Micks' Musings

So I have replaced two disks in my Software Raid in the last month. The first time the disk had reached 2500 reallocated sectors and I decided to replace it before it actually failed. The second time the disk had one pending bad sector but it was causing the whole file server to run slowly! In the first replacement I created a partition on the disk and then made a mistake when I added it to the raid. I left off the '1' - I did "mdadm --add /dev/md0 /dev/sdc". This added the disk rather then the partition. It was easier then creating a partition so the second time I did the same thing. It saved the creating partition step which I got from the tutorial on software RAID I referenced in an earlier blog post. The performance was much better once the second disk was replaced even whilst it was rebuilding!

Everyone is familiar with the standard two position on/off switch. However there is a third position many of these switches have - the Fooled Ya! position. The autofocus on my digital SLR was not working. I could hear the motor working but it would not focus. I took it back to the shop only to find the autofocus switch was in the "Fooled Ya!" position - it was neither on or off as if it was off the motor would not have engaged and if it was on the lens focus ring would have been locked and manual focusing would not have worked! There are many other examples of the three position Fooled Ya! switch in use. Light switches where in the middle position the light is on dimly or where the light does not work but you can hear a buzzing noise. Anything that is almost working is probably a victim of a Fooled Ya! switch.