Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2007 00:06:40 -0400 (EDT)
From: Greg Smith <gsmith@gregsmith.com>
To: pgsql-performance@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: DRBD and Postgres: how to improve the perfomance?
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On Sat, 8 Sep 2007, Joshua D. Drake wrote:

> You would have to have lightning handed by God to your server to have a 
> total power failure without proper shutdown in the above scenario.

Do you live somewhere without thunderstorms?  This is a regular event in 
this part of the world during the summer.  It happened to me once this 
year and once last; lost count for previous ones.  In both of the recent 
cases it's believed the servers were burned from the Ethernet side because 
somewhere in the network was a poor switch that wasn't isolated well 
enough from the grid when the building was hit.  Lightning is tricky that 
way; cable TV and satellite wiring are also weak links that way.

I didn't feel too bad about last year's because the building next door 
burned to the ground after being hit within a few seconds of mine, so the 
fact that I had some server repair didn't seem like too much of a hardship 
in comparison.  The system was down until the fire department had put out 
the blaze and I was allowed back into the building though.  Good thing my 
cell phone works in the server room; that phone call asking "are you aware 
the building is being evacuated?" is always a fun one.

I'm not saying God hates you as much as me, because the fact that you've 
made this statement says it's clearly not the case, just that a plan 
presuming he's your buddy is a bad one.  The way you're characterizing 
this risk reminds me of when people quote the odds that they'll lose two 
disks within seconds of one another in a disk array as if it's impossible, 
something else which of course has also happened to me many times during 
my career.

--
* Greg "Lucky" Smith gsmith@gregsmith.com Baltimore, MD