Had to dig a 10 year old server out of a closet in Indianapolis last month

Went to replace a failed drive on a Dell PowerEdge 2950, and the RAID controller decided it was time to die too. Try finding a spare PERC 5/i controller on a Tuesday afternoon. Has anyone else had to keep ancient hardware running because the client won't approve a refresh?

2 comments

2 Comments

jade_singh1mo ago

That PERC 5/i controller brings back memories. I used to think keeping old servers on life support was fine, but one dead controller on a Tuesday totally changed my mind.

tyler_wilson29d ago

and that's exactly the thing, it's never just one part that fails, it's the whole system that becomes a ticking time bomb. i see it everywhere now, not just with servers. like my dad's old truck, he kept patching it up for years, new battery here, new alternator there, but then the transmission just gave out on a random wednesday and it was done. same thing with that old dell desktop i had, the power supply died and took the motherboard with it. it's like, you keep these old things running on luck and stubbornness, and the universe just picks a day to collect. one dead controller, one dead transmission, it's just the universe's way of saying "stop pretending this is sustainable". you can patch things up for a while, but eventually the patchwork becomes the whole machine and that's when it all comes apart.