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FSCK - File System Check - An Explanation
By Marc Bollinger | November 26, 2007
Whenever a server detects a possible corruption of files or other extraneous errors with the hard drive(s), then we force the system to perform a file system integrity check on the drives. Even though this can take 2 - 8 hours to complete, the benefits of performing this check far outweigh the downtime.
We do the check for several reasons. First, the check will notify our datacenter technicians if a drive is on the verge of hardware failure. This gives us time to prepare new hardware to replace the drive. Second, and most importantly, the check ensures that the operating system files were not corrupted or overwritten. It also ensures that the files, databases, and folders within your account aren’t corrupt or belong to someone else (!!).
If we were to neglect the file system check when the server requests it, we would literally be putting the server in a “ticking time bomb” with huge ramifications in the future. Resolving a operating system file corruption or user file system corruption is a monumental task which would no doubt results in much more than 8 hours of downtime.
However, we are working through various ideas to try to keep future file system checks to an absolute minimum. There are some alternatives out there that we’re investigating, but most of them require a large change in our current procedures, so it could take some time to work out.
We thank you for your patience and understand that we only do this to protect your account and our servers from certain disaster in the future.
Marc
Topics: Service Outages |
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