They Don't Make Them Like That Any More

So I had to take one of the servers out of the computer room today. It's been running one of our telephony apps ever since the company started up, and now it doesn't want to run any more. I've built a new server, and we have a techie coming in later today to swap the special cards across and configure the application, so I just needed to get the server out of the rack and put it somewhere where he'd be able to open it up.

First problem: Most of our servers are in racks, but most of our servers aren't rack-mounted. They're little Compaq mini-towers; we bought dozens of them cheap when the line was discontinued (we also use them as desktops). They're not particularly fast, but they're quite reliable. So we have shelves in the racks for the servers to sit on.

Now, some bright spark had positioned the shelf immediately above this server so that there was all of, oh, half a millimetre of clearance. Since the server itself was sitting on the floor, and the frame of the rack itself sticks up over an inch at the bottom, I had to first remove two other servers and the shelf before I could move the server I wanted. Fortunately, neither of the two servers on the shelf above were critical (our backup internet server and the remote-access server), so I just yanked them out, undid the screws, twisted the shelf sideways and up to get it around the cables, and it was free.

Second problem: I grabbed the server and tried to hoick it out of the rack. It didn't move. Was it caught on something? No... Can't see anything. Wiggle it a bit... Wiggle... Wiggle. Ah. Now lift. Grrrrgh.

The reason it wasn't moving is that it weighs about seventy pounds. It's the size of a standard mini-tower, though about six inches deeper, but it appears to be constructed entirely of cast iron.

They don't make them like that any more. Thank God.

This little cutie weighs all of 2.9 pounds, and it's faster, has more memory and more disk space than the cast iron cow now sitting on my desk. Admittedly it doesn't have expansion slots or hot-swap drive bays, but ooh, shiny.*

* Is it just me or is the CD in that picture upside down?

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 09:20 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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