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| 11/23 |
| 2007/10/22-25 [Consumer/TV, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:48413 Activity:nil |
10/22 Can standard-def MiniDV camcorders record in 16:9 mode and
produce something that I can burn to the DVD as anamorphic
16:9 DVD image? (I am not interested in letterboxed 16:9 mode
that does not uses the full 480 resolution) |
| 2007/9/20-22 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:48131 Activity:kinda low |
9/20 I have a DVD of my friend doing some Karate I'd like to copy for him.
How can I copy a DVD so I can play it in a regular DVD player?
Preferably using Linux, but I can use windows if necessary.
\_ what format is the video file on the original DVD?
\_ Err.. I guess I don't know. It plays on a regular DVD player.
\_ If it's a non-copy protected dvd, you should be able to use any
dvd ripper and then just burn 'em back, maintaining the
structure. linux should have tools readily available for this.
Does anyone know if a non-CSS protected video DVD files can
just be copied like normal files or even just do the copy by
using dd? I've never tried and am curious.
\_ Well, a simple iso copy worked for me. I don't know if it
would work if there was copy protection. -op
\_ I don't know how CSS exactly works, but I doubt you can
just do a dd of CSS protected files. I believe you can't
even copy the the protected files by using just a file
manager. That aside, thank you for testing this. I
recently had to extract and remix the tracks from two
different dvds created by a mini-dvd camcorder, and at
least for the future, I can probably shave off 10-15
minutes. |
| 2007/8/16-22 [Computer/SW/Security, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:47623 Activity:kinda low |
8/20 I am looking for personal NAS... you know, an large intestinal
harddrive that I can access data everywhere. Idealy, I want be
able to set up. so it streams mp3 music as well, any recommendations?
\_ USB 2.0 or GigE?
\_ thinking about connect the harddrive to my router, and be able to
access it outside the LAN.
\_ I hear 'mediatomb' might be what you're looking for.
\_ how's it supposed to deal with access control? Or is it just
going to be anohter open WAREZ site?
\_ http://www.archive.org/web/petabox.php
\_ apache + basic auth + hard drive?
\_ "intestinal"? |
| 2007/8/8-13 [Finance/Banking, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:47563 Activity:nil |
8/8 CD rates went down, WTF???
\_ Flight to safety. 10 government bonds went down too. |
| 2007/7/28-8/1 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:47458 Activity:nil |
7/27 TOS on HD-DVD:
http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/newsitem.cfm?NewsID=7735 |
| 2007/7/6-10 [Computer/HW/Drives, Consumer/TV] UID:47191 Activity:nil |
7/6 I want to copy a dvd. can i just make a giant iso and
burn it to a blank dvd in my dvd burner?
\_ Depends on the DVD, really. What is it? |
| 2007/6/25-28 [Computer/HW/Laptop, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:47053 Activity:nil |
6/25 Help. Costco's SanDisk II 2G card works on my Canon SD300, but
it is unreadable on my laptop's SD card reader and my external
card reader. What's going on?
\_ Some card readers don't to more than 1GB.
\_ Updating the XP card reader driver helps, surprisingly.
Old drivers read 1G sdcard, new drivers read 2G sdcards -op |
| 2007/6/13-16 [Computer/SW/Editors/IDE, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:46932 Activity:nil |
6/13 I'm new to Eclipse as an IDE. Is there any way to tell it to
automatically reload a file that's been externally edited--without
brining up a confirmation dialog? |
| 2007/5/27-30 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:46768 Activity:low |
5/27 I just spend a few hours on a silly BIOS problem and I'm posting it
here so that you guys wouldn't have to go through this again. My
MB is Gigabyte GA-7N400 Pro and the latest BIOS update is version
F17, which is in 2004. It comes with the MB Sil (Silicon Image)
3112A SATA controller, which unfortunately, is outdated from 2002
and does not recognize my Seagate 750G drive-- the boot loader
from Sil would get stuck trying to read info from the new drive.
Here's the main problem: Gigabyte's newest BIOS version F17 is
from 2004, but it is bundled with Sil 3112A's ancient and buggy BIOS
version 4.2.00. I can't just flash Sil's BIOS-- you either flash
all the MB's BIOS or nothing. According to discussion boards online,
Gigabyte seems to not update other vendor's new BIOS through
neglect. So here's what I had to do. I had to disassemble the BIOS
by first taking out Sil's old 4.2.00 on an image, then insert a newer
version of 4.2.83 back into image, then flash the image to the MB.
Viola, my old MB can now read my Seagate 750G SATA. For more
information, refer here (go to the bottom):
http://www.short-media.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-20543-p-2.html
\_ Summary to update SATA BIOS:
-Download MB's latest BIOS that bundles with other BIOS
Make a copy. The original file will be modified. Let's suppose
we call this BIOS MyMBBIOS.bin
-Download the right SATA BIOS
-Download the tool to dissect the MB BIOS
http://www.biosmods.com/download.php (CBROM215)
-Go to DOS prompt (Start->Run->"cmd"), put every file into
the same directory for simplicity
-C:\bios\> cbrom2xx MyMBBIOS.bin /pci release
Note which BIOS is the old SATA. Release it.
-Integrate SATA into MyMBBIOS.bin by doing
C:\bios\> cbrom2xx MyMBBIOS.bin /pci MyNewSataBIOS.bin
-Confirm integration with:
C:\bios\> cbrom2xx MyMBBIOS.bin /d
-Now flash your MB's BIOS using MyMBBIOS.bin
Hope it works because your MB may get totally messed up
permanently... or it may work. Good luck.
\_ Congrats on making this work but was it worth it? A new
motherboard is under $100 with all the bells and whistles. |
| 2007/5/23-28 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:46730 Activity:low |
5/23 I was talking to my IT guys as to why our company partitions Netapp
disks into small (approx 750GB) partitions and they said that Netapps
limit single continuous volumes to that size and that the 16TB limit
shown on their webpage is just a filer size limit. Is this true?
I thought Netapps let you stripe data across multiple racks.
\_ our storage admins tend to make 750g partitions on the netapps,
however they do ahve some that are multiples of that. I think the
750g magic number is a raid set built out of a full shelf's worth
of disks. However we're in the process of ditching Netapp to go
for EMC. Large storage volumes are in general best avoided if
possible. They make for big backup & restore headaches.
\_ 750 is small? I thought you could get disks at Fry's in the
\_ 750 is big? I thought you could get disks at Fry's in the
400 range. RAID a bunch of those together and you've exceeded
750GB easily.
\_ This is enterprise storage, not a warez site at some kid's
mom's house. And that's for one volume, anyway, not the
entire unit which is going to be anywhere from a few TB to
hundreds of TB or even PB.
\_ It's hard to convince the average user of this. They
say: "For $500 I can get 1 TB at Fry's. Why do we
(as an enterprise) only have a N TB limit?"
\_ the average user is a moron, but I didn't have to tell
you that.
\_ I tried to explain enterprise vs. Fry's to my wife's
co-worker and failed miserably. Of course his 4 disk
1 TB stripe crapped out a year later and he lost
everything but boy it was so cool for that first year.
\_ I never said we shouldn't use enterprise class
disks. We use Netapps and I think we should still
keep using them. But from what my friends at Netapp
tell me, they sell systems with individual disks
that are 400+GB so it would make sense that a single
stripe could easily exceed 720GB.
\_ Of course it can. That doesn't mean you should
make unmirrored stripes. You can stick a knife
in your foot but I wouldn't suggest you do that
either. What your Netapp friends aren't telling
you is they consider single disk sales a sucker
buy and easy cash from the low end crowd.
\_ Has anyone looked at 3par? Curious.
\_ A full shelf of disks is more than 750 GB, unless you're
still using 72 GB disks. Netapp recommends no more than
about 42 disks in an aggregate, which is a lot more than 750 GB.
I am guessing that these are not technical limits but
political ones or that there may be other reasons (e.g.
backup and restore).
\_ oh we are. The Netapps are a couple years old now; new storage
investment is all going to EMC.
\_ Don't do it. You'll be sorry if you're not a huge bank or
something similar.
\_ EMC? OMG, I'm sorry for you. |
| 11/23 |
| 2007/5/17-19 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:46676 Activity:nil |
5/17 My new 750G Seagate HD shows only 698G available. WHAT THE FUCK??
\_ 750G = 750*10^9 bytes. Your OS is probably measuring in 2^30 bytes.
See GiB vs GB
\_ Also, disk drive manufacturers advertise "raw" storage, while
your O/S measures usable storage. You lose quite a bit to
disk label information, metadata and other various things.
\_ When is the last time you bought a disk? It has been measured like
that on all drives for many years. |
| 2007/4/13-15 [Finance/Banking, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:46293 Activity:nil |
4/13 John Walker Lindh picture
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070412/ap_on_re_us/american_taliban
That picture looks like a cool cover for a CD album. |
| 2007/4/7-9 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:46228 Activity:high |
4/7 xcopy sucks. It crashes when encountering a file with a
path longer than 255 characters. Thanks Microsoft.
\_ What do you expect it to do? Windows doesn't support paths longer
than 255 characters (unless you're using \\?\-style Unicode paths).
\_ I'd expect it to SKIP the file, not crash with an error
message that says "insufficient memory". So if Windows doesn't
suppory paths longer than 255 characters, then how on earth
did I get a file with a path that long? Sure you don't mean FAT
doesn't support more than 255.. maybe NTFS does?
\_ Welcome to the world of Microsoft products.
\_ NTFS does, but as I said, only for \\?\-style Unicode paths.
Otherwise, expect everything to have a limit of around 255
characters. IIRC, you can get longer paths by tricking
Windows (e.g. by renaming some parent directory to be longer
than it was when you created the leaves), but without using
\\?\ paths, those files will be inaccessible. I agree that
crashing is bad, though.
\_ Is this the first time you use an Microsoft product?
\_ What are you using xcopy for anyway? Whatever it is there is
very likely another tool that does what you want and does it
more efficiently.
\_ For backing up data to an external hard drive. I'm going
to try robocopy.. It looks to be a better tool.
\_ Hint: install cygwin
\_ Cygwin is evil.
\_ Insightful, yet... not. |
| 2007/4/5-7 [Computer/SW/Mail, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:46203 Activity:nil |
4/5 IMAP questions
1. when I IMAP, I got this error:
"the current comand did not succeed.
The mail server responded: Out of disk space"
what did I do wrong?
2. is SMTP the same server as IMAP server?
\_ 1) uh, your server is out of disk space. it is possible but
unlikely that your server is telling you you're over quota.
2) SMTP is the protocol mail servers use to talk to each other
to transmit mail (very simplified). IMAP is what your client
uses to talk to your mail server to retrieve mail. IMAP is
different from POP (which also is a client protocol) in that
POP downloads your mail to the client where you're expected to
deal with, while IMAP lets you have folders and such on the
server for long term storage. This allows you to read your
mail from different computers and still see the same folders
while POP is limited to whatever is still in your Inbox.
Hope that helped. |
| 2007/3/30-4/3 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:46156 Activity:nil |
3/30 Are CDR audio discs known to damage older stereos? A couple of CD
players in my stereos died after playing CDRs. Maybe it's just because
they were really old though (like a decade old) |
| 2007/3/9-11 [Recreation/Humor, Computer/HW/Drives, Consumer/TV] UID:45915 Activity:nil |
3/9 I pulled out the Borat DVD from the NetFlix envelope the other day -
pretty funny. Also have an audio channel in Russian.
\_ pretty overrated to me. a few funny bits, but lots boring too.
\_ sorry, i wasn't clear - i meant the design of the physical DVD
was funny. |
| 2007/3/7-11 [Computer/HW/Drives, Consumer/TV] UID:45898 Activity:nil |
3/7 Young Indy is finally coming to DVD:
http://dvd.ign.com/articles/770/770161p1.html |
| 2007/2/25-3/1 [Computer/SW/Security, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:45817 Activity:nil |
2/25 The top page of Fry's Electronic's (outpost) no longer shows
the [Retail] Store Locator. Are they getting rid of the stores?
\_ I doubt it:
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/02-05-2007/0004520005&EDATE=
http://preview.tinyurl.com/ysdl54 (prnewswire.com) |
| 2007/2/5-7 [Computer/HW/Drives, Consumer/TV] UID:45652 Activity:nil |
2/4 http://cinderella3dvd.com Evil step mom travels back in time to change history. Now you'll find out-- What if the shoe didn't fit? |
| 2007/1/21-28 [Computer/HW/Drives, Recreation/Media] UID:45564 Activity:nil |
1/21 Star Trek (TOS) coming to BR/HD-DVD:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/2goxdp (homemediaretailing.com) |
| 2007/1/7-16 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:45525 Activity:nil |
1/7 Looking to get an external HD for my mom (not yermom). Fry's has an
ACOMDATA 250GB USB 2.0 for $70 after rebate, but I see only review on
teh Intarweb (and it's suspiciously glowing). Any of you fine sodans
have experience with this product or its ilk? TIA. --erikred
\_ Seagate has 5 year warranty, I think. However their reliability
has gone down the drain in the past few years. I have a WD250
and it's pretty nice. Make sure to get one with FANS. Passive
cooling just isn't cool enough and heats up the drives and makes
them break down fast. I've had 2 bad drives already due to heat.
\_ Don't have an answer but do you think I should shave my hairy chest?
\_ In the spirit of the season, I'll humor you by pointing out that
my father has an amazingly hairy chest and my mom still loves
him. It varies from person to person. --erikred
\_ AMAZING. How long have they been married?
\_ 40 years. --erikred
\_ Note to self: Step 1) Don't shave 3) Attract women
\_ Do you like other bears?
\_ I have an ACOMDATA one. I like the fact that it has both FW and
USB. I personally would not use *any* external drive for reliable
backup. Majority of external drives have shorter warranty(1yr or
even shorter) and many seem to die early. I have a sneaking
suspicion that many no-name company may be using refurbished drives.
