Trueachievements.com is down. As with most anything on the web there isn't any absolutely reliable news on the cause, although someone claims the site administrator says there was a hard drive failure and it won't back until Thursday.
It's a good site even for people who aren't achievement junkies because it's a nicely organized location for strategies and glitches that can get you past places you might be stuck.

I KNOW, it ticks me off...

We were talking about it here a couple weeks ago...worst is with Reach just out there was a ton of activity around it...

Oh well...

Wait. What is this website about? I've never heard of it.

Wait. What is this website about? I've never heard of it.

It's designed for people who want to wring every single achievement out of their Xbox 360 games. It's organized by game and then by achievement. People can post their solutions to getting the achievements, and others can vote on or add to the suggestions. Even if you don't care about the achievements you can learn strategies and glitches that help get through the game.

Wait. What is this website about? I've never heard of it.

Read through this thread.

http://slickdeals.net/forums/showthread.php?sduid=720877&t=2212666

We were talking about difficult achievements, and that is basically what sets this site apart from other sites that are devoted to game solutions (like xbox360achievements).

This site takes all the users that have played a game and figures out how difficult it is to actually achieve it...like I said, read through that thread and you will get a really good idea of the information that is there, but really there is a lot more. It is just a neat site.

Yeah, I saw that they were down yesterday. Hope they get back up soon.

Amazing. This is like something I dream about.

Trueachievements.com is down. As with most anything on the web there isn't any absolutely reliable news on the cause, although someone claims the site administrator says there was a hard drive failure and it won't back until Thursday.
It's a good site even for people who aren't achievement junkies because it's a nicely organized location for strategies and glitches that can get you past places you might be stuck.

Hey!

Just saw this post and the best way to follow the site's issue is through the twitter account http://www.twitter.com/TrueAchievements. Last update we had said that the harddrive crash was worse than thought and it might not be up until the weekend.

I've asked TA to at least put a front page up saying we're having some issues with an anticipated date of return. We'll see if that happens.

Hey!

Just saw this post and the best way to follow the site's issue is through the twitter account http://www.twitter.com/TrueAchievements. Last update we had said that the harddrive crash was worse than thought and it might not be up until the weekend.

I've asked TA to at least put a front page up saying we're having some issues with an anticipated date of return. We'll see if that happens.

Haha, I just saw "Dropkick" in the recent post and thought "wtf is this pretender...?" Quit trolling over here with your useful information...haha

And BTW, your link to the twitter page is also broken.


EDIT: If you want...you can use your News Hound skills over here to keep me (i guess "Us") informed until the site is back :)

Just saw this post and the best way to follow the site's issue is through the twitter account http://www.twitter.com/TrueAchievements. .

There is no "s"

http://twitter.com/TrueAchievement

There is no "s"

http://twitter.com/TrueAchievement


Thanks! You are correct, sir!

I try to use my skills for good. If I hear anything I'll make sure to post it. I'm trying to keep a bookmark of all these threads.

Don't want you good regulars discovering other websites now would we?

Thanks! You are correct, sir!

I try to use my skills for good. If I hear anything I'll make sure to post it. I'm trying to keep a bookmark of all these threads.

Don't want you good regulars discovering other websites now would we?

Yea, I figure you are out on "Searching" duty right now...trying to find all mentions of TrueAchievements out on the web :)

Who knows, maybe we will get more word out about the site because of this...I for sure realize how much time I really spend there...just next time, lets tell the HDDs to not break for a whole week.

Yea, I figure you are out on "Searching" duty right now...trying to find all mentions of TrueAchievements out on the web :)

Who knows, maybe we will get more word out about the site because of this...I for sure realize how much time I really spend there...just next time, lets tell the HDDs to not break for a whole week.

I agree. This is a huge bummer, but whatever it happens. It sounds like damage may be limited to forum posts and such, not related to TA gains achievements, etc. Those can be restored with a simple scan.

looks like a nice centralized site with smart intention.

luckily, there are still a lot of similar sites around if it is down.

looks like a nice centralized site with smart intention.

luckily, there are still a lot of similar sites around if it is down.

Name one? There are a ton that do solutions...none as community driven as this...also, no other site gives the same difficulty options...others come close but have weird rules about cycling all your games into your recently played list...

