Questions[hardware](server)

Here's my scenario: I'm a developer that inherited (unbeknownst to me) three servers located within my office. I also inherited the job of being the admin of the servers with a distinct lack of server administration knowledge and google / ServerFault as a reference point. Luckily, I've never actually had to come into contact physically with the machines or address any issues as they've always 'just worked'.

All three machines are located within the same data room and serve the following purpose:

Machine1 - IIS 8.0 hosting a number of internal applications
Machine2 - SQL Server 2008 R2 data store for the internal applications
Machine3 - SQL Server 2008 R2 mirror store of Machine2

All three have external hard drives connected that complete back ups frequently.

I've been informed that all three need to move from one data room to another within the same premises. I wont be completing the physical moving of the hardware, that'll be handled by a competent mover.

Apart from completing a full back up of each, what considerations do I need to make prior to hypothetically flicking the power switch and watching my world move?

^{I'm aware that it's far from ideal having all three located in the same room / premises but that's past the scope of this question.}

The other day, we notice a terrible burning smell coming out of the server room. Long story short, it ended up being one of the battery modules that was burning up in the UPS unit, but it took a good couple of hours before we were able to figure it out. The main reason we were able to figure it out is that the UPS display finally showed that the module needed to be replaced.

Here was the problem: the whole room was filled with the smell. Doing a sniff test was very difficult because the smell had infiltrated everything (not to mention it made us light headed). We almost mistakenly took our production database server down because it's where the smell was the strongest. The vitals appeared to be ok (CPU temps showed 60 degrees C, and fan speeds ok), but we weren't sure. It just so happened that the battery module that burnt up was about the same height as the server on the rack and only 3 ft away. Had this been a real emergency, we would have failed miserably.

Realistically, the chances that actual server hardware is burning up is a fairly rare occurrence and most of the time we'll be looking at the UPS the culprit. But with several racks with several pieces of equipment, it can quickly become a guessing game. How does one quickly and accurately determine what piece of equipment is actually burning up? I realize this question is highly dependent on the environment variables such as room size, ventilation, location, etc, but any input would be appreciated.

Suppose I have a rack with several servers and other stuff. One of servers overheats severely and either starts smoking or catches fire while there's a serviceman nearby.

If anything similar happens in an apartment and there's a fire extinguisher nearby using the latter promptly often lets extinguish the fire very fast but in case of server rack improper extinguishing may lead to unneeded extra damage to surrounding equipment.

To clarify, I'm talking about a really small fire that one can try to extinguish without risking their life - like grab a nearby extinguisher, discharge it and get the fire extinguished in say ten fifteen seconds.

What's the strategy to extinguish a small local fire in a server rack? What type of extinguisher is to be used? How to minimize damage to surrounding equipment?

There is a server that is used from 4:30 am in the morning until ~ 22:00.

Should it be turned off? I think that it is a server and that it won't have a problem to stay on, but serious professors are telling me that it is dangerous and that HD can fail within 2 years. The server owner believes that his old server running from 1995 without backup and a single hard disk (if the hard disk fails he is screwed) had no problem because he used to turn it off at nights.

What do you believe for this?

Now it has a RAID 1 array, external hard disk backup, and serveral full hard disk backups on DVD and over the internet.

Are there any studies or evidence which show that mounting a hard drive horizontally is better than vertically for the lifespan of the device? Or upside down, or any direction for that matter.