Where technology, business, and perfectly legitimate terminology go horribly wrong.
AI image generated by ChatGPT
The first sign of trouble was Barry saying, “That’s not good.”
At DeepStack.ai, those four words covered a wide range of possibilities.
A missed software update.
A suspicious login.
A cloud bill nobody wanted to explain.
Or, in this case, a high-performance hard drive inside the company’s storage array flashing amber.
Miles Carver pecked on the glass wall as he looked through into the datacenter.
“So what died?”
Barry didn’t look away from the monitoring console.
“One of the drives in the SAN.”
Herb glanced over.
“Which one?”
“Bay twelve.”
Sandesh looked up from his laptop.
“Is the array still online?”
“For now.”
Miles nodded toward the racks.
“So we’ve got a hard drive failure.”
Barry turned slowly.
“Yes.”
Miles smiled.
Mary, seated at the conference table behind them, closed her eyes.
“No.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You emphasized ‘hard’.”
“It’s literally in the name.”
Herb leaned closer to the console.
“What kind of drive?”
“Enterprise SAS. Fifteen-K RPM.”
Miles looked impressed.
“That’s fast.”
Barry nodded.
“It’s supposed to be.”
Miles glanced at Herb.
“High performance?”
Herb caught the look immediately.
“Yes.”
“How high?”
Herb stared at him.
Mary glanced up.
Miles folded his arms.
“I’m asking about storage.”
“Sure.”
“I run a technology company.”
“You also ruin technology conversations.”
Barry pointed at the display.
“Can we focus? The array is degraded.”
Miles looked at the warning.
“Degraded.”
Mary’s eyes moved from the screen to Miles.
He held up both hands.
“That one’s yours, not mine.”
“It’s nobody’s.”
“Everything’s somebody’s.”
Herb ignored him.
“Do we have a hot spare?”
Barry nodded.
“The spare picked up automatically. The array’s rebuilding now.”
Miles tilted his head.
“So we lost one, and another one immediately stepped in?”
Barry exhaled.
“Yes.”
Miles looked pleased.
“Efficient.”
Mary resumed typing.
Herb checked the array status.
“Rebuild is at twelve percent.”
“How long?”
“Maybe three hours.”
Miles frowned.
“That long?”
“It’s a large volume.”
Miles went quiet.
Barry looked at him.
“Don’t.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re visibly thinking.”
“That’s usually considered a leadership quality.”
“Not here.”
Sandesh walked over to the console.
“Will performance drop while the rebuild is running?”
“Yep,” Barry said. “Probably a little.”
Miles nodded.
“So it can still perform, just not at full capacity.”
Herb turned away.
Mary looked at Sandesh.
Sandesh looked confused.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Mary said.
Miles smiled.
“See? He asks the best questions.”
“I asked about storage throughput.”
“Exactly.”
Barry pushed away from the console.
“The failed drive still needs to be replaced.”
Herb nodded.
“Hot-swappable?”
“Yes.”
Herb paused.
Miles noticed.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“No, you paused.”
“I know what hot-swappable means.”
“I didn’t say you didn’t.”
“You looked like you were about to.”
“I was appreciating your confidence.”
Mary said, “That’s never what he’s doing.”
Barry opened a cabinet and pulled out a replacement drive.
Herb took it from him.
Heavy.
Metal carrier.
Enterprise-grade.
Miles watched.
“That’s the replacement?”
“Yes.”
“Same size?”
Herb looked at the label.
“Same capacity.”
Miles nodded.
“Good. You don’t want to put something smaller in there.”
Mary stopped typing.
Barry stared at the floor.
Herb held the drive in one hand.
“You planned that sentence.”
Miles looked offended.
“I’m discussing storage compatibility.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Then explain why the replacement has to match.”
Herb hesitated.
Miles smiled.
There it was.
The bait.
Herb knew it now.
He looked at Barry.
Barry shook his head slightly.
Don’t engage.
Herb looked back at Miles.
“It needs to meet the array’s capacity and performance requirements.”
Miles nodded.
“So size and stamina.”
Herb closed his eyes.
Mary whispered, “Walk away.”
Miles continued.
“Anything else?”
Herb opened his eyes.