Also, the error message is up...good, at least it is something.

Dear TA faithful

Unfortunately, we have had a catestrophic hard disk failure on the database server - this has led to some substantial data corruption.

We are working around the clock to try to recover as much data as possible before we put the site back up.

You can check on the progress of the recovery by following the TA twitter account: TrueAchievement Twitter

I would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused by the down time, we are doing everything we can to get things sorted as soon as possible.

In the mean time, go play some Reach ;o)

TA Admin

Name one? There are a ton that do solutions...none as community driven as this...also, no other site gives the same difficulty options...others come close but have weird rules about cycling all your games into your recently played list...

Also, the error message is up...good, at least it is something.

seriously

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=achievement+guides

seriously

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=achievement+guides

Ok...smart arse...I have mentioned the top 5 of the results there in previous threads and have visted them all.

Again...

There are a ton that do solutions...none as community driven as this...also, no other site gives the same difficulty options

Just to help your failing comprehension...Solutions to Achievements = Guides

seriously

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=achievement+guides

Methinks someone missed the point

Man, I was trying to look at it all weekend. was hoping it would be up sooner. I love trueachievements!!

Ok...smart arse...I have mentioned the top 5 of the results there in previous threads and have visted them all.

Again...



Just to help your failing comprehension...Solutions to Achievements = Guides

ok, i failed.

Amazing. This is like something I dream about.
you a robot?

cause most guys i know dream about girls and cars.

you a robot?

cause most guys ....

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Update for those interested.

ETA is this weekend. We have lost some data but either professionals will be able to salvage it, or our community will make us stronger

Not that there's anything wrong with that.
that was the proper Seinfeld response.

The site is back up...but it has lost all of its data from the last 9 months.

Crazy story on what happened...basically the discs crashed while it was making a backup...so the backup was corrupt and then the discs were corrupt also...

Why would internet storage cost so much? Is it all SSD?

http://www.trueachievements.com/whathappened.aspx

I used to keep 2 backups, one from the previous day and one from the day before. The database has now got so massive (approximately 60Gb) that there isn't enough room on the spare drive for there to be multiple backups stored at once. I had to change the routine a few months ago to only store one copy at any one time in order to fit it on there. So before it starts backing up, it has to remove the previous day's data.

The site is back up...but it has lost all of its data from the last 9 months.

Crazy story on what happened...basically the discs crashed while it was making a backup...so the backup was corrupt and then the discs were corrupt also...

Why would internet storage cost so much? Is it all SSD?

http://www.trueachievements.com/whathappened.aspx

I wonder if this means I will need to sign up again?

I wonder if this means I will need to sign up again?

The site has scanners that scans everyones gamertag every day. Normally it finds 1-2 new items and loads them up...now, it is finding 100s of new items for every person, so what it used to complete in a day should take about 2 weeks (they think).

Your name is still on there, but you don't have any into tied to it. They do want everyone to sign up again though...it puts you up in the que when you do also.

I wonder if this means I will need to sign up again?

The first time I signed in it asked me to sign up again. It sent a link to my e-mail account.

And yes, they're pretty backed up on retrieving people's stats. Mine aren't back yet.

I'm rather disappointed they lost so many solutions. As a computer programmer, I have to say that it's rare to ever see backups work, though. No matter what you do there's always a problem.

I'm rather disappointed they lost so many solutions. As a computer programmer, I have to say that it's rare to ever see backups work, though. No matter what you do there's always a problem.

Yep... +1 to that.. but then again, the way they went about creating a backup was kinda messed up...

I'm rather disappointed they lost so many solutions. As a computer programmer, I have to say that it's rare to ever see backups work, though. No matter what you do there's always a problem.

Yep... +1 to that.. but then again, the way they went about creating a backup was kinda messed up...

There are plenty of ways to do backup. The way he did was just wrong and now he's paying for it. There are plenty of offsite, dedicated servers with 1TB of storage with redundancy. He could have gotten one of those, have backup for up to 10 days or more and not have to worry. Also backups needs to be compressed as well. 60GB of database can be compressed down to 30-40GB easily. Also his main server should have had redundancy as well and it would have saved him in situation like this.

