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NetWare 3.12 Server Taken Down After 16 Years of Continuous Duty

Posted by samzenpus on from the served-us-well dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Ars Technica's Peter Bright reports on a Netware 3.12 server that has been decommissioned after over 16 years of continuous operation. The plug was pulled when noise from the server's hard drives become intolerable. From the article: 'It's September 23, 1996. It's a Monday. The Macarena is pumping out of the office radio, mid-way through its 14 week run at the top of the Billboard Hot 100, doing little to improve the usual Monday gloom...Sixteen and a half years later, INTEL's hard disks—a pair of full height 5.25 inch 800 MB Quantum SCSI devices—are making some disconcerting noises from their bearings, and you're tired of the complaints. It's time to turn off the old warhorse.'"

7 of 187 comments (clear)

  1. Netware 3 by HornWumpus · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Netware 3 ruled.

    Netmare 2 on the other hand earned the name.

    By version 5 it was back to Netmare (for different reasons).

    I once walked into a dusty environment, remote location and could hear the drive bearings from 100 feet away through a fire door. Backed up successfully but never spun up again.

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    1. Re:Netware 3 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I doubt the drives were exactly 'up'. Spinning, yes.

      I had a legacy Netware 3.11 server once upon a time... it was up for years and years, and by the time I got to the company it was like a legend. Eventually though there was a power outtage that outstripped the UPS system and required a re-start.

      It wouldn't load. We sent the hard drives out to be recovered and they didn't actually exist anymore - the surface had been work away years before, and the server had been running purely in RAM.

      Netware was awesome.

    2. Re:Netware 3 by cyberthanasis12 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The thing that I liked most with netware 3.1* was the fantastic undelete it had. It never really erased anything unless it was out of storage. Once I remember I undeleted a file I had erased one month before. And the undelete was no hassle at all. You just looked at a list of the "erased" files and chose whichever you wanted. It's the only thing I (still) miss since I migrated to Linux in 1999.

  2. Was it discovered in the wall?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/04/12/missing_novell_server_discovered_after/

  3. Re:Is this supposed to be a good thing? by dreamchaser · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Netware 3.12 was quite secure and rock solid. It did one thing (file and print serving) very, very well. It's a testament to good software design. The fact that you make light of it probably indicates that you were not in the IT field back then and have no sense of perspective. I wasn't a huge Netware fan, being more of an OS/2 and Unix guy back in the day, but I had a great deal of respect for the product.

  4. Unused for the last 8 years by artbristol · · Score: 5, Informative

    From the linked thread:
    "When I began work here in 2004, this system was completely orphaned ... The only thing it's been connected to since 2004 has been my personal computer (laptop)."
    Way to spend (by my reckoning) 10,000 kWh of electricity.

  5. Re:16 years and they did not run of space on it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Just to piss of pompous, holier-than-thou assholes like yourself. Mission accomplished!