Preventative Measures

[resistor]

Reflecting on the recent database catastrophe, I've been contemplating ways I could contribute to preventing future crashes.

I, for one, would be willing to provide storage for periodic (monthly?) database backups. As a suggestion, we could make a monthly torrent download and allow people to contribute by joining the torrent. For instance, I have a dedicated box that I could have run as a seeder.

Would this be feasible?

 

[Piratecat]

This is really kind of you. We're going to sit down virtually in the coming week and talk about what we need to do so that we have redundant backups. We'll let people know what we decide.

 

[genshou]

Piratecat, I've got 74.81 GB of unused space on this computer alone and can download at a typical rate of 900 kilobits per second. If you ever need to borrow any for backups, I'd be pleased to assist.

 

[Keith Robinson]

I've no idea what size a zipped dump of the EN World database would be, but it might be an idea to have a seperate server dedicated to back ups of the main EN World site. Since its not actually doing any serving, it doesn't have to be anything special - just enough to get the job done. It doesn't even need to be housed in a server room or be up all the time - just in someone's house who has enough bandwidth to download the back ups and has enough room for a server box.

I've just recently transferred all of my own sites from my own server, so have a spare 2U server box sitting around. Although I used the dual pentium motherboard and chips for a new computer (I've been having computer troubles of my own ), I do have a spare motherboard with a PIII 933 chip, plus memory (I'm pretty sure it's PC133, though can't remember how much of it off the top of my head). I also have a spare cd burner (though it's old and slow), plus a couple of hard drives. I think the largest would be 80 gig and then a smaller one (I have a few, so can't remember the next size down - maybe 30 or 40 gig). I've just put it all up in the loft - literally a week ago. You're more than welcome to any or all of it, if it will help.

I do, however, live in the UK. But I am planning a trip down to Portsmouth in around two weeks, so could drop it off at Morrus' if he wanted.

Anyway, just a thought. Feel free to decline it - I won't be offended! Feel free to email me (keith @ thekyngdoms . com).