Re: corruption during power loss
Michael Soulier wrote:
>
> My biggest complaint about RedHat/Mandrake while I was using them
> was the fact that if I lost power, the disk caching would cause the
> filesystem to be corrupted, often seriously so. I'd cringe when I booted
> up again, because inevitably, I'd be prompted to login as root and run
> fsck myself. Often I'd have to reinstall a bunch of packages, and it
> didn't help that doing an rpm -Va to verify everything inevitably returned
> false negatives on package integrity due to broken rpms.
>
> Then I installed Debian. I've had about 5 losses of power since,
> and each time, the system has come up without a scratch. Minor inode
> problems easily fixed by fsck without manual control necessary. I noticed
> the entries in /etc/inittab for powerloss, but the script it's pointing to
> for me is not installed, so it's not that, although I'd like to know what
> this /etc/init.d/powerfail script is.
>
> So I ask, what aspect of Debian makes it superior in this
> respect? What's causing the wonderful lack of corruption during power
> failures?
i'd highly reccomend getting a decent UPS. they are quite cheap, and
they will not only prevent curroption during outages but it will make
the system more stable(its usually difficult/impossible to notice
spikes/brownouts by the time the computer shows signs it may be too
late..) the life of the hardware will be improved, and a lot of
headaches will go away.
you don't need a monitor on a UPS(unless your me) but a computer without
a UPS is like well..asking for trouble.
my systems ... my 2 main systems run off of cyber power 2200s (1100VA)
they provide about an hour worth of backup time(at the time the UPSs
were being phased out and i got them each for $99 w/free overnight
delivery, shoulda gotten 3-4 more) i have a P5-200 on a cyberpower
320VA(got it for $39) got my tv/vcr/cable on another 320VA cyberpower
and got my cordless phone on ANOTHER 320VA ..i have a APC back ups 400
but the battery is dead its useless till i get around to replacing it :)
i can't stress enough a UPS to anyone that is even slightly serious
about computers no matter what OS or filesystem they run, the risk to
damaging hardware(IMO) is greater then the risk to damaging software.
you are in canada so you may not be affected by the serious power
problems the U.S. is currently experiencing(wide spread black/brown
outs). because of the deregulation of the power industry here there
hasn't been a new power plant built in more then 5 years, infact many
have closed down(i can think of at least 1 nuclear power plant that
closed where i used to live). the situation is going to get worse before
it gets better.
i didn't realize how many power problems i actually have until i had a
UPS that beeped at every one.
UPSs are not just for servers, they should be just as standard as a
keyboard or a mouse to a PC. kinda sad that people don't take it
seriously enough. and btw UPSs are really more useful for "cleaning up"
"dirty" power rather then protecting against full blown blackouts. ive
seen many instances where APC smart UPSs registered severe voltage drop
offs(going from 121V to as low as 50-60VA), may not be enough to kill
the lights, but probably enough to kill your PC(s).
my 0.02
nate
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