But I have seen numerous namebrands(like Seagate, Maxtor) that die
within a year. Use it as extra storage and not as the only storage
for important files. I have not noticed my ACOMDATA one heat up
with extended use. |
| 2006/11/28-12/12 [Recreation/Media, Consumer/TV, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:45378 Activity:nil |
11/28 DirecTV totally sucks. I ordered the internation channel for my dad
and after waiting 1 whole day, the serviceman installed the box but
didn't install the HD/internation box because his order list didn't
include it. The phone rep fucked up. When I rescheduled for the
HD/international box, they said there's a surchange of $129 for
the HD installation. I asked why this was not disclosed to me
the first time I ordered, they said the phone rep probably messed it
up. So basically, there's a surchange of $129 for the HD box. At
any rate international programs really suck compared to Dish Network
which offer more choices at the same rate. Conclusion:
FUCK DIRECTV. DIRECTV SUCKS. Dish Network offers more at a lower cost,
and they disclose all the hidden costs. |
| 2006/11/10-11 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:45311 Activity:nil |
11/9 Hard drive crashed. Data recovery? Freeware? I've heard of
http://www.drivesavers.com They charge worst case $18k
per GB but I heard you *will* get your data back. Ugh... how
about http://www.restorer2000.com which I've heard is
easy to use and restored my friend's files after some very
important sectors went bad.
\_ WAIT! STOP! Before you run any silly programs on your drive
you should use 'dd' or some other low level program of your
choice to make a copy of your drive as best you're able.
Depending on how your drive crashed you may only get one
shot at recovery.
\- driversavers never recovered anything on any disks i am
aware of that went to them. i dont think these were damaged
that badly.
\_ If the disk still spins up, have a look at getdataback for
NTFS ($$ but cheap.) That's saved me 2 drives. If that
won't work, I can dig up the name of a forensics outfit
that has a pretty good price structure. -John
\_ Send it to lazarus in SF they'll give you a free estimate
http://www.lazarus.com |
| 2006/11/1-2 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:45076 Activity:kinda low |
11/01 Does WinXP provide good facilities for SATA+RAID? I'm thinking of
buying 2 SATA drives instead of something more expensive like
Infrant's ReadyNAS NV+, and I'm wondering if WinXP would provide
equivalently good SATA+RAID facilities. Ok thx.
\_ A lot of MoBos do on-board drive mirroring for SATA, I'd rather
trust that. -John
\_ Until that mother board dies and you have to get the exact same
board to get your data back if you were striping or doing raid5. |
| 2006/10/19-23 [Computer/SW/Apps/Media, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:44872 Activity:nil |
10/19 Anyone using a TeraStation or similar product?
http://www.buffalotech.com/products/product-detail.php?productid=97
How well do you like it? |
| 2006/9/26-27 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:44543 Activity:nil |
9/26 Sandisk releases 16GB CF card:
http://tinyurl.com/zjt76 (sandisk.com)
\_ Cool.
\_ And can be yours for only USD1050! (Still cool, not cheap.) |
| 2006/9/15-19 [Computer/HW/CPU, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:44395 Activity:nil |
9/15 Dell once again stocks AMD consumer-grade boxes
http://tinyurl.com/zc6r8 (dell.com) |
| 2006/9/10-12 [Computer/HW/Drives, Computer/HW/CPU] UID:44341 Activity:nil |
9/11 For those who run his/her own server. Has any of you tried to run a
fanless system that uses AMD Operon or Pentium M that is clocked more
than 1GHz? where to get chassis like these? can't find it at Fry's.
\_ No, but I have a fanless 800 MHz Via C3, with a big Zalman heatsink.
Got the CPU on ebay for about $50 and got the heatsink (CNPS-6000AlCu
Flower Cooler) from http://endpcnoise.com for about $40.. Runs great.
There is one fan in the system, the power supply exhaust, because
unless you are conducting heat to the case, you need some airflow to
keep things cool. If you want zero fans, take a look at Hush.
\_ No, but I have a fanless 800 MHz Via C3, with a big Zalman copper
heatsink. Got the CPU on ebay for about $50. and got the heatsikn
(Zalman CNPS-6000AlCu Flower Cooler) from http://endpcnoise.com for about
$40.. Runs great. There is one fan in the system, the power supple
exhaust, because unless you are conducting heat to the exterior, you
need some airflow.. If you wanted zero fans, take a look at Hush.
\_ I used to run on 600MHz VIA C3 in Antec ARIA. It was
incredibly slow. I now have a bunch of K8 systems
(RevCG Mobile Athlon64 0.9V 1GHz, RevE6 Turion64 800MHz,
RevE6 Sempron64 256kL2 1.1V 1GHz). Due to other factors
like power supply inefficiency and northbridge power
consumption, power draw measured using Fluke meter at
the plug is virtually the same for the VIA C3 vs Sempron64.
Turion64 800MHz may even eat less power (7.8W) than the
VIA. Even at 800MHz, K8 kicks C3's arse! I'd say it's
over 5x faster! To me, even 800MHz K8 is plenty fast
for most things. I also used to have a HUSH system. It
was noisier than ARIA because HDD whine (Seagate 7200.7)
dominated. And in the end, the unreliability the heat
added was not worth it. My quietest system (C3 fanless,
HDD-less using CF->IDE converter) is slow, but it has
its uses. Basically, except for the exceptional cases,
one slow fan won't be a bad thing at all. Just hide it
properly.
\_ I've been very happy with my Kurobox:
http://kurobox.com
It's a small PPC system that runs Linux -- Gentoo and Debian are the
best supported. It's $150 without a harddrive -- which is nice if you
have one lying around. It's a little tight on the RAM, but it can
happily do streaming and serving and such. And it's only got one
very-quiet fan -- the harddrive is the louder part. Plus it's cute!
--michener
\_ Nice link, thx. I was thinking of something like this, but I
could never find a reasonably priced external SATA RAID-5 drive
array/enclosure. -John
\_ Out of curiosity, what do you use it for? |
| 2006/9/7-12 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:44312 Activity:nil |
9/7 d_skin protective cover for CDs/DVDs:
http://www.d-skin.com/how_it_works.htm
\_ Amazon reviews are not favorable:
http://csua.org/u/guw |
| 2006/8/29-31 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:44182 Activity:nil |
8/29 HD Star Trek?
http://www.thedigitalbits.com/rumormill.html#082806 |
| 2006/8/28-30 [Computer/HW/Display, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:44171 Activity:nil |
8/24 Any recommendation for an SATA/eSATA PCI card for Linux?
\_ Isn't there a hardware compatibility list for the major distros?
\_ Yes there is a chip hardware compatibility list for linux, but
I need an actual card. I think I'll get the Addonics ADSA3R5-E
which has the Silicon Image 3124 chipset.. Any experience with it? |
| 2006/8/25-27 [Computer/Networking, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:44148 Activity:nil |
8/25 I have a portable USB HD (2.5") that I built myself with WD HD
and an enclosure. On some systems it won't power on via the
USB cable, it'll try to spin up, but does not successfully
spin up. Could it be those machines do not provide enough
power via the usb output? On one machine that fails to power
up, I tried the fire-wire cable, it powered up fine. It also
powers up fine on my machine via USB. Thanks.
\_ Yes, exactly. Not all USB ports are made the same. I have a 4
port USB hub that will power a mouse or other small device but
nothing with a real power need "but it should". Those systems are
simply not providing enough power via their USB ports.
\_ this is a well-known issue with some enclosures, see any newegg
reviews of lower-rated enclosures.
\_ Hmm, what would you consider a 'good' enclosure? My
first one, the BYTECC HD-201U2, highly rated at new-egg,
was a piece of crap. Dead on arrival, and the
construction was also cheap. Drive hold in place by foam
padding? My current one is a Macally PHR-250CC, much
better designed and made, from the IC board to the way
the drive is secured to the board to the way the board
secures to the case. Could also be my drive, but I
specifically picked one with average RPM so it won't
suck as much power.. -op
\_ http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817145135
(fixed the URL)
Vantec Nexstar 3 black (also in red and navy blue)
I got that for my gf, and it looks really nice, but she hasn't
used it much. I purposely didn't order the BYTECC you got
because it looked cheap from the photos and someone posted
about a screw getting stripped. Oh well.
Anyways, that was my choice for "best USB 2.5 enclosure" from
my research in early July.
I just noticed a new review saying it corrupts data.
used it much. I didn't order the BYTECC because it looked
cheap from the photos and someone posted about a screw
getting stripped. Oh well. Anyways, the Vantec was my
choice for "best USB 2.5 enclosure" from my research in early
July. I just noticed a new review saying it corrupts data.
Oh well, looks like the Macally is what you want.
If I could have a do-over, I'd get this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817145658
I have the AMS Venus DS3 3.5" enclosure, use it ALL the time
and never had problems, so hopefully the 2.5" is the same.
I have some AMS Venus DS3 3.5" enclosures, use them ALL the
time and never had problems so hopefully the 2.5" is the same.
\_ There are "powered" and "unpowered" USB ports. The former supplies
more juice than the latter.
\_ Even with a powered USB port, the spec only requires that it is able
to deliver 500mA @5V, or 2.5W. There's no way you should expect
the USB port to power a hard drive. That's while all HDD enclosures
have seperate power supplies.
\_ ^all^all usb -- I have yet to have problems with my Firewire
HDs getting enough juice. |
| 2006/8/24-26 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:44136 Activity:nil |
8/24 No HD playback in 32bit Vista:
http://tinyurl.com/ejyb6 (apcstart.com)
\_ This is hilarious. I'd already decided Vista wouldn't be touching
my desktop because of DRM. And now they're just making it easier to
make the decision.
\_ There might be HD playback in 32bit Vista IF 3d parties provide it:
http://tinyurl.com/qga2l (news.com.com)
\_ As above said, you use a third party app just like you currently
do in XP to play a DVD. HD playback just isn't native. Almost every
PC or DVD drive sold comes with one of these apps free anyway. |
| 2006/8/18-22 [Computer/HW/Drives, Consumer/TV] UID:44067 Activity:nil |
8/18 gawd, 16x NEC/Lite-on DVD burners are $30 at http://newegg.com. 250GB Hitachi hard drives are $80. wtf. oh well, the asus p5b deluxe mobo for ph3r0c10Us core 2 duo overclockers is still $260. good job. |
| 2006/8/12-15 [Finance/Banking, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:43982 Activity:nil |
8/11 Aside from physically breaking a CD, what's the easiest way to make
it permanently unreadable?
\_ If you have a secure shredder service, they usually handle CDs as
well.
\_ Get a screwdriver, scratch the top of the CD. It's not that much
more work than writing with a pen. Remember, data on CD is near
the top, highly unprotected. DVDs are different.
\_ I've heard a microwave oven works pretty well, though I'm not sure
if it is damages the microwave oven..
\_ As with metal in the microwave, the main problem is microwave
energy getting reflected back into the magnetron, damaging it.
You could probably mitigate this by putting a big cup of water
next to the CD(s) in the microwave.
\_ Pee on it. -guy who drank a lot of water today
\_ They sell machines that punches holes on CD. Look on CDW.
\_ I was thinking more of the type of solution like "bake it in
the sun", or "write on it with a permanent marker" or
something very simple and easy like that.
\_ How is breaking it not simple and easy? -tom
\_ I know of organizations who use a lot of CDs for
mid-term (5-10 years) data storage. After a certain
number of these things, it may be economical to have a
fast way of nuking them. On the other hand, you could
just hire a student, I guess. -John
\_ Sounds like a job for an intern with a solid knee.
\_ Or a hammer. They also have shredders that can
do CDs. -tom
\_ You'd trust an intern with a hammer? Will no one
think of the children?
\_ BTW don't pollute the paper in the paper shredder. |
| 2006/8/11-14 [Computer/SW/Languages, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:43969 Activity:nil |
8/11 Double Agent's release date announced (Oct 19):
http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/2771048463/m/6961091964/p/1 |
| 2006/8/9-11 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:43951 Activity:nil |
8/8 I want to replace the 30GB HD in a 1Ghz iBook. Will any notebook HD
do? Any recommendations? Price/Reliability more important than perf.
I'm looking at a Hitachi Travelstar or Seagate Momentus from newegg.
\_ I've used Travelstar's before in a PB, they are fine.
\_ I went through 2 Travelstars before installing a Seagate. |
| 2006/8/7-11 [Computer/HW/Drives, Computer/HW/Laptop] UID:43931 Activity:nil |
8/7 I need to flash my MB BIOS and I don't have a floppy drive. Is it
generally possible to boot off a USB thumb drive and flash from that?
\_ Only if your BIOS allows you to boot from USB. More common on
laptops.
\_ Assuming your MB supports booting from USB, you'll probably
also need: http://www.csua.org/u/gmp
\_ Unless you have some really odd hardware you should have a floppy
port and power lead from your power supply. If your BIOS doesn't
support USB boot then temporarily installing a floppy (don't bother
to screw it into the case, etc) is very easy. You'll need to boot
from a DOS image. Try FreeDOS if your BIOS didn't come with a fully
bootable floppy image file.
\_ Of course. -proud AOL user
\_ So you're the one!
\_ Make an eltorito bootable CD with a bootable DOS floppy image
make sure to put the BIOS flash code and program in the image.
Then you can boot from the CD and flash your BIOS. I've done it
before. Works great.. |
| 2006/8/2-6 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:43876 Activity:nil |
8/2 What are the disk quota for my home dir and my mail spool? Thx.
\_ quota -v will tell you better than motd can.
\_ It only displays a quota for /dev/sdbl. Does that mean there is
no limit for my home dir?
\_ 49.37 MB -proud American
\_ Correct. |
| 2006/7/19-22 [Computer/SW/OS/OsX, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:43729 Activity:nil |
7/19 Is there any way to use smartmontools (software) on a SMART capable
drive in a firewire external enclosure? If so, which enclosure would
you recommend? I would like to be able to remoteley monitor an
external hard drive.
\_ I don't think so, but I believe you can do so with a Serial ATA
drive+enclosure.
\_ darn, I don't think my Mac Mini does SATA -op.
\_ External enclosure+firewire/USB? -John
\_ Right, but those don't to SMART.
\_ There are some. I'm poking around now. -John |
| 2006/7/17-19 [Computer/HW/Laptop, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:43698 Activity:nil |
7/17 My western digital WD800UE 80gb 5400 RPM laptop HD sometimes
gives off a few "clicking" noise. Although this has been going
on for a while and I haven't run into any problems. Is this
the click of death? Should I be concerned? I am using it in an
external enclosure and had it shortly after I got it. (it
started to make that noise when I was trying to "disconnect
usb device" in XP, it started to make that noise and XP said
can't disconnect device because it is in use. Since then, the
clicking noise happens every now and then. And just today the
drive couldn't spin up for about 5 seconds for some reason..
