We all know that disk drives fail (“Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life.”) and so we get a RAID system, stick our data on it, and then sit back with a warm, cozy feeling that we’re covered. If a disk fails, we’re good. What could go wrong?
How about your RAID hardware fails? This just happened to me. I need to make some space on my G5 Powermac so I moved my photo collection onto a RAID system. All was fine for a few weeks and then yesterday the RAID system vanished. When the RAID system was plugged in it started up without complaint but as far as the Mac was concerned, nyet. What had happened was that the Firewire 800 connector on the i/o board had become detached. I plugged into the alternate Firewire connector and the next day, before I could get around to recovering my photo collection the alternate connector also fell off the i/o board. If the RAID system had burst into flames or blown a fuse or pretty much anything else I wouldn’t have been surprised but of all the weird, bizarre things that could go wrong having not one but two $0.10 SMT connectors part company with a board wasn’t one I was expecting … Something tells me it’s going to be a long week.
