Equipment

We have computers in the lab of many vintages. We need to diversify because of customer support. They all have one thing in common. Drive failure. There is not one kind of drive that is infallible. They all fall apart after enough use. Some do not need much use. Typically, the third time I have to mess with a drive beyond mount or plugging something in, I replace it. One of the boxes today might have survived the check disk for the third round, but I do not want to deal with that exact same drive again next week or month.

Recently we had a system board (formerly known as a motherboard) loose the two Ethernet connectors. They showed up in the BIOS. They showed up on an lspci. No software could communicate with them. We had to purchase a $10 NIC and plug it in to the board. This doesn't sound like a hassle, but it is a bench system. It is just a system board, drives and power supply screwed to a bit of plywood. The card gets in the way and I fear it will be ripped out when someone trips over the network cable. The system is in a spot where people have to get behind the rack to do things. The potential of someone (me) tripping over the cord is relatively high.

Tripping over the wire is probably how the original Ethernet ports died in my opinion. What is an IT Tasmanian Devil to do?

Example: I was working on one of the machines in the server room. Someone came in and says "The network is down." I get a few more details and figure out that the problem is with the server right below the one I have been working on for two hours. I ping around and verify that it is indeed that server. What to do? Well, I giggled the network cables. Fixed. I am a miracle worker. "That was quick. Good job Kelly."