“Interface.”
Miles smiled.
Barry covered his mouth.
Mary looked at Herb.
“You knew better.”
“I answered the question.”
Miles leaned against the rack.
“You did. Very professionally.”
“I hate when you say that.”
Sandesh took the failed drive’s inventory record from Barry.
“What actually failed?”
“Probably the spindle motor or internal media.”
Miles looked interested.
“So it stopped spinning.”
Herb pointed at him.
“No.”
“I’m asking.”
“You’re never just asking.”
Barry looked at the diagnostic page.
“It logged increasing seek errors, then dropped offline.”
Miles nodded.
“So it was having trouble finding what it needed.”
Mary gave him a flat look.
He smiled.
“Still storage.”
Barry opened the datacenter door.
“Come on. We’ll swap it.”
The five of them stepped into the cool aisle between the racks.
Miles stopped.
“Why is it always freezing in here?”
“To keep the equipment cool,” Sandesh said.
Miles nodded.
“Performance environment.”
Mary walked past him.
“Keep moving.”
They reached the SAN.
Bay twelve blinked amber.
Barry pointed.
“That’s the failed unit.”
Herb crouched slightly.
“So I just release the latch and pull?”
Barry nodded.
“Slowly.”
Miles inhaled.
Herb didn’t turn around.
“No.”
“I haven’t said anything.”
“You’re behind me.”
“I’m observing.”
“You’re hovering.”
“I’m the client.”
“You’re a problem.”
Barry laughed.
Miles smiled.
“I like him.”
Herb released the latch.
The carrier slid partway out.
Barry said, “Straight out. Don’t twist it.”
Herb stopped.
Miles looked at Barry.
Barry sighed.
“I heard it after I said it.”
Mary nodded.
“Progress.”
Herb pulled the failed drive free.
“There.”
Miles looked at it.
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“Seems anticlimactic.”
“It’s a hard drive.”
“Exactly.”
Mary stared at him.
Miles shrugged.
Herb picked up the replacement.
“So I just push in the new one?”
The aisle went silent.
Herb froze.
Barry looked away.
Mary pressed her lips together.
Sandesh nodded.
“Yes.”
Miles muttered, “Gently..”
Herb looked over his shoulder.
Miles stood perfectly still.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Herb turned back to the SAN and pushed the drive into the empty bay.
Barry watched carefully.
“All the way.”
Miles exhaled through his nose.
Herb stopped pushing.
Barry looked at Miles.
Miles raised his hands.
“That was you.”
“I know.”
“You’re learning.”
“I hate this place.”
Herb pushed until the carrier clicked.
The indicator light blinked green.
Barry checked the console.
“Drive detected.”
Sandesh looked over his shoulder.
“Is it rebuilding?”
Barry nodded.
“Yep.”
Herb stood.
“So now we wait.”
“Pretty much.”
Miles looked through the glass toward the conference room.
“Three hours?”
“Give or take.”
Miles nodded.
“Long recovery time.”
Mary stepped past him.
“It’s recovering from a failure.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
“I’ve experienced failure.”
Everyone went quiet.
Miles stared.
Herb stared.
Mary stared.
Sandesh glanced between them.
Barry slowly shook his head.
Miles broke first.
He laughed.
Herb followed.
Even Mary smiled.
Barry pointed at all of them.
“I hate every one of you.”
Sandesh looked at the SAN.
“I still don’t understand what was funny.”
Miles patted him on the shoulder.
“Never change, Sandesh.”
Sandesh frowned.
“You keep saying that.”
“It’s important.”
They walked back toward the conference room.
Herb glanced at Miles.
“You know, eventually I’m going to stop giving you openings.”
Miles smiled.
“No, you won’t.”
“Why not?”
“You’re a consultant.”
Herb waited.
Miles opened the door for him.
“You get paid by the hour.”
Herb paused.
Then nodded.
“That’s fair.”
Mary walked past both of them.
“Finally. Something technically accurate.”
Rick Gregson is an enterprise IT consultant specializing in complex infrastructure transformations, mergers and acquisitions, and enterprise identity modernization. He writes about biohacking, the paranormal, technology, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and systems quietly shaping our world.
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