Submitted via IRC for SoyCow8317
A loud sound emitted by a fire alarm system has destroyed the hard drives of a Swedish data center, downing Nasdaq operations across Northern Europe.
The incident took place in the early hours of Wednesday, April 19, and was caused by a gas-based fire alarm system that are typically deployed in data centers because of their ability to put out fires without destroying non-burnt equipment.
These systems work by releasing inert gas at high speeds, a mechanism usually accompanied by a loud whistle-like sound. With non-calibrated systems, this sound can get very loud, a big no-no in data centers, where loud sounds are known to affect performance, shut down, or even destroy hard drives.
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Loud Sound From Fire Alarm System Shuts Down Nasdaq's Scandinavian Data Center
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(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday April 22 2018, @06:55PM (5 children)
Can anybody provide a spectral analysis or approximate sound sample of the offending noise? Taking a look at the more prominent spikes could be interesting, even if only for curiosity's sake.
Also, holy fuck, that guy in the Youtube vid looks almost like a carbon copy of me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 22 2018, @07:21PM (2 children)
That video was from Earth 2 -- that is the other you, EF.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Sunday April 22 2018, @09:13PM (1 child)
No... this is Earth 2.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by SanityCheck on Monday April 23 2018, @03:57AM
No this is Earth 2!, oh wait 2! = 2... nm
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 22 2018, @07:49PM
I guess one could say that this alarm blew the whistle on the Nasdaq. :)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 22 2018, @11:21PM
Wow. Stupid *and* ugly. That's two for two!
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 22 2018, @08:29PM (4 children)
deployed in data centers because of their ability to put out fires
"Fire alarm" is not the proper term.
The fact that it makes noise is coincidental to how it works and what its primary task is.
What these things are is a fire suppression system.
releasing inert gas
There's the giant clue, right there.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday April 22 2018, @08:46PM (1 child)
So while you're here being informative, can you tell me whether or not these systems sound like a queef?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 24 2018, @07:57PM
Your comments are painfully stupid.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 23 2018, @12:04AM
Aha, thank you. So this is a non-flammable mega-fart system.
(Score: 1) by shrewdsheep on Monday April 23 2018, @01:37PM
What is the danger of suffocation when these go off, ie. how fast do they work?
(Score: 4, Informative) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday April 22 2018, @09:34PM (8 children)
And they're very expensive. NYC, they made a foolish law. They wanted us to put sprinklers in all our high-rises. And it almost cost me a mint. I told them, people feel safer with sprinklers. But what about the buildings that need sprinklers the most. If you look at the fire deaths in New York, almost all of them are in one- or two-family houses. They didn't address that. But they said OK, Trump Tower is grandfathered in. So I didn't have to put in sprinklers. Believe me, it would have banktruped me. I got very lucky on that one! And we did have a fire. No sprinklers. And very little damage. If we had the sprinklers it would have been much worse, everything soaked.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Fluffeh on Sunday April 22 2018, @09:55PM
I also guess if we had the sprinklers, we could have blamed that for the moisture in the bed as well... instead of that other thing... you remember that report about the other thing?
*sips coffee*
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 22 2018, @09:59PM (1 child)
...which sociopath Donald J. Trump fought tooth and nail.
There was a submission the other week about how a resident of Trump Tower died as a direct result of that.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Monday April 23 2018, @07:10AM
Of course I fought it. You would have fought it, any landlord would have fought it. I fought it and I won. Because they grandfathered in Trump Tower. Rudy Giuliani, fabulous guy, he's done some great legal for me. And fortunately, he was the Mayor at that time. I didn't want the sprinkler law. I whined. And I won. They did the law, but it wasn't as bad as it started out. They could have made us do the retrofits, they didn't. For residential they didn't.
Trump Tower, we (I) started building that one in 1979. When we didn't know from sprinklers. When NOBODY had sprinklers. But we built it very well. And our FDNY firemen & women did a great job. So the fire was very confined.
Trump World Tower on Turtle Bay (East Side), I did sprinklers for that one. I didn't have to -- we started it before the law went through. So it would have been grandfathered in. And it would have been very safe without the sprinklers. But with the law, all the new buildings were going to have sprinklers. And the tenants wanted them. To them it's an upgrade. So I spent $3 million of my own money and I put in sprinklers. And I made that money back and more. And I won an award for that one, Best Residential Project in the World. It was the best, believe me. trumpinternationalrealty.com/property-gallery/trump-world-tower [trumpinternationalrealty.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 22 2018, @10:02PM (2 children)
...as can the wrong type of handheld fire extinguisher.
At a place I worked, there was a full-height rack that contained a test fixture.
It caught fire and someone from the Test Department grabbed a dry chemical extinguisher and put out the fire.
The stuff in a dry chemical extinguisher absorbs water and is corrosive.
We ended up scrapping the unit and building another.
...and a CO2 extinguisher isn't necessarily the proper choice either.
The sudden shock of coldness can damage some stuff.
The following week, the entire plant got demos on fire extinguishers and their proper selection and use.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday April 22 2018, @10:38PM (1 child)
I see that you don't work on anything important, then. Thermal shock chambers are a thing in the real-world.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 23 2018, @01:33AM
you don't work on anything important
Almost all of the stuff produced on this planet is NOT Mil-spec.
In that same facility that I mentioned, there was commercial grade stuff being produced at the same time that military grade goods were being produced.
...well, until NAFTA came along and all of the non-military stuff was sent to the maquiladora in Tijuana.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday April 22 2018, @10:36PM (1 child)
Fire really drives the point home that you're on somebody's shit-list. Not only is it a terrible way to die, but a horrifying thing to live through.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Monday April 23 2018, @09:34AM
It was an accident. Somebody was VERY DUMB with Power Strips. Not great for my insurance!💸 twitter.com/FDNY/status/985952106002767874 [twitter.com]
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 22 2018, @10:20PM
Cancel the novelty foghorn doorbell for our corporate data center.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Monday April 23 2018, @02:07AM (1 child)
The takeaway here seems to be that while one should Shout at the Devil [youtube.com], one should refrain from shouting at your hard drives if they are of the spinning variety.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday April 23 2018, @04:51AM
On the other hand, if you are locked in a data center with nobody around, you can make yourself noticed through shouting! ;-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 23 2018, @07:52AM
This has happened before, and it has been reasonably well publicised:
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-37337868 [bbc.com]
I think it's safe to blame it on incompetence.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Osamabobama on Monday April 23 2018, @08:31PM
One way to reduce the risk is to move all the hard drives out of the data center and use 'the cloud.' As data connections get faster, the performance hit will be less and less. If it's still an issue, move the processors, too. Actually, once the data centers are empty of computer hardware, leaving only empty racks, power usage will go way down and the risk of fire all but disappears. Finally, the room can be pre-flooded with fire suppressant gas to eliminate the (small) residual risk of fire.
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