Got a good machine, new, 4 gig hard drive, loaded.
I'm using it for 24x7 on the net, (yes this one here actually)
and its getting read and write errors like crazy.
Read errors seemed like a bad thing for a webserver, so I decided I
probably had to replace the disk quick. Well, not having my own backup
media at the time, I brought it over to my favorite geeks house to back
it up before it died. This is March, in Massachusetts. Can you all say
"It was COLD outside."
And for some reason when we get the machine hooked up and dumping,
its not getting any read errors. But its going to take a long time. Well
the room its in is not used to humans, so its pretty cold in there, and
we decide to warm it up a bit. Minute my toes start to warm up, read errors.
Hmmm, coincidence? I think not. (poof :)
So the nice guys at Micros Northeast, who sold me the thing, find me a little box, "external disk enclosure" with its own little fan. Throw the disk in there, and wonders, no more read errors. None. And now its July in Massachusetts and when the A/C went out it hit 97 in the office, but in its own little world the disk is happy now.
Story ends.
The following January, while still under warrantee, the disk toasted itself permanently. Fujitsu had discontinued the drive back in October because of its propensity to overheat. They will happily replace my disk which is still under warrantee. If I return it to them. I have other ideas. Involving data recovery, because, as Murphy would have assured me, my backups were not up-to-date, and of course the previous one, didn't actually work.
Backup often. Test your backups.
You've been warned!