look like it is back yet. At one time POCA had an idea to consolidate all of the Pantera stuff found around the web in one convenient place. Kind-of a mega site concept. That was the idea behind POCA taking over the de Tomaso form from Andy. With the de Tomaso forum broken maybe this would be a good time for POCA to talk to George about financially supporting ½ of the PI forum and having a POCA section. It would achieve POCAs consolidation goal and provided a much better forum for POCA members.

Mike
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