We had a customer add an 8 TB disk to a dedicated server and keep running without rebooting. Months later, during an emergency reboot, the server didn’t come back. The cause was a typo in /etc/fstab from when they mounted the new disk. One wrong character, and the server refused to boot normally. If they’d done a planned reboot right after the change, they would have caught it in a maintenance window instead of during a crisis.
Why reboots matter after changes
A running server can hide misconfigurations. You add a disk and mount it manually; it works. You add a service and start it; it works. But none of those things have been tested at boot. The disk might not mount because the fstab entry is wrong. The service might not start because it depends on something that loads later. Network interfaces might not come up with the right IP because you edited a config file with a syntax error.
A reboot tests everything from scratch. If something is wrong, you find out in a controlled environment during business hours, not at 3 AM during an actual emergency.
When to schedule a test reboot
Any time you make a change that affects boot behavior on your VPS or dedicated server:
- Adding or modifying disk mounts (fstab)
- Installing or enabling services that should start on boot
- Changing network configuration
- Kernel updates or OS upgrades
- Adding hardware (on dedicated servers)
- Major application deployments that add new systemd units or startup scripts
Schedule the reboot for a maintenance window, warn your team, and watch the server come back up. Check that all services are running, all disks are mounted, and your application is responding.
How we can help
For VPS hosting, you can reboot from the Client Portal and watch the console via VNC to see exactly what happens during boot. For dedicated servers, we offer remote reboot and IPMI console access.
If you want to coordinate a maintenance reboot with our team (especially for dedicated servers where hardware changes are involved), contact us and we’ll schedule it together. A five-minute planned reboot beats hours of emergency troubleshooting.