Computer question

[equinator]

Not sure where to put this, so will try here.

Location is Western Washington, (read high humidity) and lately we have been dropping into the low-mid 20's. The computer system that I built to run my show, is a rack mounted system, running a RAID0. The rack is stored in the tool shed, no heat, no insulation. Yesterday, I was running a test of the show, and about 3/4 of the way through, the music and lights all stopped. Looked at the status panel, and was getting a cannot load file messages. Apparently, one of the drives on the RAID array went bad, killing it all. The drives are only 1 year old.

I will be replacing the RAID array with an SSD, that was overnighted.

Question is, how many have their computer systems out in the cold? Are you having issues? What steps do you do to prevent hardware failures?

Edited December 1, 2014 by equinator

[k6ccc]

First suggestion is that if you are going to run RAID, DON'T USE RAID-0.  Depending on what your hardware and budget will support, try RAID 1, 5, or 10.

 

I hope you had fairly recent backups.

 

I have lots of relatives in W. Washington so I understand the WX quite well.  Off hand, as long as the computer is running all the time, the cold is not likely to bother it.  The heat from the computer should keep condensation at bay, and it won't be all that cold inside the computer.  Most of the stuff inside is not going to be bothered at all by being cool - heat the generally the enemy of electronics.  Shutting it down after the show runs (for example) is far more likely to cause problem due to condensation and thermal cycling.

 

I don't have my show computer out in the cold (and it's generally not that cold here anyway), but I do have a computer out in an unheated garage.  Never noticed a problem, but it gets left on 24x7.

[equinator]

k6ccc,

Thanks for your reply. As far as the RAID's go, my target was max performance. Data loss isn't a factor, since Ghost is a regular used program. Important data is saved on the file server, with a RAID1.

I never would have thought about keeping it on 24x7. Thinkin that, and no moving parts may be the ticket.

Thanks!