Yeah, what I'd do . . .

Post #332,790 by Andrew Grygus 9/19/10 12:13:16 PM Reply	Yeah, what I'd do . . . . . is build a Linux box from clients' Windows upgrade cast-offs. If I had to I'd pay a hundred bucks for a nice Antec cabinet with power and lots of drive bays. Stick in some drives and an extra fan or two, install Debian and off we go.
Post #332,797 by folkert 9/19/10 2:42:56 PM Reply	DING DING DING ^^^ what he said. Take your Win2K machine and put it in the new box and shove it full of drives. And Just leave it alone.
Post #332,798 by Another Scott 9/19/10 3:08:25 PM 9/19/10 3:12:37 PM Reply	May do that, I dunno. The idea of getting a new, small, dedicated NAS, popping in 4 new drives, plugging it in, setting the addresses, etc., via the web interface, and being done with it is very appealing at the moment. I don't really want to mess with figuring out setting up a RAID on a Linux box. I realize it's not that big a deal these days to set up a file and print server, but dedicated appliances are good. Of my 2 Win2k Opteron boxes, one locks up for no apparent reason (whether running Ubuntu or Win2k) when sitting at idle for periods as short as 12 hours. Power supply? Heat? RAM? Something else? I dunno, but the diagnostics I've tried (including running Memtest86 for hours) haven't shown what the problem is. The other box is assembled from leftover/recycled parts (including a Foxconn motherboard I bought as an OpenBox special at Newegg) and is just a bare Win2k install. I've not seen a major problem with it, but I don't know how reliable it is. I've also considered making this box my "new" MythTV box, that being yet another project that is in an incomplete state... I dunno. If it's like my usual pre-purchase process, I'll agonize about it for another few weeks at least. I've got to break that habit though - time's clicking by... I really need to do something fairly soon - we need a backup strategy. [edit:] Typos. Sheesh, my eyes are going... Cheers, Scott. Edited by Another Scott Sept. 19, 2010, 03:12:37 PM EDT Expand All History
Post #332,799 by malraux 9/19/10 3:16:18 PM Reply	What I do right now: I have an extra TB drive external to the Mac Pro. Everything else in the house I care about backing up is a Mac, so they use it as a remote Time Machine drive. The Mac Pro is on 24x7. If I were to do something standalone I wouldn't build it myself. My time is too valuable to me. Regards, -scott Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson.
Post #332,802 by Andrew Grygus 9/19/10 5:47:56 PM Reply	Yes, I remember back in the 286/386/486 days . . . . . and even a ways into the Pentium days, when building a computer and getting it to work was quite a chore. Today, I unpack a cabinet, screw a mother board down in it and plug in a few cables and its done. Loading and updating an OS takes quite a bit of time but rather little attention. Now configuring a desktop the way you are used to and setting up all the applications - that's a hassle and a half - takes all day.
Post #332,803 by folkert 9/19/10 6:01:59 PM Reply	Wait... what? It takes me all of 5 minutes to replicate my settings from my homedir. What's your deal?
Post #332,805 by Andrew Grygus 9/19/10 6:08:40 PM Reply	My deal? Generally it's that . . . . . my client insists (often for valid reason) on running Windows - and usually I'm not called in until the registry is blown out (or needs to be).
Post #332,800 by Andrew Grygus 9/19/10 3:43:54 PM Reply	The main problem with those nice little appliances . . . . . is when they fail. If you can get parts at all, they cost nearly as much as a new unit. If you buy a new box, the ROM based OS in the new one may not recognize the format on the old drives. This has happened to several of my clients.
Post #332,804 by folkert 9/19/10 6:03:18 PM Reply	Re: The main problem with those nice little appliances . . . Yes yes yes. A friend experienced this recently and another friend experienced a drive failure and the mirrored second drive was hosed during the process... making the superblocks un readable.
Post #332,810 by malraux 9/19/10 10:23:44 PM Reply	Same thing happens with built machines. As I can attest to with Chutney. Regards, -scott Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson.
Post #332,812 by crazy 9/19/10 10:31:15 PM Reply	But at least you have a chance of figuring it out. I recently had to rip apart a failed buffalo. The file system is XFS, and it was too trashed to get anything back. This was from a mirrored pair. It seemed the mirror was fine, until we called tech support. X amount of time and tech support later, the mirror was blown away. Ooops.
Post #332,815 by malraux 9/19/10 10:36:41 PM Reply	Personally, I don't like using RAID for my own stuff Or at least depending on it. I've had too many bad experiences with it, both software and hardware RAID. I mirror manually. Regards, -scott Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson.

Welcome to IWETHEY!