Ok, my site has been down for a while 10+ hours, and I couldn't get ahold of my host, because their email was down as well. I knew that the server was located in BurstNET's NOC, and so I decided that I would try to contact BurstNET via AIM. Within seconds I received a response, and an update on the problem that the server was having. Eric G. was the tech support person with whom I spoke to and I would like to say that he was very helpfull. I know that BurstNET gets a lot of flack on this board, and I just thought that I would post my positive experience with them, as I think this board needs a more positive outlook on hosts.

Originally posted by baddealings.com
Ok, my site has been down for a while 10+ hours, and I couldn't get ahold of my host, because their email was down as well. I knew that the server was located in BurstNET's NOC, and so I decided that I would try to contact BurstNET via AIM. Within seconds I received a response, and an update on the problem that the server was having. Eric G. was the tech support person with whom I spoke to and I would like to say that he was very helpfull. I know that BurstNET gets a lot of flack on this board, and I just thought that I would post my positive experience with them, as I think this board needs a more positive outlook on hosts.

Yeah, a thread that starts with good things about Burst. I'm sure Sean will be very please to read this.
Although I disagree with what you wrote about 'a more positive outlook', I agree that when a host does a good job, they deserve recognition.

Originally posted by baddealings.com
Within seconds I received a response, and an update on the problem that the server was having. Eric G. was the tech support person with whom I spoke to and I would like to say that he was very helpfull.


So you are not Burst's customer directly yet the they have no problem helping you? Let me assure you, not many people/hosts are willing to do this!

I know that BurstNET gets a lot of flack on this board


Some of them are valid, but a lot of them are baseless ... I even know some people who hate Burst (though they have not had any experience with them whatsoever) just because of some very stupid reasons, e.g: because Burst is to proud when they say they don't offer cogent bandwith ... because Burst offers dedicated server with no setup but 6 months contract ... Anyway ... completely stupid reasons ... some people just tend to hate/look down on Burst following others who follow others who follow others .... who hate Burst. Funny ...

and I just thought that I would post my positive experience with them, as I think this board needs a more positive outlook on hosts.

Agree with you ... As for me, I am trying to be as objective as I can in evaluating any potential host. I am considering Burst as one possibility right now ... I have not heard their connectivity being down ... have not heard any major complaint recently. Only some people who like to bash one another ...

cheers,
:beer:

Your site was down for 10 hours and you are giving them kudos for being helpful, you are a very forgiving person.

As reading foward I see that I have misread disreguard previous comment.

Originally posted by ProjectJB
Your site was down for 10 hours and you are giving them kudos for being helpful, you are a very forgiving person.

Well if you read my post in it's entirety, you would have seen that I said that my host has a server with BurstNET. It's not BurstNET's fault that my site was down, as my host has a dedicated server in their NOC. So I am not a client of burst, I am a client of one of their clients, and they didn't have to help me out, as their only responsibility is to their direct clients.

BTW, your site is down again (www.baddealings.com) :(

Originally posted by RackMy.com
BTW, your site is down again (www.baddealings.com) :(

Yeah It hasn't yet been up yet, it went down at 1:32 a.m. this morning Pacific Standard Time, and hasn't been up since, but the burst rep said that it should be up shortly. So I have no other option but to wait.

Sorry :blush: I thought Burst got your site back up and running.

It is a hardware problem with the specific server in question. We had to rebuild part of the hard drive, including the partition data and boot sector. It took a very long time to mirror the drive, due to the fact that it was a 60GB IDE drive. From the time it went down to the time it was back up, we had three techs working on it over varius shifts. The problem was not due to the server owner, it was hardware failure. It happens in this business, just got to deal with it as fast as possible when such comes up...
The good thing is we keep spare parts for everything in stock at all times, to be prepared for situations like this.

Sean R.
BurstNET

If I were him I would use two 60 gigs this time around and implement at least a minimum of software RAID5.

err ... RAID5 need at least 3 hard drives!

cheers,
:beer:

Well I was assuming he had at least 2 drives already, hence he would need to add another 60...was one of those moments..LOL

Hmmmm

Trouble with RAID, is that if one HD gets corrupted or files on the drive do, they get mirrored to the other disks.
I had that happen to me with normal RAID1(mirroring).

--James

Have 4 hardrives. Have 2 sets of Raid 1 mirroing. Backup to the seond set and do weekly tape backup.

