Why does my Dell server start up automatically after power blackout?

[dannydanny]

Hi,

I have 2 Dell PowerEdge 2600 servers, both running Windows2k Server.

One weekend, our office building was scheduled for power maintance which meant no power for about 6 hours (only on the weekend). So we planned to shutdown the servers on Friday night and start them up again on Monday morning.

Due to a breakdown in communication, no-one in our office shutdown the servers on Friday. But to my surprise, the servers were still running on Monday morning!

The reason I was surprised was that I expected the servers to stop running once the power was cut. Although the servers are connected to UPSs, there is no communication between the UPS and server (to control for auto shutdown in the event of a blackout for example). Thus I expected to come into the office on Monday morning and find the servers still down, but they were still running with no problems at all.

Is this normal for a server? If I unplug the power cord to my computer, then insert the plug again, I wouldn't expect the computer to boot up. I would have to press the power button. So I kind of expected the same thing for a server....

Since in the end we did not have to shutdown the servers on Friday, we are considering not worrying about scheduled blackouts at all in the future, and just let the servers boot themselves after a blackout. Is this dangerous for the hard disks?

Any insights much appreciated,
Danny

 

[jkupski]

This is normal behavior--and it's not a server-only thing, either. On most systems its a BIOS setting, but PowerEdges seem to be hardwired that way.

Your proposed idea of simply letting the servers shutdown due to power starvation isn't a good one--and not because of the risk of damage to hard drives, but rather the data on those drives. Unexpected shutdowns result in files not being properly closed, etc. You might get away with it, but it'll cost you in the end. And at the worst possible times, too...

 

[dannydanny]

Thanks for the reply. I guess we should make the effort to properly shutdown the servers next time then...

Cheers,
Danny