Although only the disks were acting particularly funny, the hardware failure appears to be a partial failure of the north bridge. Repairs are not expected to finish before tomorrow afternoon.
Due to failing storage hardware (probably a dying disk controller) the melon.org server has been brought down to minimize data loss. Repairs are planned for this evening. The server will also be physically moved during this outage, cancelling the downtime scheduled on Thursday for the move. Websites and email hosted on the server will be unavailable while repairs are in progress.
A upgrade path is being implemented to replace (or make redundant) aging components. Any overdue upgrades/replacements should be completed by September, allowing the server to run more reliably again.
