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What happens when a HDD starts to go out? Do you have to pay & trust colo personnel to replace it, or do you have to pay to have your server shipped back to you

What happens when a HDD starts to go out? Do you have to pay & trust colo personnel to replace it, or do you have to pay to have your server shipped back to you? I could see putting my own server into a colo if it were like a storage locker - carry/cart your server into the building, mount it in the rack you've rented, plug into the provided power and network connections, and lock the security door.

patio11 14y ago
Typically you'd pay for the first option. The term of art is "remote hands" service. There are options where you can install servers in cages. (Some industries/companies require very strict physical access control.) This is more for show than because it meaningfully increases your security against the attack "your colocation provider is secretly The Adversary."
- peterwwillis 14y ago
  If you buy the hardware from a vendor and get their 24/7 support they'll send a tech to your cage to replace the drive. It's a little bit more expensive than the machine he built, but with the knowledge that someone will go fix it when it's broken. Worth the money, still ridiculously cheaper than AWS.
- jaf656s 14y ago
  >This is more for show than because it meaningfully increases your security against the attack "your colocation provider is secretly The Adversary." It does help protect you against the "another colo customer" attack, whether an actual attack or accident.
spindritf 14y ago
There's always a third option: go to the collocation facility and change the disk yourself. You won't usually be charged for access during business hours. Attractiveness of that solution depends greatly on the distance to the DC.
codinghorror 14y ago
Good to think about since drive failure is easily the #1 most likely failure case for a server. (#2 is power supply failure, but anecdotally that seems much rarer in practice. Drives can and do fail regularly in my experience.) That's why I used a RAID mirror, so we'd have to lose two drives in one server before it mattered, e.g. the server is down. Ideally the RAID array would run degraded (unmirrored) until you can get remote hands or yourself down there to drop in a new drive. They are front-accessible drives in caddies so changing them is relatively easy, no need to re-rack the server.

patio11 14y ago

Typically you'd pay for the first option. The term of art is "remote hands" service. There are options where you can install servers in cages. (Some industries/companies require very strict physical access control.) This is more for show than because it meaningfully increases your security against the attack "your colocation provider is secretly The Adversary."

peterwwillis 14y ago
If you buy the hardware from a vendor and get their 24/7 support they'll send a tech to your cage to replace the drive. It's a little bit more expensive than the machine he built, but with the knowledge that someone will go fix it when it's broken. Worth the money, still ridiculously cheaper than AWS.
jaf656s 14y ago
>This is more for show than because it meaningfully increases your security against the attack "your colocation provider is secretly The Adversary." It does help protect you against the "another colo customer" attack, whether an actual attack or accident.

spindritf 14y ago

There's always a third option: go to the collocation facility and change the disk yourself. You won't usually be charged for access during business hours. Attractiveness of that solution depends greatly on the distance to the DC.

codinghorror 14y ago

Good to think about since drive failure is easily the #1 most likely failure case for a server. (#2 is power supply failure, but anecdotally that seems much rarer in practice. Drives can and do fail regularly in my experience.) That's why I used a RAID mirror, so we'd have to lose two drives in one server before it mattered, e.g. the server is down. Ideally the RAID array would run degraded (unmirrored) until you can get remote hands or yourself down there to drop in a new drive. They are front-accessible drives in caddies so changing them is relatively easy, no need to re-rack the server.