I had downtime just this week due to a hardware issue. The issue was something I had never encountered before, and I have been in IT since 1993! Unlike many of you, I am not only the DBA, but I am also everything else-we run very lean (me and a part-time assistant for our entire office).

One of my main SQL servers was blue screened when I came in Tuesday and had an NMI parity error. Dell solved the problem before my restore to my backup SQL server finished. Turns out the processor came loose, and reseating it simply fixed the problem. This is the bottom server on a Dell rack and it has been in place for 5 years. The very helpful Dell tech told me that occassionally the vibrations in the room can cause this. That was a new one for me, but I guess he was right because the server is still up & running. The total amount of downtime was approximately 45 minutes. In my office, a few hours of downtime per year is not earth-shattering, though certainly not desirable.