Is WD quality really that bad?
\_ There is a tool on http://sysinternals.com that lists open filehandles
under Windows (kind of like graphical lsof) -- I think it's
called filemon. Check that out. As for the drive, back it up,
like now. -John
\_ Buy a new HD immediately and transfer your files to it. Toss this
one. Consider yourself lucky that you got an advance warning.
The "click of death" means "you will soon lose all your data"
\_ As above said plus: no, WD quality isn't special. DOA or near-DOA
drives have become way too common in recent years as the industry
cuts back on QA and general quality while spending heavily on ever
higher bits/square inch. You've got a 1 year warrantee from WD.
Use it. If you want a quality drive get a scsi or fiber channel.
For home use pay a little more for a SATA with a real warrantee.
If they don't trust they own drives for longer than 1 year, why
should you?
\_ My laptop HD clicks. It's audible but not loud. It's normal
for this drive. --jameslin
\_ My laptop HD clicks. It's audible but not loud. It was like
that from the very beginning, and apparently it's normal for
this drive. --jameslin |
| 2006/7/5-7 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:43570 Activity:nil |
7/5 How do I display my disk quota for home dir and /var/mail?
/usr/bin/quota doesn't show those. Thx. |
| 2006/6/20-24 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:43445 Activity:nil |
6/20 I have an MSA20 (a scsi attached raid enclosure) from HP that uses
SATA disks. My company is somewhat cheap and I'd like to keep an extra
disk on hand, but not pay for the nifty drive carrier. (this way when
a drive fails, I can just remove it, swap out the disk in the carrier
and slap it back in without waiting for shipping). BUT, when I tested
this it didn't work. The drives are the exact same model, but there is
some HP specific printing on the label (and a 4 letter, comma separated
code, which is different). I have used dd to insure that the disks are
have the same bits, but no joy, any of you know what it is that makes
the HP disk different? -crebbs
\_ firmware
\_ ah the joy of vendor lock-in
\_ I'm not sure how using HP saves your company money. There are tons
of cheapy scsi attached raid boxes out there which will happily
take any same sized disk to replace a bad drive.
\_ HP isn't saving the company money. The product needs to run
on HP.
\_ No reason to be tied to HP for storage. Fine, buy HP for
the CPU, but detach CPU/computation from storage wrt vendors
\_ You buy HP for the support, and when you buy large, their
discounts are deep. Also, doesn't apply to the MSA, but
their EVAs are pretty freakin cool.
\_ EVAs are likely way out of the price range for crebbs
company. If they won't buy the right disks they won't
buy an EVA. And yes they're pretty cool. At least as
cool as storage can be, anyway.
\_ Why would I want an EVA instead of, say, a Netapp?
\_ There's nothing wrong with a Netapp, per se. Its
just that the EVA is 'better'. I like the EVA
architecture better. Virtual-virtual disks
across the whole array with no hot spares doing
nothing, the control software is more mature
although it does run from a windows box. In
general the EVA is just a more mature and serious
product than the Netapp. I've used the Netapp
since before they were anyone. The EVA is new to
me but I prefer it overall. Of course the EVA
will cost a lot more in $/tb but there's a certain
amount of "get what you pay for" if you can afford
it. What I don't like about the Netapp is the
very patchy way it has developed over time. New
features get jacked in, some hardware level
maintenance requires on-site hands but really
shouldn't, half the tech problems can be handled
by shutting down all the shelves (via big red
switch) and powering back up *and not in any
other way*. I wouldn't use Netapp for front line
real time 24/7 storage if I could afford better.
\_ It may not be HP issue, but the drive manufacturer issue. I've had
numerous cases where the drives of identical model actually had
slightly different size(usually by few thousand blocks.) And if it
turns out the new drive has smaller # of blocks than the rest of the
drives, that may be why. |
| 2006/6/12-13 [Finance/Banking, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:43352 Activity:nil |
6/11 Do mp3s encoded with Christian conservative compression rates have
noticeably lower sound quality compared to normal CDs when played in
the modern car CD players.
\_ Why don't you try it and see? Only you can tell whether it's
noticable to you. -tom |
| 2006/6/2-4 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:43264 Activity:low |
6/2 I own a 1999 Taurus. I would like to replace the OEM in-dash
cassette deck with a CD player that won't cost more than say $120 and
which will have a "detacheable face". How likely is my car to be broken
into if I do it?
\_ The likelihood of your fancy shmancy CD player getting stolen
10-15 years ago would be the same as those expensive fancy shmancy
spinner wheels getting stolen today, you know, those wheels on
SUVs and big trucks you see a lot of in Southern Cal, apparently
as a status symbol in certain parts of S Cal. To rephrase what
I just said, the chance of your CD player getting stolen today
is as good as hi-tech Bose Dolbe cassette players 15 years ago.
CD players are so common, thieves don't care about them anymore.
Now if you're planning to get those expensive spinner wheels,
lower your suspension so that you can scrape the curb and
impress gangstah teenager girls, or add super electric forced
air intake, or add a bigger pipe that increases 5 HP and
100 decible, then yeah, chances are your insurance will triple
and your car will very likely get stolen. CD player? Who cares.
\_ evidence?
\_ Not much. I did the exact same thing (although my cassette deck
was only $80!) for the same reason, and my car hasn't been
broken into once yet. Knock on wood.
\_ I am looking for one that preferably works with CDRs and computer
audio formats which adds $20 or so to the price compared to
plain-Jane models from the same vendor.
\_ Oh, oops. I didn't see you wanted a CD player too. Mine is
just a cassette deck.
\_ It's not a big deal now like it was 15 years ago. No one will care.
\_ Well it made a big difference when I bought one with my car.
\_ Until recently I had a 97 Taurus. It had a tape but also had a 6
slot CD. I don't remember the details but I thought the CD came
standard on the car. Did you get some special stripped down job?
\_ I have the cassette player which also has the controls for
the CD changer in the trunk. However, I guess the CD changer
was an option and it didn't come with my car. Those Taurus
CD changers can be bought on ebay for $50 but I am worried
they won't play CDR disks and MP3 files which is what I want
to do.
\_ Itrip? Easier than lugging a bunch of CDs around... -John |
| 2006/5/22-25 [Computer/HW/Printer, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:43153 Activity:nil |
5/22 16,000 Lenovo computers purchased for State Department under standard
rules. Concerns are raised, and computers are designated as for
non-classified use only.
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-6074207.html?tag=nl.e589
\_ how do these Lenovo differ from Dell/HP which is also made in
China again? |
| 2006/5/18-22 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:43088 Activity:nil |
5/18 dnm, a friend an occasional denizen of #csua has some hardware for
sale. He wanted to make it available to local geeks before
advertising on craigslist or eBay so I'm posting this for him.
No prices listed, email dnm with an offer.
-dans
* At least 5 HP Vectra VL420 DT desktop boxes, all Pentium 4 1.6 GHz
machines
* a boat load of UATA 133 drives of various sizes, 60 GB up to 250 GB.
* 2 two 13" CRT monitors, one NEC and one eMachines
* 1 19" Iiyama Vision Master Pro 510, an ex-Napster monitor, seems to
have one dead color gun, and a small ding in the glass, but is
otherwise okay.
* 1 Apple TiBook 667 MHz, 768 MB RAM, 30 GB HD in decent shape.
Of the machines and disks, dnm has this to say:
These were used as data storage machines with four drives a piece, so
there's no CD-ROM drive in any of them, and the disks are "well used."
Everything is sold as-is, though I know all the drives to be good. If
you get a drive that's DOA, I'll take it back and refund your money.
They may, however, die later. Nonetheless, I've been okay. I'm using
one such box as my desktop and another is outfitted as a 1 TB (before
formatting) NAS using FreeNAS. I can build this or other
configurations if it's not much work, including FreeNAS, FreeBSD, or
Ubuntu installs.
Email dnm@pobox.com if you're interested: first come, first served.
Pick up in San Francisco. Cash or PayPal preferred. No cables,
keyboards, or mice at this time. Thanks! |
| 2006/4/28-29 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:42859 Activity:nil |
4/27 My 2 month old Seagate 200G EIDE drive failed yesterday. It's a
Seagate, not a WD or Maxtor. I can't believe it.
\_ Statistically, sooner or later you will get unlucky. Also, every
now and then vendors have bad runs, like the IBM Deathstar drives
from a couple years ago. If it's 2 months old it should still be
under warranty. Just get it replaced. -dans |
| 2006/4/26-5/2 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:42839 Activity:nil |
4/26 http://www.engadget.com/2006/04/21/seagate-leaks-750gb-barracuda-7200-10 Seagate announces 750GD HD!!! YEAH BABY!!! 1T is just around the corner!!! This is GREAT NEWS. \- is that extra space really going to change anything in your life? \_ YES!!! First of all I currently have about 600G of movies and pictures that I take with my 7M pixel camera, and I do a lot of video editting. Secondly, I use VMWare heavily and I "clone" instances of machines and it takes a lot of storage. The extra space gives me more options-- with the extra storage I can have fewer HDs in the case and maybe reduce 4 PCs I have (3 Linux 1 PC, 1 used as a cheap big storage box) and save electricity or save space, OR I can use all the boxes and have extra storage for backup. Thirdly, 750G HD will drive down the cost of 500G HD, which is GREAT NEWS. I'm REALLY excited. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who is excited. This is GREAT NEWS for everyone!!! \_ ride bike! \_ tom, you're an idiot. \_ that wasn't my post, idiot. -tom \_ You need to get out more. \_ My work is programming. My hobby is programming pet projects. I play games to relax. I watch MPG movies. My life is the computer, and the computer is me. I don't need to get out more. Thank you very much. \_ No, seriously, you NEED to get out more. \_ The scary thing is I can't decide if you are serious or not. \_ think of all the VJ4R3Z and pr0n youcan store with that!!! \_ Interesting news, sure. But GREAT NEWS? I think the other guy has a good point. \_ You STILL need to get out more \_ OMG!!! I think I need to change my pants!!!! |
| 2006/4/20-11/12 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:42787 Activity:nil |
4/20 Soda now has a spiffy new kernel that, besides now having the SATA
RAID and SCSI disk drivers built in, also, theoretically, doesn't
have the lockd problem that has been causing so much trouble. It has
currently been up without a hitch for most of the night, and I hereby
pronounce it more "stable." (Waits for the expected crash.) In any
case, thanks to marked and rfm for helping out with building it, and
mkim, minghay, and ishidav for providing moral support. Blame should
go to edilaic if it fails for a lockd reason. |
| 2006/4/6-7 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:42709 Activity:nil |
4/6 What's the name of some free Windows software that lets
me burn a bunch of files to a DVD? The builtin CDR writing
stuff isn't working for me.
\_ BurnISO? Don't know if it does DVD |
| 2006/3/20-22 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:42327 Activity:nil |
3/20 You know how you can boot a mac with the system install
cd and make it pretend to be an external firewire drive?
Is there a way to do this with a PC? Maybe there
is a cd I can boot the PC with to do this?
\_ You don't need a system install cd to do this. You just hold down
the `T' key while booting. -dans |
| 2006/3/16-18 [Computer/HW/Drives, Computer/SW/Apps/Media] UID:42274 Activity:high |
3/16 Cal prank on USC basketball player
http://csua.org/u/f9y
\_ But wasn't that game in Berkeley? It says they went to
Westwood after the game.
\_ sure, because they're from LA and travel back the same night
\_ I think this is poor taste and no class. I am embarassed for
the "Rally Committee".
\_ You should be embarassed by the very existence of a Rally
Committee. When childish wargames take precedence over academics
and research, this is the expected result.
\_ The player, as well his father, eventually had a good laugh
over it.
\_ And you can be sure that this player learned a good
life lesson about being in the limelight.
\_ What exactly are your standards for taste and class? Stuffy
rooms decorated like the set of masterpiece theatre and high
grade scotch served in a brandy snifter? I think it's clever,
crafty, and brilliant. -dans
\_ I think he intended the conversation to be private. It's
like making public the personal emails you have with someone.
His phone number is also made public. Would you like your
phone number to be published on the internet?
It's a breach of etiquette at the very least. I am not
saying he was smart, but for a Cal Rally Committee to
endorse and follow through with the plan is poor taste.
\_ My phone number *is* published on the internet. While it
would rub me the wrong way to have my private email
published, I appreciate a good practical joke, even if I'm
the butt, so I'd let it slide. Sometimes taste must
succumb to a higher calling, namely, humor. -dans
\_ My phone number *is* published on the internet. On one
hand, yeah having someone publish my private email on the
net would rub me a little the wrong way. On the other
hand, I appreciate a good practical joke, even if I'm the
butt of it. I think that sometimes poor taste is
justified in the name of higher callings, like humor. -dans
\_ If that's the case, it doesn't apply here, unless
you have a really low bar for "clever, crafty, and
brilliant". |
| 2006/3/15-17 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:42249 Activity:nil |
3/15 Hey motd -- I'm pretty clueless about audio stuff: I have a handful
of CD's that I'd like to rip into decent quality MP3's. Can anybody
recommend a reasonable freeware software package for win2k to help
me with this? Any help would be much appreciated. TIA! -mice
\_ http://csua.org/u/f98 --versiontracker search. unfortunately
it looks like most of them are unrated... I use iTunes on my Mac.
The windows version might be a bit too bloated for your tastes,
since I'm guessing you wouldn't use most of the features. -sax
\_ huh, okay -- I'll check it out when I get home. Thanks
eric! -mice
\_ OS?
\_ Ah, right...the OS. heh. Win2k. -mice
\_ One option is the built in windows media player.
Produces WMA format. I think newer updates produce
MP3s but I haven't tried it. Make sure you turn
off copy protection.
\_ I use CDex in combination with LAME using the encoder setting
--alt-preset-standard which gives very nice MP3s with ID3 tags
at an average of about 192kbit. Many other settings are available.
\_ I would recommend EAC for extracting the audio tracks, and
then lame to encode it in mp3 format. I personally archive
my CD tracks in a lossless format (wavpack, but flac is
equally good), and you can easily experiment between
different encoding bit-rates in lame without re-ripping the
CD. For music player, I use foobar2000. EAC and lame
requires some slight configuration. Here are some links:
requires some configuration. Here are some links:
http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=EAC_Drive_Configuration
http://users.pandora.be/satcp/eac02p.htm
\_ I've used 'FreeRip' to rip and encode Cd's into collections MP3's.
