The PHILCO Phorum
ARF down again as of 10/12/10 - Printable Version

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ARF down again as of 10/12/10 - radiorich - 10-12-2010 06:51 PM

Hello Everyone,
Well If you noticed ARF is down again this time because the site was using to much bandwith.

Here's what you get when you go to the forum


Quote:The web hosting company has decided that the forums use too much of their server resources and shut this entire website down earlier today without warning. I have temporarilly disabled the forums so that the rest of the site might remain accessable. I am working to find a new home as quickly as possible. Apologies for the inconvenience.

Rich

Re: ARF down again as of 10/12/10 - Ron Ramirez - 10-12-2010 11:58 PM

So we now benefit with a few more visitors. Icon_smile

I have thought for a long time now that Alan should place his site with a major, professional site hosting company. During the time he was trying to self host, the site continually had problems. The most recent move straightened out most of the issues. Too bad the site host pulled a fast one on him with no warning.

I had this site (Philcoradio.com) on WestHost for nearly 10 years, until they had a weeklong outage early this year which I found unacceptable, so I moved to a different host. I think I acted too soon, now, because since then my site has had more than a few hiccups including Phorum outages which have happened too many times. I am considering going back, because until their weeklong outage, I never had any trouble with WestHost. No significant site downtime, no Phorum hiccups...nothing.

I think Chuck has remained with WestHost.

And, I think Alan should talk to them about hosting his site.

But what do I know, anyway. It's just one man's opinion.

Re: ARF down again as of 10/12/10 - radiorich - 10-13-2010 02:38 AM

Hello Ron,
That maybe something to think about

rich

Re: ARF down again as of 10/12/10 - Chuck Schwark - 10-13-2010 03:08 PM

Yes, as Ron mentioned, The Philco Repair Bench, hosted by WestHost, has had
that l o n g outage in the past but that has been the only really bad experience since my site startup in 1997.

I would heartily recommend WestHost. Realistically, any hosting company can
expect Murphy to pay a visit, so I'm not disenchanted and I'll stay put.

Chuck
[Image: hal.jpg]
"It can only be attribted to Human error".

Re: ARF down again as of 10/12/10 - FStephenMasek - 10-13-2010 10:41 PM

There are others, such as Hostmonster. These days, being down for a week is inexcuseable, as it indicates grossly inadequate backup plans and facilities.

Re: ARF down again as of 10/12/10 - Ron Ramirez - 10-13-2010 11:10 PM

That's just it, Stephen. It was revealed when WestHost went down that everything was in the same location; they had no offsite backup plan. So, since every server they had was in the same room, all of their servers were contaminated by the release of a chemical agent intended to douse a fire (there was no fire; the chemical was accidentally released due to human error). This chemical wreaked havoc with the hard drives in their servers; damaging many if not most. Some were damaged to the point that even a professional company brought in to try and retrieve data were unable to do so. My site was not lost, but it was one of the last to be brought back online (naturally). I think Chuck's site was also one of the last to be brought back online. By the time mine was brought back, I was making plans to move.

Other than that snafu, they had been an excellent host with virtually no downtime.

A week's downtime can kill a business, though, and many companies leasing space from WestHost lost a lot of business because of that extended downtime.

I felt then, and still feel now, that it is inexcusable for any site hosting company to not have an offsite backup plan, not to mention having servers at a separate location that could be put online in the event of a serious incident such as what happened to WestHost.

This downtime taught me a lesson: to make my own backups of the Phorum database (something I hate to admit, but I had not done before). I now make these backups on a weekly basis. I probably should do so on a daily basis. But anyway, those backups get put in two or three different places so if something happens to one backup, I can retrieve one from another place.

I have always had at least two backups of the rest of my site "just in case." Now I maintain two or three backups of my entire site including the Phorum database.

Re: ARF down again as of 10/12/10 - Chuck Schwark - 10-14-2010 03:40 AM

I, too, have all the Philco Repair Bench website files/scripts/folder trees/images backed up here at home off-line and a copy at work on our company server (my private folder) that's backed up regularly.

Chuck

Re: ARF down again as of 10/12/10 - FStephenMasek - 10-15-2010 04:30 AM

I studied computers while in college (1976 - 1980) obtaining a business degree, then was a computer consultant. In the early 1980s it was estimated that even a large corporation would be out of business, not just wounded, if they lost their computers for two weeks. Computers are far more critical in 2010. For a time, I also provided disaster recovery consulting/planning. Most businesses which suffer a fire are so wounded that they fail, but perhaps not immediately. The business of providing backups ranging from computer rooms ready to go, all the way up to full mainframe computer systems installed and ready to run is very well developed, and has been around for decades. The same for secure back-up data storage facilities (inside mountains and vaults).

Re: ARF down again as of 10/12/10 - Ron Ramirez - 10-15-2010 03:27 PM

I keep one backup on this computer, another on my external hard drive, and a third I burn regularly to a DVD-RW which is kept in my wife's desk where she works.

WestHost should have hired you as a consultant, Stephen. I can't help but wonder if they have an offsite backup plan now, or if they are still running all of their servers in the same room, in just one location.

Re: ARF down again as of 10/12/10 - codefox1 - 10-16-2010 05:57 PM

No larger than these files get, you can back up on a memory stick, and put it in your car. That way, if your house burns down, and your car is stolen, and your office is flooded, and the ISP runs amok, all on the same day your consience will be clear. Then you will jost have to file a F.O.I. request with the F.B.I. which probably has a current copy, due to the high degree of sensitive obsolete technical information contained herein. Icon_smile

Re: ARF down again as of 10/12/10 - Ron Ramirez - 10-16-2010 07:46 PM

That is true for the Phorum, but with the amount of traffic and posts which the Alternative Radio Forum receives, that may not hold true.

The database of this Phorum is a bit more than 30 MB. I would guess that ARF's phpBB database would be more in the neighborhood of several hundred MB to maybe even 1 GB.

Re: ARF down again as of 10/12/10 - 37-670 - 10-23-2010 11:41 AM

ARF is back up and running. All the old posts and threads are there, but not the stuff from their temporary site. The temporary site is going away, or may be gone by now.

Re: ARF down again as of 10/12/10 - Michael Dennis - 10-26-2010 05:20 PM

"Critical Error" is all I get today. Maybe they should pack it in.

Re: ARF down again as of 10/12/10 - exray - 10-27-2010 12:00 AM

Unfortunately it is acting sort of goofy. Possibly another relocation or "new server" is on the horizon. Its gotta be a PITA for Alan. Icon_sad

Re: ARF down again as of 10/12/10 - Michael Dennis - 10-27-2010 07:48 AM

I do feel sorry for Alan. There are a lot of nice people on ARF but there are also a lot of jackasses there and that's what drove me away from posting there anymore, except when Curt Reed passed, I did share my thoughts about that subject.