There are times where you have a piece of equipment that sits there quietly for years, and then one day it just stops. What causes this? What did you do wrong?

When we previously disccessed what a switch it, we mentioned smaller ones that feature 4 or 8 ports for home use.  At our offices, we’ve been using a Linksys 4124, 24-port switch for the past 5 years, but that came to end this past Sunday when it… just stopped.

Mind you that switches have no buttons, no moving parts, it is just a dumb device that sits there routing traffic.  We have never turned off the device in the entire time (except for power failures here and there), so all you can say is it truly just gave out with time.  While this is annoying, and you may feel like you’ve been cheated by your equipment, it is just a natural happening, and you kind of have to accept it.  We have already purchased a new switch, and gotten it installed, but this one will probably also just randomly die at some point down the road, but I know to expect it.

This is also an oppurtunity to talk about back-up hardware.  Until recently, I always had a back-up router, but I am currently using my last one, but I plan to purchase a new reserve router soon.  I know this may sound expensive, but when you are making all of your money via online means, that makes every piece of equipment that helps you with your connection becomes a mission critical piece.  Now that I know a switch can just die like this, in a year or two I will buy a spare switch.  I had an 8-port on hand, ao I was able to get the most critical computers back online, but some computers and printers were offline until the new switch arrived.  Never a good thing.

So what’s your back-up plan for hardware failues?  Do you even have one?