It could be prettier, but it does the job with a minimum of effort. |
| 2006/3/11-13 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:42190 Activity:nil |
3/11 Why does it seem like nobody manufactures slot loading CD/DVD drives
anymore? While I understand they might be more expensive to make,
they are way more cool and I wouldn't mind paying a premium over the
tray loading models.
\_ I'm told that they have a higher failure rate. there is also
the problem of the mini-cd's getting stuck in them even with
the proper adapter. --Jon
\_ Apple uses slot loading drives from various manufactures, so
they are still made. They are not widely available to end-users.
If you are really interested in a slot loading DVD drive Plextor
makes one that is on sale:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827131352
imo, the ~$50 premium isn't worth it.
\_ That's the only one I could find, and when you consider the
Plextor premium too, it's like 200% more expensive than a
comparable drive from another manufacturer. -OP
\_ If you are willing to hunt around Weird Stuff or Halted
you can probably find older Pioneer or Plextor slot loading
drives. [ I know you asked for new, but if you really want
slot loading... ]
\_ Wow, that sucks; I bought a Pioneer DVD slot loader just a few years
ago and I love it. Trays suck!
\_ if you *REALLY* want to know, i can harass my clients about it :p |
| 2006/3/1-4 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:42037 Activity:nil |
2/28 When buying a big LCD (32"-37"), Is it worth spending an extra $300 on
the HD decoder? I currently don't subscribe to HD and I'm guessing
that the decoder will probably cost less than $300 by year 2008
when HD signal is common. However, having an LCD that has a built in
decoder sure makes everything less cluttered. What do you think?
\_ seeing as how the HD standards are stil being hashed out, and there
is talk about throwing away 'legacy support' for early adopters,
I'd say no.
\_ agree. Also might add, try to get a 40"+, prices are coming down
again, they want to push the bigger LCD now |
| 2006/3/1 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:42036 Activity:moderate |
2/17 I'm cleaning up my place and I found the following items. I'm wondering
what are some positive things I can do to get rid of these items.
For example, paperweight, ebay, etc. Anything's better than filling
up earth with more landfill:
-expensive $200 mini-Aiwa walkman I bought in 1995. It has a RECORD
feature which is rare with walkman of that time. It's POS now,
I guess, and if I want to record I'd probably buy an iPod with
the attachment or something.
-noisy ATX power supply. Too noisy, don't want it.
-fancy digital answering machine with multi-channel redirect (it says
press X to leave voice mail for X). I don't use it because I mainly
use the cellphone's answering machine.
-CD-ROM. No DVD, no CD-RW. Plain CD-ROM.
-100Mb D-Link 604 router. I use wireless now. This seems to be useless
-2G hard drive from my 386/486 era. Not sure what to do with this.
Landfill?
\_ http://www.accrc.org
-expensive $200 mini-Aiwa walkman I bought in 1995. It has a RECORD
feature which is rare with walkman of that time. It's POS now,
I guess, and if I want to record I'd probably buy an iPod with
the attachment or something.
-noisy ATX power supply. Too noisy, don't want it.
-fancy digital answering machine with multi-channel redirect (it says
press X to leave voice mail for X). I don't use it because I mainly
use the cellphone's answering machine.
-CD-ROM. No DVD, no CD-RW. Plain CD-ROM.
-100Mb D-Link 604 router. I use wireless now. This seems to be useless
-2G hard drive from my 386/486 era. Not sure what to do with this.
Landfill?
\_ If you live in the SF/BA, then maybe try
http://greencitizen.com -mice
\_ If it's really about to go to landfill, take it apart and salvage
the magnets. They're fun to play with.
\_ I can use nearly all of those items! But freecycle and craigslist
are good, too, if you want to give them away piecemeal.
\_ You almost have enough stuff to build a firewall/router you could
toss in the closet. |
| 2006/2/7-9 [Computer/HW/Memory, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:41761 Activity:kinda low |
2/7 I have a little multi-threaded server I'm writing, and I log at
the start of each call and at the end of each call. I log by
having a global lock file, lock, write, flush, unlock. This
seems like a bottleneck, is there a better way to log from a
multi-threaded server? Perhaps something like syslogd where I
could send messages to another process that would log for me?
(This would avoid the flush because it could keep running even if
the server crashes) Order in the log is not terribly important,
since a quick run through sort on the date will order that for me.
\_ What about a separate thread to manage the log? Put the msgs
in a shared queue, and have the logging thread write out the
messages later on.
\_ Not a bad idea, but if the server crashes I won't get the
messages just before the crash.
\_ There isn't really a way to avoid this problem in a
threaded app, except to move logging into a separate
process, such as syslog. If you are going to use
syslog(3), then you probably should openlog(3) prior
to starting your threads.
\_ How about each thread keeps its own log file, as well as writing
into a shared buffer which is flushed periodically to the common
log. That way in normal operation you have just one log to look
at, but when the server does down, you can examine the per-thread
logs. In normal operation, other threads will not have to wait
while one thread flushes its own log.
\_ I don't think there is a problem with just using write(2), it is
atomic and writes to buffer cache so a crash of the process won't
be a problem. With some applications, mmap(2) is better, but
depends on what you are doing. --jwm
\_ Note that write(2) is only atomic if nbytes is less than
PIPE_BUF (which is at least 512 according to POSIX). That
said, if you know your log messages will be reasonably short,
this is the way I'd go. -gm
\_ I was assuming he wanted to write a file, and in that case
I suspect that the atomicity extends at least to the page
size, though I may be wrong. --jwm
PIPE_BUF (which is at least 512 according to POSIX). You
can also get short writes, even if nbytes is less than 512,
if you're writing to a pipe or other space-limited fd. -gm
\_ Really? I didn't know that. Related, why is it called
write(2) rather than just write()?
\_ That represents that it's in section 2 of the man pages which
is the system call section. "man write" shows you the page
for the write utility to send messages to someone's tty.
"man 2 write" gets you the write system call.
\_ On Slowlaris: man -s 2 write
\_ Unix needs it's own diversity day.
\_ Stop geeking and find a hot gf during undergrad before it's
too late!
\_ I'll add to my previous comment some speculation. If you're
using stdio or iostreams, I suspect your flush is not syncing to
disk, but merely calling write(2) to flush it's internal buffer.
To test this you could use ktrace to see the calls it is making.
Of course you will still may need a lock to protect the library
you are using as I suspect these are not threads safe. And if
you don't like locks, you could use sprintf() and write(2) with
no locks. --jwm
\_ Tried using sprintf and write(2) with no locks, and it
doesn't quite work. The log file is a bit messed up. It
appears that concurrent calls to write can screw things
up. (Not threadsafe) But, it seems like in that case
the lock shouldn't be costing as much as I had supposed
anyway, since the write is just being buffered somewhere.
\_ Having every thread in your application serially accessing
a piece of code that does I/O is a really bad thing, you
really don't want to do this. Grabbing a lock and
sticking data on some list that another thread comes and
consumes will be a lot faster (just makes sure that other
thread doesn't hold the lock while writing the data, then
you've lost everything you gained in the first place.) As
for needing to get everything logged in case your
application crashes, you are never going to get that
anyway. If you have 10 threads waiting to grab the lock
and the server crashes those 10 logging statements will be
lost no matter what.
How often you log should influence your choices here, are
we talking tons of debugging logging or just 1 or two
lines a second? If a lot of logging keep in mind that
things like gettimeofday are syscalls and those are more
expensive. Is it really that important that you get the
date of the log statement exactly right? Can you get the
time before or after you get the lock? If you really need
to order your logs, maybe just use a long that you
increment per statement?
Getting a lock is done entirely in user space (and
normally in just a few asm instructions AS LONG AS THERE
IS NO QUEUE FOR THE LOCK. Locks get a lot more expensive
to use (by orders of magnitude) when any blocking has to
occur. If you are worried that a lot of threads are going
to be blocking at a time keep the critical section as
small as possible, it really helps.
Finally, while logging can be more complex than it looks
at first, it is also a pretty solved problem. There are
tons of free logging libraries out there that do all this,
do it well, and do it fast. It might be worth your while
to just use existing code.
\_ Interesting. Thanks. What could I search for to find some
of these logging libraries? I didn't have much luck last
time I tried. (The critical section was already tiny, just
the write and the flush. The string is all built outside
the critical section.) -op
\_ You do understand that I/O is THE most expensive thing
you can do don't you? Just because it is only 2 lines
of C code doesn't mean the critical section is fast. |
| 2006/1/30-2/2 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:41602 Activity:kinda low |
1/30 What's a good way to archive hundreds of GB, or even TB, of data?
Tape seems obvious, but it is not random access. Hard drives are
cheap, but I fear reliability issues, even with RAID. We're
talking about archiving data for decades. Is the best strategy
to write to tape *and* to hard drives, only going back to tape
in the event of a disaster?
\_ I just send an email to Chuck Norris, and he'll remember it forever.
\_ Not that this is your situation, but this brings us back to a
similar chat a few weeks ago about data retention: most of our data
is crap and no one would miss it if it vanished. If long term mass
data storage was a real problem for more people there'd be a lot
more effort going into a real solution usable by a larger number of
people/corporations/governments.
\_ This is an ongoing problem, and not one with any "standard" solutions
that I've seen. The closest I've seen to common wisdom on this topic
is: keep the data online, backed up, in multiple places, and keep
moving it to new media as the old dies. Not a lot of fun.
\_ whoever solves this problem so that it is both convenient and
cheap will become very rich.
\_ Contact the Internet Archive. They've solved the problem already.
They did the work to figure out the lowest cost petabyte array, and
I'm sure they'd be happy to work with you. Here's the overview of
their system: http://www.archive.org/web/petabox.php -emarkp
\_ What do these guys do when their server room explodes?
There must still be tapes or similar, right?
\_ What if the earth explodes? I make sure to stow away backups
on each nasa mission.
\_ drink 3 beers, eat some peanuts, bring a towel, and don't
forget to feed the dog a cheese sandwich
\_ Is this a lame Hitchhiker's reference?
\_ I assume it's redundant backup. Call or email them! -emarkp
\_ Bwahahahahahahahahahahah. No, they haven't. The good news is
that they have a redundant backup on the other side of the world.
The bad news is that the internet archive has incredibly high
hardware failure rates since they usually get hand-me down
hardware from Alexa (aka the for-profit half of the internet
archive, a wholly owned subsidiary of http://Amazon.com), and both
Alexa and the Internet Archive beat on their disks much harder
than the typical usage disks are designed for. Furthermore, the
Internet Archive is woefully underfunded and, as a consequence,
understaffed so they don't have the engineering man-hours needed
to effectively work around the problems caused by their disks
regularly taking a piss. -dans
\_ What do people here do for their home backup needs? Hard drives?
I don't understand the tape storage industry at all and optical
media is kind of a joke.
\_ I'm going with the faith based backup system.
\_ Oh, nice. I guess, you know, if I lose some data, Yahweh
decided that wasn't good to have around.
\_ God helps those who help themselves. Get a data backup
system if you don't want to lose data. God supports
data backups.
\_ This is a very important problem that very few people seem to be
paying attention to. For instance here are already gobs of NASA
telemetry data from missions in the 20th century that are now
effectively unreadable. This is probably one of the few real
advantages that truly analog storage mediums have over digital -
a degraded analog signal is still readable long after the
equivalent digital signal would be hopelessly lost. One wonders
what will happen to future historians trying to understand
political decisions made by past governments when crucial
information only passed through digital media. The Long Now
Foundation has projects exploring this issue, though I don't know
how much practical success they have had: http://www.longnow.org
\_ NASA didn't really save a lot of the telemetry back then,
only the products. However, there is data (on 9 track
tape) going back to Voyager, Pioneer, and such. I am
trying to address this issue for (my part of) NASA. In
the past, tape (4mm, 8mm, 9 track) or optical disks were used,
but today's missions generate quantities of data that would've
been unthinkable in the 1970s. Additional problem: no one
wants to pay (much) to do this stuff.
\_ Digital data is still ultimately stored in an analog medium
though, right? Besides, one can spend extra bits for redundancy
and repair.
\_ Sure, but once that analog medium degrades beyond the ability
of your error correction mechanism, the data is lost beyond
repair. Pure analog mediums do not have this issue - although
a degraded signal will be very distorted, it will still
retain useful information.
\_ If it is distorted enough it won't be particularly useful.
With digital, you can recover the bit-perfect original,
even after severe degradation, dependent on how much
redundancy you budget. I don't see why "digital" is the
culprit. You could engrave "digital" bits into a chunk
of granite. Agreed though it's kind of an all or nothing
affair; you don't have much once it fails.
redundancy you budget. Agreed though you don't have the
gradual degradation... you have some "buffer" then it's
just gone. So you would have to have a huge parity to data
ratio to achieve similar longevity. On the other hand you
can keep copying the data to new media and never lose any
data which is impossible with analog (other than abstract
content).
\_ All of what you say is true, but neither solution seems
practical from an everyday standpoint. Most data
storage solutions maximize size and have little parity,
and there is usually little economic incentive to
keep preserving data in that manner. Another huge
unresolved issue with digital data is format turnover.
I have a large collection of live recordings made with
a Sony DAT recorder in the 1990s. Sony used a DAT
implementation that is notoriously difficult to read on
non-Sony machines. With the market for DAT disappearing
and most of the major manufacturers discontinuing their
DAT machines, it will only be a matter of years before
my DAT recordings are unplayable on any easily
obtainable device - and before you mention the used
market, did I mention that DAT machines are prone to
failure and replacment components are hard to come by
due to the aforementioned death of the market for
DAT? Since my Sony machine died, my only choice at
this point is to try to track down another one
that is still functional, and that includes a cable that
can adapt Sony's non-standard digital output to
SP/DIF - and then transfer hours of recordings by hand
to another format. This is only an example, but it
illustrates the issue on a very small scale - multiply
this by a million times and you have some idea of what
future governments and corporations will be faced with.
\_ Speaking of data, much of our music, books and
movies will disappear not only because of the format
problem but because of the combination of silly
copyright periods and DRM that will make it very
difficult for future generations to recover any
of it.
\_ Our books aren't going anywhere. Most of our
movies and music *should* be destroyed.
\_ HEIL GERMAN JOHN! HEIL!!!
\_ Erm, bad troll, I wasn't even in the
room! -John
\_ Thank you Der Fuerher.
\_ Sounds like you're mostly getting screwed by using
nonstandard, proprietary stuff, not really digital
storage per se. If there was some specialized "AAT"
market and you did everything the same you'd have
similar problems. (Or if not proprietary, it's
relatively uncommon.) |
| 2006/1/19-21 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:41444 Activity:nil |
1/19 The CD player in my car is skipping everytime i hit a bump even a
a tiny one. It's really annoying, and I want to get it fixed,
does anyone know of a good place to have this done? It might
just need to be cleaned, but I'm not sure how to do that with the
slot type player. Any suggestions? --jwm
\_ Is your CD player designed to handle vibrations (by buffering data)?
Some CD players are not designed to do that. It's not a defect.
\_ It's a new behavior, the car's an '01, and it just started doing
it a few months ago. It's now so bad that it happens a few
times a min. on the freeway. --jwm
\_ New CD players are cheap nowadays. Buy a new & better one.
\_ It sounds like it is built in to his dash and not easily
replaced.
\_ I may replace it, but it's the factory stereo, and it looks
better than an aftermarket unit will. If it costs too much
then I'll pull it out. --jwm |
| 2006/1/11-13 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:41350 Activity:very high |
1/11 http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20060110/tc_pcworld/124312 Why I don't backup anything on CDs and DVDs \_ http://www.cdrfaq.org/faq07.html#S7-5. -tom \_ I recently restored a lot of data from 9 track tapes that was between 15 and 30 years old. Much of it was no longer readable and much of what was readable was readable just once. The tape starts to crumble. These tapes were stored in a climate controlled environment, many in the dark. Don't expect more than 20 years with any media. \_ The scrolls of the Chinese civilization lasted over 2000 years. The writings of the Egyptians lasted over 3000 years. Our latest and greatest storage last less than 30 years. Boy, have we progressed a lot or what? I guess the good thing about losing contents is that most of the stuff people store and put on the web is mostly trash anyways. \_ You forgot clay tablets. \_ This isn't really fair; for one thing, Egyptian writings, which were mostly on papyrus, have almost all been lost. For another, the CDs will not be really unreadable even if they degrade; you just won't be able to stick them in a PC and have it read them. Most of the information will still survive. -tom \_ Not to mention the sheer quantity of data on a CD and how much that costs as opposed to hiring some monks to transcribe your source code and binary data files into illuminated texts and then data entry people to later enter that back into a computer when needed. \_ Most of the information we produce is crap anyway, so it doesn't matter if it degrades. When storing written information was hard and required monks or stone masons, only information worth recording (to them) would be saved. We could lose almost all information recorded in digital format (cd, HD, tape, whatever) today and most people wouldn't notice the loss a year later. We'd just make more garbage data. \_ You sound bitter and angry, but....I'm honestly not sure what you're bitter and angry about. \_ There is no "sound" in text. I'm not bitter about crap data which is why you can't figure out what I'm bitter about. I'm not bitter. That makes no sense. It's simply the case IMO that most data is crap and of no use to anyone and wouldn't be missed if it vanished forever because we as a society produce so much crap data to begin with. Honesty is not anger nor bitterness. \_ Honestly, you sound bitter and angry. \_ Have you never taken a high school literature class? The "sound" in text is called tone, and I agree with op that you did sound bitter and angry. -!op \_ *laugh* ok, yes, you're right, you caught me i am deeply bitter and angry about all the junk data we produce. sheesh, weirdos. \_ Hmm. Now you just sound like an asshole. \_ You seem really upset over such a trivial thing. And it's kind of weird that I'm the asshole yet you're the one tossing names around. whatever. \_ Heh, okay, fair enough. I am being pretty damned silly. My apologies, sir! \_ I have a book on the shelf at home that was still completely readable, and it was printed in the 60s before I was born. :-) \_ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD-R Cyanine dye = several yeanrs Cyanine dye = several years (earlier versions) Azo = decades Phthalocyanine = hundreds of years German IBM guy needs to get with the program: "Many of the cheap burnable CDs available at discount stores have a life span of around two years. Some of the better-quality discs offer a longer life span, of a maximum of five years." "Some of the better-quality discs offer a longer life span, of a maximum of five years." WRONG WRONG WRONG! \_ Few people realize how big a market microfilm/microfiche are; most big banks & corporations store customer and transaction records on multiple copies of these. -John \_ Not big enough for Kodak to live off it. \_ That part of Kodak does, however, seem to make money. -John |
| 2006/1/3-5 [Computer/HW/CPU, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:41210 Activity:nil |
1/3 I noticed firefox on certain pages left idle will start to consume
100% cpu, and cpu usage will drop back to normal after I close
that tab. Anyone seen similar problem? This is 1.5 but I've
seen it since 1.04.. I seem to have it on http://www.techbargain.com
and today http://Gizmodo.com.
\_ I've seen this happen with java applets. Perhaps those pages have
applets on their pages?
\_ not sure if it is related, but with 1.5 I've noticed that
when I return from standby both firefox and thunderbird go
crazy w.r.t. cpu usage (until I close and restart them, which
is a real hassle since I usually have multiple tab sessions
open).
\_ Have you tried waiting a while to see if they're just swap-crazy?
\_ Disk isn't spinning - the machine just sits. It might still
be swap related, but I'm thinking likely not. Just looked,
there are a few things in the forums that refer to a possible
problem with flash, trying the flash-block extension.
\_ I noticed the same thing, and now have the habit of
quitting firefox before I enter standby. -op
\_ Same thing happens in Opera sometimes. It appears to depend on
what's open. My guess is that it has to do with auto-refresh
pages--that when you resume, the browser queues up a bunch of
refresh events that gum up the system.
\_ Nope. Maybe evil broken Javascript? Actually, as of 1.5, it'll
start noticing things like javascript loops and offer to nuke the
page for you. |
| 2005/12/27-30 [Computer/HW/Drives, Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:41151 Activity:nil |
12/27 I'm trying to help out with my mother in law's computer problems. She
has two Windows XP computers (one desktop, one tablet pc) that she was
using for her job before she retired. The computers themselves are old
and her workplace doesn't want them back but they are installed with
all this corporate Novell stuff that I don't know anything about and
her account on the computer has very restricted permissions (she can't
even install any new programs on it). we can't get the admin password.
Is there a way to make these computers usable without reinstalling
the operating system?
\_ Obtain a copy of BART PE rescue disk. You can download this off of
a site or emule or torrent or what-have-you. I think the complete
ISO is about 720 megs big, so you'll have to stick it on a DVD
or overburn a CD-R. Boot it up, if you got the full version there's
a password recovery and regedit util on it. You can also get the
admin password recovered through a freeware NTPassword recovery
disk: http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd which also works
(I've used it many times). The computers will most likely not
have floppies or support booting off of it, so you'll have to
burn the CD version. No GUI though like BART PE (which is
essentially running WindowsXP through a CD). I suppose from there
you can see if you can revert the machine back to its original
state before they stuck Novell Netware on it (original save
point under system restore).
\_ From my experience with Novell, "usable": yes. "usable without
tearing your hair out": no. Novell tends to, and has as long as I
can remember, always put a lot of junk into the OS. I'd blow the
OS away unless you wanna play "pick the junk out of the registry"
for the next few months. If you want to just go with the "turn off
Novell" option, try to recover the admin password. There are a few
utilities on the internet that claim to help you do this, but I have
been largely unsuccessful in actually getting them to work. - jvarga
\_ This is fine and all for the desktop, but you might have trouble
finding a copy of Windows XP Tablet Edition to install on the
tablet. I doubt you can get the restore CDs from the co.
\_ Recover the admin password. STFW.
\_ http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/bootdisk.html |
| 2005/12/27-30 [Finance/Banking, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:41145 Activity:nil |
12/27 I recieved a music CD for a Christmas present, and though it did not
trojan my box, it would not play normally in the CD drive. I was able
to do DAE on it, but is there any way to find what sort of protection
is being used?
\_ Usually googling for the exact title in quotes + "copy protection"
will find you a lot of web boards with good info. Alcohol120% and
Daemontools should be good enough to deal with whatever
it turns out to be. -John
\_ Well like I said, I was able to do DAE on it in spite of the
protection. Google fails me because it's an uncommon CD with a
fairly common name.
\_ have you tried to play it on a different OS, such as Linux/BSD?
\_ No, I got DAE working and was satisfied. Does Linux have a
machanism for identifying CD corruption mechanisms? |
| 2005/12/23-28 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:41129 Activity:moderate |
12/22 I purchased an album through iTunes on my Mac (OS 10.4 completely
up to date). I then burned that to a CDR using iTunes. I can play
that CDR on my home stereo (DVD player), an old boombox (CD only),
and the computers. I cannot play it in my car stereo (BMW stock).
If I take that CDR and rip it on my PC using WMP to Windows Media
Format (Lossless) and then burn *that* to a CDR (identical brand)
using Nero then my car can read it just fine. This has happened with
several albums and CDRs, so it is not the media. Any ideas what's going
on? My car has always played CDRs burned from MP3s on the PC before,
so it must be something the Mac is doing that affects the car and
not the other players. The car does recognize the tracks (and
often plays #1 and #2) but won't play the entire album. Ideas? --dim
\_ BMWs are common these days. Have you tried playing them on
other BMWs?
\_ What would be the point? It plays when burned on a PC. Why?
Isn't an audio CD an audio CD?
\_ I'm just trying to see if it's maybe your particular BMW
CD player that's just sensitive to something the Mac did.
I have both a Mac and a BMW and it plays burned CDs just
fine.
\_ Let's say it is my particular BMW. What I really want
to know is what iTunes is doing that Nero is not and
why these CDs all work in a generic boombox.
\_ Do you have Gap Between Songs set to 2 secs in iTunes? My cd
changer doesn't care what the gap is, but my car's cd won't
play cds if the gap between songs is less than 2 secs.
\_ I thought this might be the problem, too. It was 2 seconds
by default, but changing it to 0 seconds did not help. Are
you saying I should make it *larger*?
\_ 0-1 secs doesn't work for me, but 2 and 3 work. I need
to use 3 for CD-RW and 2 for CD-R. If you have Toast,
try burning a cd using that instead of iTunes to see
if the problem is only w/ iTunes. I've started burning
all my audio cds w/ Toast b/c iTunes doesn't do CD-Text
(the downside is that I've had to give up soundcheck). |
| 2005/12/22-23 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:41113 Activity:moderate |
12/21 What's the quietest, most reliable 300-500GB HD out there these
days? I'm mainly concerned with reliability/sound/price per GB
to store lots of media stuff, and I'm not too concerned about
performance. Also a related question, when do you guys think
1T drives will come out, 2008? 2009?
\_ in my experience, seagate drives tend to be quieter than others
\_ Generally speaking, faster spin = louder. Go check out a hardware
review site like http://tomshardware.com, anandtech or sharkeys (and many
others) for specifics on various popular/common drive models.
\_ http://storagereview.com
\_ I have two Seagate ST330831AS 300 GB SATA drives in my G5. They
are pretty quiet and have been fairly reliable. Not bad for about
$100 each.
\_ Define "fairly reliable".
\_ Stores bits correctly 9,999,999 times out of 10,000,000
times?
\_ I've had them for a little under a year and haven't had
any problems in terms of slow performance or read/write
errors (I can't say the same about Maxtor drives I've
owned in the same time period). No errors in terms of
SMART status either.
owned in the same time period). I usually check the SMART
status as well using DW and I haven't noticed anything
abnormal (w/ Maxtor drives I've seen errors w/in 3mo). |
| 2005/12/20-22 [Computer/SW/Apps/Media, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:41100 Activity:nil |
12/20 Hi guys. The newbs I play Texas hold 'em with require you to use both
your hole cards; however, according to the official rules you have the
option to use none, just one, or both of your hold cards to form your
5-card hand.
Requiring use of both hole cards makes straights and flushes harder of
course. Does anyone out there play like my newb friends?
\_ god your friends are noobs. they should look into 7-card stud
to get a clue.
\_ Your friends are idiots. Maybe they're thinking of Omaha?
Another question: Let's say all bets have been called and there is
more than one player at the showdown. Can a player just fold at
this point without showing their cards? I think the answer is no.
\_ obdragonpokerlittlemythmarkerskevebeatssensenantekidreference
\_ In one hand, no less!!!1!one
\_ Outstanding. I'm glad I'm not the only one.
\_ no. players paid to see his cards.
\_ maybe we're both wrong
http://www.poker1.com/mcu/rules/b_article11.asp
This page says that you need to show your cards to win (duh), but
there doesn't seem to be a rule that says you need to show
if you're a loser.
This happens to match my memory of movies where poker is
played ... someone shows a kick-ass hand, and everyone throws
their hands face-down.
\_ The people I play with use a rule where the winner can request
to see the losers' cards if a river bet was callde.
to see the losers' cards if a river bet was called.
\_ In Vegas you can just fold, but I think the above person is
correct that the winner can ask to see the hand. In Vegas
'cards speak' which means if you are an idiot who says he has a
flush when in reality you have a royal flush then the dealer
will call it a royal flush (the best hand). For this to
happen people usually just show their cards and keep their
mouths shut (lest be proven the total morons that they are,
although everyone makes mistakes). The moral here is not to
fold without showing your cards at the showdown. Some people
think there's an advantage to mucking the cards, but I don't
bother if I stayed in that long. Added: doing some research shows
bother if I stayed in that long. Added: Doing some research shows
that while legal to ask to see the hand it is considered VERY
BAD etiquette and you may be asked to leave.
BAD etiquette and you may be asked to leave. Here's more:
http://www.tommyangelo.com/articles/i_want_to_see_that_hand.htm
\_ Which one has to show first then? I think everyone is
just as obligated to show, fuck that etiquette.
\_ According to the url, if no one wants to show, then the
first person to show is the last guy who bet/raised during
the river round (i.e., the aggressor shows first). if
everyone checked for the river round or everyone was
already all-in before the river round, then the guy to the
left of the dealer shows first. People then show in a
clockwise order from whichever player showed first.
Also, anyone can elect to show first, at which point others
can show if they want to (in any order).
Then again you can have a house rule that says if you
get to the river round, you MUST show even if you're a
loser, which is what you meant by "fuck that etiquette".
Another user who posted above has a similar house rule ...
\_ The newb who folded at the showdown did so because he was
bluffing and didn't want to be further embarrassed by showing
the cards he had.
\_ you can fold at any time as long as it is your turn without showing
your cards (even if there is no bet in front of you)
\_ This wasn't in question. |
| 2005/12/20-22 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:41099 Activity:low |
12/20 I'm trying to mount a FreeBSD UFS partition read-write using
Knoppix. The mount command shows it being mounted rw, but when
I try to write to any file (as root) it says that the filesystem
is read only. Any suggestions?
root@knoppix# mount -t ufs -o ufstype=ufs2 /dev/hda1 /mnt/hda1
root@knoppix# mount
/UNIONFS/dev/hda1 on /mnt/hda1 type ufs (rw,ufstype=ufs2)
root@knoppix# cd /mnt/hda1/tmp ; touch foo
touch: cannot touch `foo': Read-only file system
\_ check dmesg for warnings? Also, I don't know if the module comes
w/ write support by default
\_ Thanks, looks like the linux UFS module doesn't support RW.
\_ Thanks. |
| 2005/12/8-11 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:40926 Activity:nil |
12/8 Looking for a stat on the read/write time of a single 10K or 15K
scsi disk. don't care about scsi's ability to tranfer 320 MB/sec,
I care at what speed I can actually write to the platter.
Anyone want to point me to (or just give me) the info? tnx.
\_ http://www.tomshardware.com should have the benchmarks you're looking for.
\_ http://storagereview.com |
| 2005/11/29-12/2 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:40768 Activity:nil |
11/29 Does anyone know if there is a MacOSX compatible cd/dvd
printer? I'm looking for something like this:
http://tinyurl.com/7gwkq (casio.com)
\_ Are you sure this isn't Mac compatible? |
| 2005/11/22-23 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:40687 Activity:nil |
11/21 Anyone tried the new Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 500GB 3.5'
Sata 3.0GB/S Hard Drive? At $339/drive, is it a good deal?
Any other comments?
\_ I have the WD 500GB. It's not a great deal for $/GB. Noise and
performance were decent but not wonderfull. I picked it for GB/bay. |
| 2005/11/21-23 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:40673 Activity:kinda low |
11/21 Flying to the east coast and trying to decide between getting
a portable DVD player or just adding a modular bay DVD drive to my
Dell laptop. Any good or bad expereiences either way?
\_ Portable DVD player will have tiny screen and you'll need to lug it.
Notebook has have a bigger screen and you always take anyway.
Notebook has a bigger screen and you always take anyway.
Of course, if you have a desktop replacement notebook, that's a
problem in terms of size.
\_ If the Dell is a bit older, the portable player probably has a
screen with better brightness, contrast and viewing angle.
\_ Another thing to consider is the battery life. Older laptops
may not have battery life to last through the entire movie,
especially with the dvd drive spinning. I convert my dvds
to mpeg4 before any long trips to save the battery life from
spinning the drive.
\_ Since this is on a plane (AA) : would one of
the airplane power converter things be
worth the bother ?
\_ But doesn't MPEG-4 need more CPU? Wouldn't it balance out?
\_ In my experience, spinning optical drive drained the
battery a lot faster than the cpu. But it may depend
on the type of cpu you have in your laptop as well.
\_ But if you play it from the optical drive, the OS's
power setting can power off the hard disk.
\_ I think optical drive + laser consumes more
power than a notebook HDD. And probably the
the HDD will spin anyway from swapping or some
background task or who knows why.
\_ Consider ripping the DVD onto your laptop. You can get it down
to a ca. 750MB high-res AVI. Check http://videohelp.com. You'll probably
save on battery life and noise (no spinning DVD.) -John
\_ Agreed. Rip an ISO image with DVD Decrypter and then mount it
with Daemon Tools. --jameslin
\_ or toss the vobs directly into a decent dvd player (powerdvd,
mplayer,etc) --dwc) |
| 2005/11/21-23 [Computer/HW/Laptop, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:40671 Activity:nil |
11/21 Need recommendation for a small form factor network file server
to connect a PC laptop and a MAC laptop at home. About 500 gigs
to 1 T. I'm looking at the Maxtor Shared storage series and also at
the "Buffalo terastation". Can somebody recommend other brand names?
This is for home use, performance is not critical but it has to be
reasonably priced. General purpose PC is out of the question because
I need something that'll fit on a bookshelf. Thanks!
\ I am also interested in this. Was looking at the Adaptec SnapServers
\_ are you the same guy who posted the following?
http://csua.com/?entry=40190
At any rate, you should STFK:
http://csua.com/?entry=37702
\_ I am also interested in this. Was looking at the Adaptec SnapServers
\_ Most reviews of the terastation says that RAID5 speed is really
poor, although one comment suggested that upgrading to the latest
firmware improves it. But I'm also looking for something small.
I require NFS and decent speed, though. Oh, and have you
considered a mac mini with several usb/firewire HDs stacked?
\_ did you ever fix the lame windows problem where one of your
PCs running XP Pro hangs for 2-30 seconds without responding
while your CPU usage is 1-2%?
\_ Do you have a closet or garage you can drop it in and forget about
it? Then size and nouse wouldn't be a big deal and you'd save some
bucks. |
| 2005/11/20-21 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:40660 Activity:low |
11/20 I have an external hard disk that I connect to my PC via a USB
port. It's 20 Gigs, so under MyComputer it says it's total size
18.6 GB. And it also happens to say that there is 11.8 GB of free
space. On the disk itself, there are a handful of directories. I
right click on all of them, and click on "properties" and it says
it takes up 5 GB. But 18.6-11.8=6.8. There is 1.8 GB unaccounted
for. Could this be in some hidden directory? How can I free up
more space (because I may need it some day)?
\_ Download Treesize: http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/index.shtml
Also, keep in mind that space available + space used != total space
necessarily because the smallest blocks are allocated to only a
single file, so space can be wasted. Oh, and you can buy a 300GB
drive at CostCo for $150 (granted, it's a maxtor).
\_ Does Maxtor suck?
\_ I've heard about drive failures but haven't seen one myself.
But two of my Maxtor drives have become *very loud* over time.
\_ Turns out it wasa "Recycle" directory on there taking up the
space. -op |
| 2005/11/16-17 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:40609 Activity:kinda low |
11/15 [unrelated to politics] My debian machine at home (I'm learning and
tinkering) seems to spin the HD down occasionally. I'd like to never
spin down the HD (or at least control which hours it can). Any
pointers to doing this?
\_ # apt-get install hdparm
# hdparm -S 0 /dev/hda
\_ okay. Is there any way to query the setting (I can't find
anything in the man page). Thanks for the pointer BTW.
\_ # hdparm -I /dev/hda but on my disk, the actual
standby values don't appear to be listed there.
\_ Okay. I'd found -I but as in your case didn't find
anything indicating the current spindown setting.
\_ Maybe it isn't possible to query for that?
\_ Just wanted to point out that was not in your
original question.
\_ How dare you to ask a technical question here? What do you think
this is, a compurer science student association? |
| 2005/11/15-17 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:40603 Activity:nil |
11/15 DVD Player for Atheists:
http://tinyurl.com/9y393 (gizmodo.com) |
| 2005/11/10-11 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:40524 Activity:nil |
11/9 Regarding multi-zone DVD's. Anyone know how to make your Apple G5
DVD-player multizone? It offers up to 5 switches before it's stuck
in one zone forever. I have both DVD's legitimately bought overseas
and in the US.
\_ install VLC. If I remember it right, VLC has DeCSS built-in.
however, you *WILL* become a criminal who violates Intellectual
Properties right. Not all DVD works, though.
\_ Depending on the model you may be able to flash it w/ a region
free firmware. Take a look at the following:
http://lasvegas.rpc1.org
http://tdb.rpc1.org |
| 2005/11/9-11 [Computer/SW/OS/OsX, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:40518 Activity:nil |
11/9 What do you do when the OSX disk utility (booted from CD) fails
to repair your primary startup disk and gives you the error:
"Invalid B-tree node size"? This is an iMac G5 and it cannot boot
from the Macintosh HD. Any recommendations for data recovery?
\_ DiskWarrior
\_ Thanks. |
| 2005/11/2-4 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:40408 Activity:nil |
11/2 I've suspected that Netflix is delaying mailing out new movies because
my turnaround times are too good. But I'm too lazy to actually sit
down and analyze my rental activity. Fortunately someone wrote just
such a program: http://www.tallrock.net/RentalStats/index.html
\_ So, are they throttling you?
\_ I had similar experience. The turn around time was really good
for the first few months and then got worse and worse.
\_ Me too. --dbushong
\_ After I noticed throttling, I changed to the 4-DVD program and keep
2 DVDs two weeks before mailing them back, and only request the new
2 DVDs 12 days before mailing them back, and only request the new
shit every other week as well. Helps I guess. Yeah, I know it's
~ the same price as renting in-person, but it's the convenience of
mail and having a wide selection. |
| 2005/10/27-29 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:40295 Activity:nil |
10/27 I want to backup from linux (RH) to DVD-writable. Will take
multiple DVDs to do the job. It is just data. Is there
some simple/free utility that will eject the disk when it
is full / doesn't have space for the next file and then
continue from there when i pop in a new DVD, or will I have
to script up something that takes care of this. I would
really prefer this to be command line. |
| 2005/10/6 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:40144 Activity:nil |
10/5 On an IDE hard disk, if you have write cache turned off, is
there any advantage to using data=journal mode rather than
data=ordered mode? |
| 2005/10/4-6 [Finance/Banking, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:39971 Activity:nil |
10/4 Can anyone recommend a "nature sounds" cd? I'm particularly interested
in water sounds (rivers or oceans) with no instrumentals or vocals.
Just background noise. Thanks!
\_ Check Living On Earth, the NPR program
http://www.loe.org
\_ Fry's used to sell nature sounds cds for around $3/ea. I have
the ocean sounds, lake sounds and jungle sounds cds. They are
not bad.
\_ Can you please convert it to MP3 and put it in /csua/tmp?
\_ Can you do my laundry for me? Thx!
\_ Have you heard of the copyright act? |
| 2005/9/29-10/3 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:39921 Activity:nil |
9/29 This looks pretty cool:
http://archive.newyorker.com/index.html
for $63 at AMAZONG. But it looks like you may have to
swap DVDs a lot ... dunno if there is a way around that.
Anybody know?
\_ Copy the discs to your hard drive? |
| 2005/9/14-17 [Science/Disaster, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:39685 Activity:low |
9/14 So, if there's a massive destructive earthquake and all the
buildings on campus are destroyed, does csua have a backup
somewhere off campus? I doubt it. So, basically, soda.csua
might be down for a long long time. Now, suppose this earthquake
strikes the building where the server for yahoo or google is. Do
you think they have a backup off site, so that even in a natural
disaster their email and other services would continue relatively
uninterupted.
\_ Kubi had something like this for personal files. It was part
of his Ocean Store project. One of his greatest fears was
having his PhD thesis run over by a giant truck so the idea
was to distribute your personal data encrypted on peer-to-peer
networks (if you trust your personal data to be stored on p2p).
\_ Heh heh. I'm guessing you're either an undergrad or have never
worked in industry. *giggle* Seriously, though, both companies
definitely have multiple clusters in greatly separated colos. The
reasons for this have as much to do with effiency as they do with
safety/redundancy. I know one of those companies has at least 4:
3 in the US and at least one in the UK.
\_ Although one major corporation (whose name rhymes with Bicrosoft)
did have all of its name servers on the same subnet a few years
back. Just because a company is big doesn't mean its network is
designed intelligently, particularly for companies that were
well-established before the Internet boom. -gm
\_ I've worked for 3 software companies in my time, and 2 of
them kept offsite backups in multiple non-earthquake states,
while the third had (I believe) only one. It's pretty
common practice nowadays, despite the absurdity of other
companies *coughcoughmicrosoftcough*. Two other companies
that I worked for didn't, but then, both of them were 3 or
4 man operations, and backups consisted of me copying
everything onto a cd and taking it home.
\_ soda hall is a fairly new building. and I think soda's
rack is bolted to the floor. Sounds like it might be okay.
\_ You make the assumption that the servers are somehow actually
secured to the rack. Shame on you! - jvarga
\_ Are you a student or an alum? I have no idea who you are.
In case you were/are a stuff, have you been properly
trained and indoctrinated by the alumni? |
| 2005/9/9-13 [Finance/Banking, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:39597 Activity:nil |
9/10 What do I need in order to read a mini-CD in a regular CD drive?
\_ many CD players have a special groove for smaller CDs.
If not, you can buy an adaptor which makes it fit into CD drives.
\_ Where can I buy this?
\_ I spent too much time researching the web. This is now
very hard to find. Some hints:
Call up companies like Maxell or Memorex
call up companies that produce mini-DVD camcorders |
| 2005/9/1-2 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:39410 Activity:nil |
9/1 any caveats to running FSCK on a hardware raid 5 volume?
url pointers / random comments appreciated.
\_ It's just a filesystem. Be aware that a large RAID can take
a long time. It's one reason I prefer NetApp.
\_ Concur. If you're fsck'ing anything you've got raid 5 on,
you'll have live with whatever time it takes to check it.
Think about getting a journaled filesystem.
\_ Netapp is fun n all until you have to run a wafl_check.
\_ WAFL_check can be pretty quick nowadays. They've optimized
significantly over the last few years. -rollee |
| 2005/8/28-29 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:39316 Activity:nil |
8/28 What's the difference between CD[RW] + and -? What are the advantages
and disadvantages for plus and minus? Also I've seen drives that
claim DVD+-RW DL, but I have never seen a DVD RW DL disk sold.
Regular DVD R DL is sold at a whopping $8/disk, I can't imagine it
ever becoming popular.
\_ STFW!
\_ You may want to see Anandtech's DVD Recordable FAQ:
http://www.anandtech.com/guides/viewfaq.html?i=118
I think $8/disk is an old number, Meritline was selling DVD-R DL
at around $3-$4 per disk about a month ago.
\_ Circuit City had Memorex DVD-R at ~$1 per disk one month ago.
\_ And you can regularly get decent DVD-R disks for about 30
cents per disk. What's your point? |
| 2005/8/25-26 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:39286 Activity:kinda low |
8/25 OK, here's a big hardware 'WTF?'. I'm putting together a new computer
and it can't detect the drives. It seems they aren't getting powered.
I hook both drives into an existing computer with both power and IDE
cables and they are detected. On a lark, I hook the drives up to the
new computer but attatch only the power, not the IDE cables. I hear
them both power up. Trying a different IDE cable, using only one
drive at a time, and trying the secondary IDE connecter all fail. It
seems like by attatching the IDE connector, the drives fail to power
up. All this is happening with the old-style 4 pin power connector
and ATA133 cables. Any ideas?
\_ Are the drives new? What make and model?
Are you sure the drives aren't powering on when you attach IDE
and power cable at the same time? Feel for a vibration. Sometimes
you don't hear anything but they're actually on.
Try putting in a spare hard drive in the new computer and see if
it works when plugged into IDE.
\_ While off, I connect both - power on - nothing.
While off, connect power only - power on - drives spin up.
\_ Assuming you are using the same cables then try to flip them
around if they connect both ways. Otherwise, I say your
motherboard is bad and/or incompatible with the drives you
are using. I agree with the previous person to check to see
that they aren't actually on, too. Then it's just a driver
issue.
\_ They definitely aren't on. When I try it without the PATA cable
i see the DVD LED and hear the hard drive spin up.
\_ I've had this happen with IDE drives. It ended up being a problem
with the master/slave pins. Try fiddling with the BIOS settings
for the drive with single drives hooked up as well (powering off
each time after saving settings.) It's also possible that you
have a duff MoBo or PSU. -John
\_ Could a bad master/slave setting actually cause a drive to not
even spin up?
\_ Yes, this is exactly what happened to me. I have even had
MoBos just not like the particular master/slave order of
certain mfgr/geometry disks (so I had to make the slave the
master and vice versa.) It's all weird fucked-up voodoo, but
just a suggestion as to what could be causing your problem. |
| 2005/8/24-25 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:39255 Activity:nil |
8/24 Anyone have any sites with recommendations for ideal/max operating
temperatures for "average" PCs? I have a server with a bunch of
SATA drives (8x), a PIV-1.7 and two 120mm fans (plus the ones on the
PSU); the case temp gauge indicates 35-37 deg. C at the hottest
spots, and I can't get over the sneaking suspicion that the PSU
is somehow unhappily hot. -John |
| 2005/8/24-25 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:39249 Activity:nil |
8/24 What's the difference between Alcohol 1.9.5.2802 and 1.9.5.3105?
\_ 0.0.0.303, obviously.
\_ lazy mofo: http://www.videohelp.com/tools?changelog=144
\_ THANK YOU. HOW did you get this help? Like, what keywords
in Google did you type to get to this page? Teach me how
to fish so I don't have to keep asking for it. Thanks.
\_ I'm not the grandparent poster, but searching Google for
"alcohol 120% changelog" returns that as the first result.
\_ http://videohelp.com is one of the best sites around for anything
codec-related as well, just as a note. -John |
| 2005/8/23 [Computer/HW/Drives, Consumer/TV] UID:39242 Activity:high |
8/23 Do differences in PAL/NTSC formats matter when playing DVD movies
on PCs? What about VCR?
\_ PAL/NTSC doesn't matter when playing on a PC, just region
code (unless you use a workaround). Tapes won't play right
on a VCR, but you can get a converter.
\_ No, doesn't matter on a PC, although you may have region issues.
As for VCRs, you can't play DVDs on VCRs. What's your question?
If you mean if NTSC vs. PAL tapes matter, yes. They're analog
standards being played on an analog device.
formats being played on an analog device.
\_ What about watching a PAL DVD on a TV with normal US-purchased
DVD player?
\_ It's almost certainly not going to work. NTSC DVD players
are rare multi-standard. |
| 2005/8/7-8 [Computer/Companies/Apple, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:39030 Activity:low |
8/7 My grandmother has an original iMac that she is donating. She
wants to erase the hard drive before it leaves her
house. What's the best/easiest software for doing this?
(she just upgraded to a iMac G5).
\_ Get a firewire cable and plug the old iMac into the new one.
Place the old iMac in firewire target-mode by holding the
Place the old iMac into firewire target-mode by holding the
letter "T" during boot. Then you can reformat the drive
by using Disk Util on the new iMac. On Tiger, there's an
option of wiping the disk with zeros several times over
but this will take a while.
\_ Original iMac doesn't have Firewire and can't run tiger.
I'm thinking maybe she can boot the debian installer CD
and run dd. Any ideas?
\_ You only need tiger on the host computer, not the
target. You could always just yank out the disk
and put it in another computer where you can run
a disk zeroing (or randomization) util on it.
\_ Wouldn't random bits be better than zeros?
\_ Can't she use the MacOS install boot disk and run disk utility?
\_ Does OS 8 Disk Utility have a way to zero the drive?
\_ I found knoppix for powerpc. It is a couple years old
but should be okay: http://debian.tu-bs.de/knoppix/powerPC
\_ if you can boot a linux, *bsd, etc. off live CD, the "shred"
command is pretty convenient. it make sup to 25 passes, so
most likely you'd only let it go once or twice unless you
have extreme security concerns. works on block devices or
on regular files. |
| 2005/8/6-8 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:39025 Activity:nil |
8/6 Does anyone know whether booting from a Windows PEBuilder CD accesses
the hard drive of the machine you're booting in any way, if you don't
tell it to? -John
\_ What is a PEBuilder?
\_ obGoogle
\_ Well, it'll access it to enumerate the drives, but it shouldn't
write anything. You can boot from a PEBuilder CD with no HDD.
--jameslin
\_ Cool, thanks. I need to consider it for a fairly specific
purpose (run XP without leaving any local traces, but with a
fully bootable "normal" XP installation on the HDD.) By the way,
if you're interested, look at Bart's PE Builder for a free
alternative. -John |
| 2005/8/4-5 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:38985 Activity:nil |
8/4 Thank you so much to those who contributed to the increased disk
quotas. One question, though. I have uncompressed files to the
point that my usage should have increased by something on the order
of a Megabyte or 2, yet my disk usage shown when I run "quota" only
changed by 1kB. Does it just take a long time to update, or is
something wrong?
\_ Hu? Send me root mail. - jvarga |
| 2005/8/4-6 [Academia/Berkeley/CSUA, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:38984 Activity:low |
8/4 Hey, do the quota upgrades mean we're finally off the TDA?
\_ Does CSUA have a hardware donation wishlist?
\_ For the first time in my life, I think we pretty much have all
the hardware we need at the moment. There is talk of a little
extra disk in new soda for /csua/tmp, but root is discussing the
legal ramifications of saying "here's 400GB of unmonitored disk
have fun and be good." There was once talk of upgrading
screwdriver, but that discussion fizzled someone pointed out that
no one does projects anymore so a screwdriver upgrade would be a
a waste of money. Once I have everything up and running, I'll
try to post a wishlist. But for now, just sit back and relax.
- jvarga
\_ Oh yes: I will be watching usage over the next month or so. If
things appear to be reasonable and managable, I may up quotas to
175-200MB. - jvarga
\_ Another 100MB for my .spamassassin directory to grow
\_ Home dirs are off of TDA (that's 8 of 14 disks). Mail is on a new
bigger disk in the TDA (-1 TDA disk), /vol/backup/mail is gone (-1
TDA disk). All that remains on TDA is /var/crash, /csua/tmp, and...
well, that's a good question. The bottom two disks in each shelf
(http://soda.berkeley.edu/~jvarga/images/CSUA/CSUA3.jpg are all
that's really still on the TDA. - jvarga
\_ Soda home dirs are on the bottom computer in this pic:
http://soda.berkeley.edu/~jvarga/images/CSUA/CSUA2.jpg - jvarga
\_ Is the middle computer there lifesaver? Is it up?
\_ Top: lifesaver. Middle: new-soda. Bottom: keg. - jvarga
\_ Is lifesaver up? I can't wait for new soda!
\_ Yea! No more TDA!
\_ What's TDA?
\_ Tertiary Disk Array, I think. It was a few chunks of a very
big disk array composed of 9G drives. Ancient and apparently
slow, and of questionable reliabity. But free.
free as in free software. _/
\_ Hah, yeah and with exactly the same issues.
\_ Is anyone backing up Soda OUTSIDE of Berkeley? What would happen
if an earthquake strikes Soda Hall and goes with all its data?
\_ Then soda, and the great pr0n archives that inhabit the "free
space" on keg all go down into the big chasm that once was
Berkeley. - jvarga |
| 2005/8/4 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:38982 Activity:nil |
8/4 Huh, so the quota command only shows that I have a /var/mail quota.
Is there some other place that I have to go to see my new and
improved disk quota, or do we have...gasp...no disk quota? If the
latter is true, bring on the porn archives!
\_ You should have a quota now, thanks to jvarga. If not, um, feel
free to mail root and we'll give you a quota. Yeah. --mconst
\_ Don't thank jvarga, blame jvarga.
\_ jvarga, so you need a vacation...do you accept Paypal donation
to help pay for your vacation? |
| 2005/7/29-31 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:38882 Activity:kinda low |
7/29 If I buy Pimsleur's "Quick & Simple" language CD ($15), is that
just buying the first 4 lessons of the full version which costs
over $300, or is it different?
\_ Get them all from Bittorrent first and see. --arr matey
\_ Get them all from Bittorrent first and see. --R Matey
\_ Which torrent search site should I use? The ones I use don't
have them, and I don't know which ones are good. Thanks.
\_ http://thepiratebay.org is the standard. the language stuff may
be incomplete or suffer sound quality issues though.
\_ I'm not sure about a $15 version. For Japanese I bought
some box that was the first 8 lessons for $40, and it came
with a coupon to buy the full 30 for $150. And since sodans
can do math, that's obviously better than paying the
full $300. -bz |
| 2005/7/26-28 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:38834 Activity:nil |
7/26 What is the maxium hard disk size with LBA48? Where can
I find a LBA48 spec? I've looked everywhere.
\_ The upper limit to LBA48 is somewhere on the order of 144
petabytes, or 144000 million gigs. In other words, there's no
need to every worry about geometry sized limitations according
to the spec.
\_ No one will ever need more than 64k of RAM.
\_ Well, actually, you might be right. The complete
archived internet contains about 1 Petabyte of data,
so on a simple linear extrapolation an LBA48 drive that
contains a 144 petabyte drive the would run out of disk
space in about 150 years. I'm not quite sure if the
web is expanding or not or if that expansion is linear
or geometric, I would assume the latter, so it may only
last for say 25 years.
\_ If we're talking about the same thing, it's 2^37 bytes, AKA 128GiB
aka 137GB.
\_ No, you're wrong. |
| 2005/7/26-8/19 [Computer/SW/Unix, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:38832 Activity:nil |
7/26 Root will be moving office home directories to the new file server
this Friday, and soda home directories this Saturday. Expect
downtime, I've gotta rsync off of TDA: the slowest disk on the face
of the earth. - jvarga
\_ Home dir move postponed pending some serious issues with keg and
new soda. - jvarga
\_ Home dir move complete. |
| 2005/7/25-27 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:38815 Activity:nil |
7/25 If I try to make a SATA hardware RAID-5 computer, and keep it
relatively quiet, is that just a bad idea? I'm thinking of a file
server that can do light duty as a home theater PC, so it can't be too
loud. I also haven't tried any SATA RAID-5 controllers so I'm curious
about their quality.
\_ I have an Adaptec 7810 8-port controller in an Antec P160 case
with an Arctic 120mm fan and a mid-range Arctic PSU. It's not too
noisy; with a bit of insulation and some more investment in fans
I could probably get the noise level down even further. The only
thing that kind of weirds me out about it is FreeBSD bitching about
an incorrect array geometry on install, without me really having any
way to find out the correct geometry from the controller bios, but
it's been running without a hitch for 2-3 weeks now. You might
consider getting a separate VIA-based box from something like
http://mini-itx.com as your theater system, or depending on your budget,
invest in a Zalman TN1500 case. I'm booting from the array, btw
(no space for internal boot device.) -John |
| 2005/7/24-26 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:38798 Activity:nil |
7/24 There was a talk a few months ago that disk quotas would be
increased. Does this have any relation to the talk in the
official motd?
\_ Relation: yes. Every server except screwdriver is getting love.
Scotch was the first step, then comes moving homedirs over to keg,
then finally the main soda move. - jvarga |
| 2005/7/14-16 [Computer/SW/Security, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:38619 Activity:moderate |
7/14 Anybody upgrade to PGP desktop 9.0? I'm wondering how the
"Whole Disk" encryption is working out. Comments would be
appreciated. Thanks.
\_ I would also appreciate if anyone could give any feedback
on this. We are thinking about using it as an encryption
system where multiple users need access to the files.
-mrauser
\_ Go to class, mrauser. - jvarga
\_ Why? Are you hiding porn from Cisco's tough anti-porn initiatives?
\_ I consider it the ultimate crime to hide porn on any server I
administer. If you have pr0n on soda, you must make it publicly
accessible or face my wrath. Pr0n is a glorious resource that
should be shared freely with all who seek it. To summarize: no
hiding porn! - jvarga
\_ Addenum: if I have to su to get to it, you're making me do
too much work. - jvarga
\_ I vote jvarga as the most humorous admin EVER!!!
\_ I may have a backup of the j-pr0n archive lying around (from
around the same time as safari, I think.) Let me know if you
want this magnificent piece of CSUA history. -John
\_ upgrading to 9.0 broke a lot of stuff. we downgraded back to
8.x. |
| 2005/7/12-14 [Finance/Banking, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:38558 Activity:nil |
7/12 Is it just me or it seems the quality of entries in CDDB sucks lately?
For example, I stick in a CD and the name of the song and artist
would reverse, pop/classical/blues would get falsely categorized,
and other things?
\_ On a related note, is there a place I can look up ISRC album
codes? All my Chinese p1r8 CDs from the Burmese flea market have
them, but none of the "legit" gwailo ones do... -John
them, but none of the "legit" gwailo ones do... -Joh |
| 2005/7/7-11 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:38466 Activity:nil |
7/7 So my old first gen Apex 600 dvd player is starting to show its age.
It has served me well over the years. What the new "cool" dvd
player to get? Region Unlock and ability to play DVD-R is at the
top of the requirement. Thanks.
\_ when was apex ever "cool"?
\_ Any dvd player that has the "you should not be here" menu
is cool.
For OP - if you don't mind mod'ing, I'd say go w/ an xbox.
