Dinosaurs vs Mammals

The fax machine story reminded me of another one. For seven years our computer server slogged away in the most hostile environment imaginable. Housed in a little room off the library, it was subjected to unimaginable heat. The room wasn’t sealed, so much dust, grit and dirt covered everything. This was a worry, as the tape drive in it backed up all of our data on a daily basis. Lose the server, lose data and be crippled in terms of the network.

For years it worked flawlessly. Then, I much pressure was put on me to replace it. I relented after 18 months of statements ranging from suggestions to threats to car bombs. The new server was ordered, took 2 months to build and configure and another month to be installed. It was big and black and had a little blue neon light on the front. We all applauded and sighed in admiration.

For weeks it walked unconvincingly. It sounded like a jet engine. It backed up most times, but not every time. Then, on the last day of school, the hard drive failed. Which corrupted the tape we had inserted. The techs came and took the tower away and another tape from the day before (we have 14 days worth). But they took the wrong tape and we lost 8 days of data (long story).

For a week we (well, other people, not really me, I just shake my head from time to time) have toiled to restore the data and perform the tasks that should have been done last December. That was completed today. When the machine backed up the data, it corrupted it and it seems to be really … broken.

So, I guess this is a case of the dinosaurs outlasting the mammals.