Just read through part of the page, c'mon, raid-0 on a production environment?? :facepalm2:
The drive that had failed was half of a RAID 0 array. This is basically a set of 2 disks optimized to make the data access on them faster - important on a high volume data server. However, if one fails then both drives are effectively "dead".


At least he learned his lesson
I am already making plans for a new server. This will replace the original box I bought in January 09 and will host the database. I am going to have full RAID mirroring on all drives so if one fails it will still stay online, and the broken drive can be hot-swapped by the hosting company. We will have a capacity of 900Gb across the drives, and one of the backups will be moved to the other server. This should hopefully allow us growth for at least 18 months. The database server I have now will become the website/scanner server.

What is server side storage? Is it all SSD? Why is it so expensive? My google is broken...I want just a quick answer :) haha

What is server side storage? Is it all SSD? Why is it so expensive? My google is broken...I want just a quick answer :) haha

They use SCSI drives instead of normal SATA drives. They are A LOT more expensive but have crazy 15,000 RPM. Although nowaday, the benefits of SCSI drives are diminishing since SATA drives performance has increased tremendously. You can get those velociraptor drives and it'll perform about the same for cheaper.

All of the production servers I'm working with all boasting SATA drives now. I don't think I've seen a SCSI drive in quite a while. Maybe azainai knows something on this better than me

Edit: take that back, I just checked one of the servers and it is SCSI, I thought these things extinct already :D

I hope SCSI never goes away for no other reason than I just like going around saying "scuzzy".

Sun/Oracle still uses SCSI. "SAS"-Serial Attached SCSI.

They use SCSI drives instead of normal SATA drives. They are A LOT more expensive but have crazy 15,000 RPM. Although nowaday, the benefits of SCSI drives are diminishing since SATA drives performance has increased tremendously. You can get those velociraptor drives and it'll perform about the same for cheaper.

All of the production servers I'm working with all boasting SATA drives now. I don't think I've seen a SCSI drive in quite a while. Maybe azainai knows something on this better than me

Edit: take that back, I just checked one of the servers and it is SCSI, I thought these things extinct already :D
Pretty sure that besides drive cost, a lot of server cost is in cooling and heat maintenance. Spinning the drives in a server farm makes the room pretty toasty, and it takes a good amount of cooling to keep that data at safe temps.

Pretty sure that besides drive cost, a lot of server cost is in cooling and heat maintenance. Spinning the drives in a server farm makes the room pretty toasty, and it takes a good amount of cooling to keep that data at safe temps.

I know at my old company they had the server room cooled to 65 all year round. The guy that worked in it had to always wear a coat, haha.

Just seems like if you were running this you could even take a backup every month and put it somewhere...I don't know...I guess he clearly messed up and knows he clearly messed up. Just as his site was reaching 100,000 users.

. 60GB of database can be compressed down to 30-40GB easily. Also his main server should have had redundancy as well and it would have saved him in situation like this.

Ya.... 60 GB? In this day and age?? Really?

I know at my old company they had the server room cooled to 65 all year round. The guy that worked in it had to always wear a coat, haha.

Just seems like if you were running this you could even take a backup every month and put it somewhere...I don't know...I guess he clearly messed up and knows he clearly messed up. Just as his site was reaching 100,000 users.
I skipped a few pages on this thread, but he really didn't have data redundancy of any sort? I've never heard of a farm where there was no RAID setup for redundancy just in case.

And yeah -- if it's ever hot out, the server room is the place to go :lol: But main does it cost a lot to maintain that temp. My dad had to design a data center once and he says he learned more about thermodynamics in the couple weeks when planning the server rooms then he ever cared to know.

Ya.... 60 GB? In this day and age?? Really?

Yeah, can you believe it?

Also just checked and a 6.5GB SQL database I have compressed down to 380MB. So his 60GB db can be stored as 4GB. A 60GB hard drive :facepalm2: would be able to handle about 15 days of backup

Yeah, can you believe it?

Also just checked and a 6.5GB SQL database I have compressed down to 380MB. So his 60GB db can be stored as 4GB. A 60GB hard drive :facepalm2: would be able to handle about 15 days of backup

At a place like that, I'd probably keep running backups of the past 2 weeks... and even that would be excessive.

They need to look at this
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13845_3-20017996-58.html?tag=cnetRiver