WT#@!: Unplug A Server = Crash The Hard Drives?

[~ The 34 Year Buzz!!]

Fully Condensed version:
If You Unplug A Server, Then you Will Crash The Hard Drives :P


Less Condensed version:
1) Burst.Net is a huge volume VPS / Dedi Server provider; They are an "Inc. 500 company"

2) They had a major power outage today and the back-up generators "helped, but were not enough."

3) One of my VPS's has been down over 10 hours and might be FUBAR:
(quote from support ticket)

We have no ETA for when or if it will be back online. If you have your own backup, we can move your VPS to a new vserver and you can upload the backup there, rather than wait for an update.
Please let us know how you would like to proceed.

(quote from public forum)

There are several Vservers that suffered a catastrophic failure. Our engineers are working non-stop...

4a) I was taught that properly shutting down (Windows) computers is important to avoid possibly corrupting the hard-drives.
4b) Sometimes, a frozen computer has to be "unplugged" and I've *never* noticed any problems later.

Question:

• What are the odds that 'unplugging' a Linux Box would cause a catastrophic failure?

Why can't they just reboot? :wave:

 

[JohnMayers]

Unplug and spotanious reboot affect the hard drives the same way. However, the odds of a hard drive crashing after just one such incident is very low. In such cases, more commondly is the loss (or damage) of data. If such incidents happen often, it can lead to damage, like bad blocks, or unreadable sectors. Breaking thow.. Never heard of something like that

 

[lothos]

Yes, it happens.

Just yesterday I accidentally unplugged my external USB backup hard drive without unmounting it. I've done this a couple of times and nothing bad happened, but yesterday it ruined the data and I had to format the drive and do all my backups from scratch.

I don't have any numbers for the odds, but YES it happens.

 

[devTastic]

I've seen this happen as well. Always be careful with those portable drives, make sure the wires are not hanging out where you may accidentally yank it out.

Yes, it happens.

Just yesterday I accidentally unplugged my external USB backup hard drive without unmounting it. I've done this a couple of times and nothing bad happened, but yesterday it ruined the data and I had to format the drive and do all my backups from scratch.

I don't have any numbers for the odds, but YES it happens.

 

[~ The 34 Year Buzz!!]

However, the odds of a hard drive crashing after just one such incident is very low...

Yeah, my lucky day.
That was a costly data loss, I had made back-ups, but not downloaded them off the server.

 

[labrocca]

An FSCK may be required after a server crash. Maybe they're just too lazy or busy to run it.

 

[~ The 34 Year Buzz!!]

An FSCK may be required after a server crash. Maybe they're just too lazy or busy to run it.

Based on years of experience, "Unplug A Server = Crash (completely destroy) The Hard Drives" doesn't quite add up.
I'll never know exactly why, but the data was lost forever.

Yes, it happens...

I've seen this happen as well...

OK, guess I'm fortunate my Windows machines have always held up well after an occasional freeze and forced reboot.

 

[jacobatwood]

It didn't happened with me, not for a single time.