You’ve got no mail

Some e-mail users have been unable to access their VCU e-mail accounts since Monday. The e-mail server mail2.vcu.edu suffered severe hardware failure, said Mark Willis, executive director of administrative information technology. The server’s backup system failed as well.

“It’s very unusual,” he said, referring to the likelihood of the server and its backup failing. “We’ve had pretty good luck with all the systems.”

While the mail2 server’s hardware was replaced quickly, the system is still down. Willis said his department is working to restore some 250 GB of e-mails.

“People need to clean out their inboxes,” Willis said of the large amount of e-mails on the server.

The 7,400 accounts, which belong mostly to faculty, should be able to send and receive emails by Thursday morning, he said. Any e-mails that have been sent during Mail2’s failure are being held in a queue. They will not, however, have access to their folders and stored e-mails until Administrative Information Technology restores them.

Willis said the university is looking to purchase a mirror system for the mail1 and mail2 servers that would backup e-mails, similar to what is in place for the Lotus Notes server. Until then, he said everyone should “hold tight.”