There are several RAID configurations.  RAID 0 (striping) utilises two or more identical hard drives, and splits each file equally across them, yielding much faster disk performance (limited by the throughput of the disk I/O controller) as the disks read and write at the same time.  The total available storage is the sum of the individual drives’ capacity.  RAID 1 (mirrored) could be considered the opposite of striping, in that each file is written to all disks.  This effectively provides realtime backup since the content of all drives in the array is identical, with no performance cost.

I’ve only ever used RAID 0.  For a home PC, RAID 1 doesn’t offer any real benefits that cannot be achieved with a half-decent backup policy, but effectively doubles the cost of disk space if you use two disks.

The only down-side to RAID that I had found was that drivers need to be provided during the installation of Windows.  Linux is slightly better in this respect because it has native drivers for the most popular RAID controllers, usually providing basic functionality.  Windows, however, asks that you provide the drivers on installation, presumably so that you benefit from all the features that the RAID controller offers.  With Windows XP you were required to hit F6 during the installation, and provide the drivers on a floppy disk (which was a real pain, since floppy drive usage died out shortly after the discovery of fire, and RAID drivers often came on a CD anyway).  With Vista and Windows 7 the installer is slightly more intelligent.  It will recognise the presence of a RAID array, but it will still require drivers to be provided.

This is all fine; once you’re familiar with the quirks of the Windows installer it’s plain sailing.

But RAID 0 has its own special drawback, especially when you’re not expecting it.  If you take a disk from an old RAID 0 array, install it as the main disk in a PC and try to install Windows 7, you’ll have a nasty surprise.  Usually the Windows installer will acknowledge the presence of a drive, even if it can’t do anything with it.  But not with an ex-mirrorred array disk.  The Windows installer doesn’t even recognise the disk as being present.

Presumably this is related to the fact that the RAID controller had written its own form of partition information to the disk; while the Windows installer can partition and format a raw disk, or one that is already partitioned, it cannot do anything with a disk whose partition information is present but apparently corrupt.

And the icing on the cake?  You can’t repartition the disk without it being partitioned..!

There were no serious problems, but these failures started becoming regular.  I realised it was because I was running Fedora 9, and many packages seemed to be getting updated for the latest version of Fedora, without retaining 100% compatibility with Fedora 9.  And while Fedora 9 is not particularly old in OS terms, it’s no longer a recent version – Fedora 11 is the current release, and an alpha of Fedora 12 is currently available for download.

So I decided now was a good time to upgrade to Fedora 11.  I considered Fedora 12 Alpha, but thought I’d best stick to an RTM release since I didn’t want to spend 4 hours a day every day for a month fixing it.

And so, what I learned was: back up your personal data.

After religiously backing up all the config files for everything I was running on the server, backing up all database, all websites, and making a list of everything installed, I went ahead and performed a clean install of Fedora 11.

And then I realised I had also been using Samba to provide file storage to our Windows machines.  Not only that, but I had previously decided to move (not copy, but move) all my photos from my desktop hard drive to the Linux server.  I have no idea why I didn’t notice them when I went through my list of things to back up, but miss them I did.  And now they are no more – apart from those in the gallery, every single photo I have ever taken was exploded into ones and zeroes for ever.

I don’t know who They are, but why did They have to say it? Why not twos? Or “bad luck comes accompanied by no other instances of bad luck whatsoever”?

Anyway, following the tragic and catastrophic failure of my UPS, and the terminal affliction suffered by my wing mirror (oh yes, terrible times indeed), my computer has now decided things were still going too well for its liking, and a further helping of drama was required in order to provide some kind of counterpoint to the general wellness from which I was suffering.

So it died.

Not the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD), the Black Screen of Refusal To Even Power Up (BSORTEP). I’m hoping that acronym will catch on. I’m going to submit it to urbandictionary.com later.

I love working in IT. I really do. It’s something I understand, and mostly enjoy. You can’t ask for much more from a job. But sometimes it feels like I spend all my time fixing things that shouldn’t have gone wrong in the first place, instead of making new things to go wrong.

What upsets me most is that I had ripped all my CDs onto that computer as WMAs, and then ‘archived’ (read chucked) my now-redundant CDs in a load of boxes ready for ‘long term archiving’ (read chucking) into the loft.

If I have to rip all my CDs again, I will be well miffed. Yes, well miffed.

Needless to say, I hadn’t heard the beeps because there hadn’t been any. And there hadn’t been any beeps because there had been no power cut. The UPS was faulty, and about to die.

The first symptom was the UPS constantly trying to charge it’s batteries, and clearly failing. The second symptom was its inability to maintain power to the protected circuit when it was disconnected from the mains. The third symptom was the rather nasty smell that woke me up the other morning – a sulphury smell not unlike that of someone having their hair highlighted at the hair stylist.

The three symptoms are expressed in the past tense, because they no longer exist. They have been deprecated by a fourth; the UPS’s refusal to do anything at all, even to switch on.

So, it’s getting replaced. Annoyingly I’ve only had it for a year. Even more annoyingly, we’ve not had a power cut in that time…

When I built it, I decided it should have a 64-bit processor. Of course, that’s 32 bits more than anyone actually needs at the moment, but it’s the way forward. Allegedly.

I also decided I should try out Windows Vista. It looks great, it performs brilliantly, and, again, it’s the way forward.

Those two decisions obviously weren’t risky enough, because I threw in a third; to run the 64-bit version of Vista.

As if Vista’s lack of maturity alone wasn’t enough–with prolific reports of hardware manufacturers failing to release stable Vista drivers in time–I had added that extra 64-bit dimension to the situation. Maybe I was hoping manufacturers hadn’t released Vista drivers because they were concentrating on the 64-bit versions of the Vista drivers…

Anyway, Vista 64-bit is a bitch. It’s soooo beautiful, but… such a bitch.

Vista 64-bit will sporadically crash/fail to boot with 4GB of memory installed. The biggest hardware advantage of a 64-bit system is that it can use more than 4GB or memory. How could Microsoft possibly overlook this bug? It can’t possibly be down to lack of testing, surely? Fortunately Microsoft knowledgebase article 929777 fixes it. Ironically the problem occurs with 32- and 64-bit versions of Vista.

Then, of course, MSI decided not to develop 64-bit drivers for my motherboard; specifically, for the on-board audio. The motherboard supports a 64-bit processor. I know this, because it’s doing so right now. Clearly, it being a 64-bit motherboard, and this being the age of the 64-bit processor, there is no reason why MSI should even contemplate the laughable notion of developing 64-bit drivers.

And then the icing on the cake: Office 2007. Considering it costs more than an office suite should, I was disappointed to learn that several Office 2007 features aren’t available on a 64-bit operating system. Really obscure things are missing, like the Send to OneNote print driver, the Office Clean-up wizard, and Internet Fax. Not a catastrophe, but bloody annoying.

Last night I discovered Windows XP will happily install onto a USB hard drive.

Without warning.

Well, I claim “without warning”, but I think I really mean “the warning was there, but I knew what I was doing so I ignored it”. Yes, that’s what I mean.

After having finally transferred all my stuff to my new PC, it was time to rebuild my old one and give it to Charlie, as promised. But a series of events conspired against me–including my failure to disconnect the external drive–and the Windows XP installer didn’t recognise the RAID array; so it decided to install on said USB device instead.

The drive was nearly full, and I lost it all.

I suppose it buys me some time before I have to decide what to do when the drive runs out of space.

It took a little while to unpack all the parts, throw the packaging into the corner of the room, and put it all together. And then I was ready for that nervous moment, the first power-up of a freshly-built computer! I pressed the power button, and… nothing. Bugger.

All was not lost, however – a little diagnostic accessory on the motherboard promised insight through its four little LEDs. Each LED can glow green or red, and the combination of lights indicates the stage at which the start-up process failed.

It’s basically a shining diagnostic thing. A shining, LYING, diagnostic thing. Except I didn’t know it was lying at the time. It was pointing at the RAM, saying “Ummm, I’m telliiiiiiiiing”. All the while, the CPU chuckled at getting the RAM into trouble.

After the purchase of a small (and thankfully cheap) stick of different RAM, I cottoned on to the shining diagnostic thing’s game, and stumbled across the CPU’s troublemaking. The bastards. In frustrated anger I did something–I really don’t know what–and it started playing properly.

A few more niggles later–Windows Vista 64-bit blue-screening with 4GB of RAM, the on-board audio causing lock-ups, and having to RMA one of the hard drives–my computer is up and running. I daren’t think how many times I reinstalled Windows!

And it only took two weeks(!)