Tetra,

do you mean Raid 0+1? (http://www.raid.com/04_01_0p1.html)

cheers,
:beer:

No. Two seperate Raid 0s. Then back one set to the other. Like backing one hd to another. Except use two raid 0 sets. That way the backup hd cant fail.

I don't follow you ... so the backup will be done "manually" (invoking a command)? If so, it's not a good solution (think why). If not so, what's the difference with Raid 0+1?

cheers,
:beer:

Might need two raid cards. It will be done just like using a backup harddrive... Except "each" harddrive will be a Raid 1 set. That way you're backup hardrive is actually 2 harddrives. And so is you're regular.

RAID1 uses a lot of cpu. If you only have about 10 clients, then it is fine...

http://www.acnc.com/raid.html
Raid5 recommended for hosts.
Best thing to do is have RAID5 for 24x7 use, and then have an additional drive to load backups to. If you use a 60 gig drive, then use an 80 gig for backups. You should easily be able to have daily, weekly, monthly compressed backups on it. There is no reason to not use both raid and backups.

Tetra, have you done that in the past or is this just "I think it would work" sort of thing? How do you make teh two Raid controller talk to each other such that data written on the first set of drives will also be written on the second set of drives? What software/hardware solution will do this?

Besides, I don't see how (in Raid 1) failure in one drive will cost failure in another drive... The data is written (mirrored) simultaneously on both drive. It's not done by copying data from one HD to another mirrored HD such that failure in the first HD will also cause failure in another one... This is no RAID at all ... Failure in one drive (in Raid1) won't affect the other drive (except now you won't get the redundancy you ned). No need to buy two Raid Controllers (I don't even see how your scheme is going to work).

Raid 0+1 will work better, from the URL I quoted you:


A single drive failure will cause the whole array to become, in essence, a RAID Level 0 array


Hence ... failure in the first set of drive don't affect the second one ... It just make (for some duration of time until you replaced the failed drives) you only have one set of Raid 0 ... Not only you make your drives work faster (due to stripping), but you get the two independent sets of redundancy drives!

cheers,
:beer:

Do you understand what a backup harddrive is? You have a program or script to copy the entire harddrive to a seperate harddrive. You do this every few days.... That way if a virus deleted everything on you're harddrive or something the second is still there. Or if a user accidently delets everything the data will still be there. If the kernal corrupts and the hds have to be reformatted you can instantly go to the second hardrive and have no downtime. My idea is instead of 2 harddrives. Have 2 Raid 1 sets.

Harddrive A + B = Raid 1 Set A
Harddrive C + D = Raid 1 Set B

Set A gets backed up to Set B every day or two days etc. GEt me? If you don't contact me on AIM so we can get it done faster.

This server IS a RAID5 config, but had the just the boot sector stored on the IDE drive (as well as server-wide backups)...due to problems occuring with some RAID/SCSI & IDE mixed systems recognizing the boot sector on the RAID/SCSI part.

Sean R.
BurstNET

Tetra,

what's wrong with Raid 0+1? 4 drives are involved, I prefer Raid 0+1 ... first, I got the stripping so that my drives will work faster .. second, I got the complete redundancy on two sets of drive ... Third, no need for second RAID controller ...

And yeah ... I know what backup script is ... I have it on my server ...

cheers,
:beer:

Nothing.. ITs nice.

I agree, BurstNET is a great company. I e-mailed BurstNET sales with a inquiry and recieved a e-mail with 4 minutes!

Also to all you BurstNET flamers;

:uzi: :uzi: :uzi: (burstnet flamers)

Keep up the good job sean!

Hmmm.... I thought this thread was about Burst support. Maybe this needs to be a new RAID thread.

Anyway, Sean and crew saved us again last week. We launched a new venture two weeks ago that , shall we say, challenged our servers resources. Sean and crew jumped right in, without being asked, and made it happen.

That's good support folks, plain and simple.

JMHO.

Hi all,

I do not want to start again saying something about bad support by Burst.net, but......

I had some support questions answered slow this week and some fast. Sometimes you call and get somebody on the line right away, sometimes, like tonight ...ring...ring...ring... nobody.

Reported a problem with the mail server at Thu 11/15/2001 12:26 AM, still no answer or fix.....--which means I cannot send e-mail.... with that server.

Anton

:(

Relating to RAID 0+1:
http://www.raidarray.com/04_01_0p1.html

Hope that helps.. sorry for being off-topic. A mod might want to split the thread.

Matt

Matt, thanks for giving the link I posted earlier :D

cheers,
:beer: