Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Web Hosting : RAID rebuild taking 3 days, unable to use email

[Bkt2000]

My hosts server has unexpectedly became unavailable due to file system errors and in order to provide stable server performance they were forced to reboot the server to run file system check. There is now a RAID rebuild running as the background process on the server.

At first the RAID rebuild was doing ok but its come to a screaming halt

07-12-2012, 04:22 AM - %4
07-12-2012, 07:47 AM - %52
07-12-2012, 02:27 PM - %55
Yesterday, 06:25 AM - %56
Yesterday, 08:18 PM - %57
Today, 06:06 AM - %58

At this rate it will take more than a month to fix

Whats worse is that they disabled IMAP and POP3 services to make it run faster so now I can't receive emails. Basically I'm screwed, my website is how I make a living, if I can't send and receive emails then I'll lose all my current and potential customer. Thousands of $$ worth of income for me and my family

Does anyone have any suggestions? Is this a normal way to handle a RAID rebuild by turning of the email?

I'm super pissed right now

[Collabora]

In general, if email is critical, you shouldn't use the "free" email that comes with hosting. I say "general" because most hosts (ones that use cpanel and similar) run the email services on the same server as the web server -- and frequently dns server too. You can get a hosting plan or email plan with another provider right now, have email and wait for your web site to come back in the meantime. All you will need to do is change MX and A records in DNS (That is assuming you have access to DNS manager)

[myidealhost]

From my own experience I can say that since the FSCK is taking all this time there are too many damaged clusters on your current HDD, the best solution in this case is setting new server and mounting current HDD to it, start restore ASAP in order to reduce further downtime, Just open support ticket to your DC support. Even if FSCK completes in few hours you are risking to have the same problem within nearest weeks.

[alanwoo]

Originally Posted by myidealhost

From my own experience I can say that since the FSCK is taking all this time there are too many damaged clusters on your current HDD, the best solution in this case is setting new server and mounting current HDD to it, start restore ASAP in order to reduce further downtime, Just open support ticket to your DC support. Even if FSCK completes in few hours you are risking to have the same problem within nearest weeks.

Agreed, if time is money, just get a new server and get everything back in operation in the shortest time, while waiting the raid rebuild that may drag for days.

After this, you may want to setup a secondary server in a difference data center, paying additional one two hundred dollar to protect losing thousands of dollar is well worth it.

[CD Burnt]

for an emergency email solution, set up free Microsoft mail for your domain.

http://domains.live.com

[DWS2006]

Originally Posted by Collabora

In general, if email is critical, you shouldn't use the "free" email that comes with hosting. I say "general" because most hosts (ones that use cpanel and similar) run the email services on the same server as the web server -- and frequently dns server too. You can get a hosting plan or email plan with another provider right now, have email and wait for your web site to come back in the meantime. All you will need to do is change MX and A records in DNS (That is assuming you have access to DNS manager)

@Bkt2000 if your email is mission critical to your business I would recommend a paid 3rd party solution (GoDaddy, NameCheap, 1and1, etc.) that will provide a redundant mail platform and provide support for that platform.

If email is important to you but is not mission critical to your business operations a free 3rd party solutions (Google Apps, Live Mail, etc.) could be ideal. Google and Microsoft will provide a platform that rivals or exceeds most paid options in terms of uptime and reliability but will not offer much if any support. Also there is no guaranteed SLA, while very rare outages to both the Google and Microsoft systems have occurred.

[Bkt2000]

Thanks everyone, I've set up a Yahoo account in the mean time. I've emailed my current customers who I'm dealing with now and have set up the forms on my site to point to my new email address. Looks a little unprofessional but a quick fix none the less.

[Greg-HostsVault]

The rebuild seems kind of slow. As myidealhost said they should be doing it a little different.

Good going on getting the yahoo email up! What I've done in the past is use my gmail account. You can set it up to send as your company email and just setup a forward to your gmail account. That way you use your external service with the same branding as your website. I don't know if they've disabled the forward ability, so it may not work now. I also know that gmail has "small business email" you may want to look at that. I'm not aware of the details currently.

[CD Burnt]

Originally Posted by Bkt2000

Thanks everyone, I've set up a Yahoo account in the mean time. I've emailed my current customers who I'm dealing with now and have set up the forms on my site to point to my new email address. Looks a little unprofessional but a quick fix none the less.

why did you choose a solution that you think looks unprofessional?

some free solutions with your existing domain were mentioned.

[QuickWeb-Roel]

you can go with google apps email and use your own domain.

[Lincxu]

Agreed with myidealhost, if you're still waiting for the disk check, get a new server would be the best solution. Have you asked your support why it's so slow?

[Bkt2000]

Originally Posted by CD Burnt

why did you choose a solution that you think looks unprofessional?

some free solutions with your existing domain were mentioned.

Other solution just aren't easy to set up

Originally Posted by QuickWeb-Roel

you can go with google apps email and use your own domain.

Do you have step by step instructions or a link on how to do this, I'm finding all links out of date and have been pulling my hair out for the last hour trying to sort this out. What a completely frustrating task

[CrocWeb]

Originally Posted by Bkt2000

Do you have step by step instructions or a link on how to do this, I'm finding all links out of date and have been pulling my hair out for the last hour trying to sort this out. What a completely frustrating task

Try the following video, it should help:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMMb5mCoZoM