\_ It was the first well known dvd player in US to play every media
you throw at it and can disable region encoding and macrovision
right from the secret menu. It sold out at most Circuit Cities
when the word got out and had weeks-worth of waitlist. It
practically created the hobby of modding set-top dvd players.
\_ Go to http://videohelp.com, click on DVD Players, Order by Rating, select
options you want, click Search, identify the ones with lots of
reviews. E.g., the Philips DVP642 (available on Amazon for $63)
supports DivX, progressive scanning, can be region-hacked by
pressing buttons on the remote, and has lots of positive reviews.
On the other hand, if you search for DivX + progressive + DVI/HDMI
output, you only get 7 hits. Fun.
\_ Of course the Philips DVP642 has a crappy remote, can't fast
forward faster than 8x IIRC, and barfs on many DivX files. I
returned it within 24 hours of buying it.
\_ What do you have now?
\_ An old AIWA that needs to be replaced. But its remote is
fantastic and I can't find anything else I like.
\_ I'm currently thinking about getting this:
http://tinyurl.com/8kjhc (amazon.com) |
| 2005/6/30-7/4 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:38376 Activity:nil |
6/30 Does anyone have experience with using a 2nd HDD in a laptop as a
replacement for the CD/DVD module? How big is the effect on battery
life? Does power managment work for the 2nd drive? |
| 2005/6/29-30 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:38365 Activity:low |
6/29 Anyone tried using PATA and SATA drives in the same linux box?
I've tried it twice, once with fedora core 2 and once with debian
(both times with a 2.6 kernel) and in both cases the PATA drive(s)
were REALLY slow (like 3 MB/sec read time). Any ideas what I should
do? (other than "don't mix and match") -crebbs
\_ Have you verified that it's the mixing in SATA that causes the
slowdown? Have you tried running it w/o the SATA?
\_ indeed. On one box I installed just with the PATA drive, ran
an hdparm got something like 56 MB/Sec read time, shutdown
plugged in a SATA drive, booted back up and got 3 MB/Sec on hda
the new sda drive was plenty fast though.
all (u)dma settings stayed the same (as one would expect)
on hda, but it just was WAY slower. -crebbs
\_ funny, though, if i install with the sata in, it sees all
drives as sdx devices and seems to be o.k. -crebbs
\_ Are the SATA and PATA controllers sharing an IRQ? Maybe
the SATA controller is sending an interrupt too aggresively? |
| 2005/6/29-30 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:38358 Activity:nil |
6/30 I have an old Apple SCSI HDD and I want to make an image of the
entire disk. What's the easiest way (in linux) to mount particular
partitions from the image without modifying the image file?
\_ I'm not aware of mounting a specific partition within a disk
image in linux. It'd be much easier to just make the image of
each partition to begin with. |
| 2005/6/26-28 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:38304 Activity:nil |
6/26 How can I definitively tell the difference between a pressed
pirate CD and a pirate CD-R with a nicely done label?
\_ The pressed CD will be a pressed CD. The CD-R will be a CD-R. Look
at a CD vs. a CD-R (not the label side). If you can't tell the
difference, try again. |
| 2005/6/20-23 [Computer/Networking, Computer/HW/Drives, Computer/HW/Memory] UID:38215 Activity:nil |
6/20 I'm having problems transfering pics between my hard drive
and the memory card. Soemtimes it works, sometimes it gives
I/O error or other error messages. Is the problem likely due to a
corrupt memory card, the cable I'm using, or something inside my
computer?
\_ Though the motd may often seem prescient, you might have better
luck debugging this yourself by testing the components separately,
and seeing if any one component causes the errors to recur. -dans |
| 2005/6/19-20 [Computer/Companies/Apple, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:38193 Activity:nil |
6/19 I'm going to upgrade to Tiger, and I'll be backing up all my files
to do a fresh install. What is the best way (if there is a way) to
back up all my iPhoto images and then bring them into Tiger, still
in their original albums, subalbums, etc. Will a simple export and
import accomplish this? Thanks.
\_ I installed Tiger on a new HD, then I hooked up my old HD and
copied the iPhoto library over. This seemed to work.
\_ Thanks, but unfortunately I'll be installing Tiger onto
the same drive that currently has the old OS.
\_ copy your entire Pictures directory onto another
drive.
\_ I backed my dad's iPhoto library onto dvd using toast
and then copied it back over and it seemed to work okay.
If your library is bigger than 4 gb this won't work
though. |
| 2005/6/16-18 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:38152 Activity:nil |
6/16 I've been hearing a lot about something called a perpendicular
hard drive, but I can't seem to figure out what the big deal
is? Anyone know why these drives are interesting (as compared
w/ regular hds)?
\_ Perpendicular recording. Imagine that a regular HDD has the bits
represented by lots of coins flipped to heads or tails, laid out in
rings on a platter. Now imagine if you could stand the coins on
edge and still read what direction heads and tails are. You can
pack the coins in a much higher density. The coins in this example
represent magnetic domains in a hard drive.
\_ ic, thanks
\_ I've heard this before, I understand they've been
researching this for 20 years or something. Is it really
viable?
\_ Nevermind, I guess Seagate and Hitachi came up with a way
to do it.
\_ Wow. That slipped under my radar. Where's /. poster guy?
\_ Here's a fun flash animation (you really need sound)
http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/research/recording_head
/pr/PerpendicularAnimation.html |
| 2005/6/8-9 [Computer/HW/Memory, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:38037 Activity:low |
6/8 Did anyone end up buying a dell after the discussion on noise
level last month? How did it turn out? (my company is getting
some, and I'd prefer them to be quiet)
http://csua.com/?entry=37704
\_ Buy a Dell and you support Michael Bolton, Christians, the War
in Iraq, more borrowing and Deficit, more oil drilling, more
Corporate power (Enron), and the end of diversity.
\_ I'm Michael Bolton's biggest fan. I own his entire collection!
His cover of "Sitting On the Dock the Bay" was the best ever!
\_ I bought a Dell and I support a nice, reliable server with
marginally acceptable Eastern European support but a good
raid controller. -John |
| 2005/6/2-3 [Computer/HW/Memory, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:37946 Activity:nil |
6/2 The ultimate ram disk:
http://tinyurl.com/dcenq (infoworld.com) |
| 2005/5/28-31 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:37875 Activity:kinda low |
5/28 How can I get my disk quota increased? I would be willing to pay.
I was paying yahoo like $20/year for 2Gigs. That's $1/year/100 Megs.
I'd gladly pay at least twice that rate for one or two hundred
Megs on csua.
\_ Hold up for new soda, which SHOULD, FUCKING DAMMIT, be done and
live this summer (don't hold me to this, but I want this done and
off my plate as much as you all want it to go live). I *think* the
quotas will be around 100MB for home dirs. - jvarga
\_ It has been suggested that a betting pool be started on the
finish date of this project. - jvarga
\_ Sweet! You guys ROCK!! -mice
\_ Seconded. Well played. -John
\_ Is the CSUA in need of hardware? What do we need most? Disk? Let
me know, and I may be able to conjure some goodies up from the
non-profit I work for. -dans
\_ i think the last thing soda would need is 1000 10-GB hard drives |
| 2005/5/26 [Computer/SW/OS/VM, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:37841 Activity:very high |
5/26 Is it possible to create an image file from 5.25" or 3.5" drive?
I'd like to create images of all of my 80s/90s diskettes, with
games like Star Control II, King's Quest, etc and see if they
play on VMWare or some emulator.
\_ http://ntrawrite.sourceforge.net
\_ I remember playing old 8088 (4.77Mhz) games on a 80386 (33Mhz)
computer and the difference was amazing. Some old games didn't
have speed controls built in and were actually unplayable. I
just can't imagine playing them on a 4Ghz (4000Mhz) computer.
\- Yes, you had to have jedi reflexes to play things like
8088 defender or stargate on the machines that were
.5-1 order of mag faster. It was good training.
\_ DOSBox lets you slow things down. There also are TSRs that
would insert a lot of no-ops everywhere.
\_ Whoa! Archon (1984) is supported!!! Now if only they'd tell
you how to rip from protected Archon disk to DOSBox...
\_ Just go download it.
http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?gameid=1784
http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?name=Archon+Ultra
\_ Image or EXE?
\_ http://chitchat.at.infoseek.co.jp/vmware/vfd.html
Create an image from a floppy, mount a virtual floppy (now that
they're going away), etc.
\_ Yes: dd if=/dev/fd0 of=./floppy.image
\_ IBM used to have a utility called DSKIMAGE around 1986-87. I just
searched the web and saw that Win Server 2003 has a utility with the
same name. |
| 2005/5/23-26 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:37803 Activity:nil |
5/23 Does WinXP or Win2000 have a built-in "take a screenshot" function?
\_ PrtScn copies whole screen to clipboard as BMP.
Alt-PrtScn copies currently focused window.
Interestingly it doesn't work with DVDs.
\_ Probably your DVDs are being played using hardware overlay and
that is bypassing Window's regular window-drawing system. Try
to go into your DVD software and disable hardware overlay (though
you'll take a perfomance hit).
\_ Not just DVDs. Any video you play that uses hardware
acceleration and a video overlay.
\_ Thanks. |
| 2005/5/20-23 [Computer/SW/OS/OsX, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:37786 Activity:nil |
5/20 Reading tech support stories. This page is by far the funniest
I've seen yet.
http://rinkworks.com/stupid/cs_smoke.shtml
\_ Heh.
* Customer: "Hi. I have a Macintosh. I had a disk that I wanted to
put in the computer, but it wouldn't go, so I pushed harder, and
it wouldn't go, so I pushed REALLY hard, and now it's making funny
noises. I think there was a disk in there already."
* Tech Support: "Unplug the computer, now."
* Customer: "I don't want to lose my paper!"
* Tech Support: "Unplug the computer right now. Your paper is lost.
Your floppy drive is lost. If you're lucky the Mac will be OK.
Unplug it now."
* Customer: "But I don't want to lose my paper!"
After a few more repetitions of this, I heard someone, presumably the
client's roommate, scream. Then I heard the dorm fire alarm go off in
the background. Those things are awful loud, but she didn't seem
interested in unplugging the computer, fleeing the fire in her room,
or anything else other than arguing with me. Figuring I was doing her
a favor, I hung up. |
| 2005/5/20-23 [Consumer, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:37779 Activity:nil |
5/20 DO NOT buy a Hitachi HD!!! Their return procedure sucks. I returned
my drive 2 wks ago and they still haven't shipped my replacement.
Service is just abysmal. FUCK HITACHI!!!
\_ Just wait. I remember it took a couple weeks from the day
I dropped it off at the post office.
\_ SEVERAL WEEKS? Western Digital gives you a new one the next day,
even before you returned the defective one (provided that you
give them a credit card). If you return the defective one within
30 days they won't charge your card. It's called the Advanced
RMA. Face it. Hitachi sucks.
\_ Well, Hitachi RMA sucks, in terms of taking as long as
four weeks ("14 business days" + shipping). But I still
trust Hitachi most in terms of reliability. The
difference may not be that great for desktop drives, but
Hitachi/IBM makes superior notebook drives. |
| 2005/5/19-21 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:37770 Activity:kinda low |
5/19 Is a 77GB disk considered big three years ago? I just realized that
one of the machines I got three years ago at work has a 77GB disk, ten
times as big as what are on the other machines at work I got around
the same time.
\_ I've never seen a 77GB drive. Do you mean 80GB or 74GB SCSI?
\_ I dunno but 7.7GB was definitely really, really tiny.
\_ I've never seen a 77GB drive. Do you mean 80GB (77GiB)?
80GB for mid-2002 sounds on the mid-high end. Like it would be
large but a relatively good price/GB.
\_ Actually, the label on the disk says 82.3GB. Disk Management in
XP says it's 76.68GB with no unallocated or reserved space. It's
an IBM Deskstar disk.
\_ It was considered a larger size 3 years ago, but we already were
utilizing 60 gig drives on a regular basis in 2001. So no, it's
\_ You sound smart using... i mean... utilizing big words like this!
\_ This reminds me of the radio commercial that says people are
judged by their vocabulary.
nothing unusual.
\_ It is considered science fiction when I had my first computer.
\_ Ok, so let's say you had 77GB back in 1990 (yes I'm serious), and
P4 and all that power on your desktop. How much productive would
you have been relative to everyone else? And let's forward to 2005
and suppose you had 100TB of disk space and 100GHgz of Pentium XXX,
how much more productive would you be?
\_ Depends on what you do for a living? If you're a farmer then
not much. If you're a cosmologist, oceanographer, atmospheric
scientist, big oil company, or geneticist then perhaps a lot. |
| 2005/5/18-19 [Computer/SW/Apps/Media, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:37730 Activity:nil |
5/17 My second data backup question. I am looking for a backup media I can
take off-site. I'll repeat that we've found the failure rate backing up
to CD unacceptable. She wants to go with an Iomega product but I was
wondering if people have had good/bad experience with these,
reliability-wise and if they have better suggestions. I have about
$400 for this.
\_ hard drive in a USB or Firewire external enclosure?
\_ Thanks. I'm actually looking for something I could casually take
to work and expect to survive a few bumps. I think it's between
Iomega REV And tape right now. Tape is cheaper. REV is faster.
I have no data on comparable reliability.
\_ "click of death" Iomega is still in business? And you don't
assume their reliability sucks from the start?
\_ 2.5" enclosure with hard drive doesn't need a power
adapter -- all you need is a USB cable. It will survive
fine when carrying to work. FYI, the Hitachi 5K100 was
released recently and has excellent shock characteristics.
Search http://newegg.com or http://zipzoomfly.com for the 5K100, and
newegg for the enclosure.
What do I do? I keep a 3.5" enclosure (AMS Venus DS3 FireWire
+ USB) with 250GB drive at work and run Acronis True Image
daily to make a full disk backup of my notebook over FireWire
(40GB = 40 minutes); the image is password-protected, and the
software is smart enough so that I can continue working in
Windoze while it's backing up. (The image is a snapshot
of the drive at the beginning of the imaging process.)
I take my notebook home and every once in a while repeat
the same backup to a 2.5" enclosure with the 80GB 5K100 at
home.
If you use FireWire you usually need to bring the AC power
adapter for the 2.5" enclosure since (x86) notebooks usually
only have the small (unpowered) 4-pin FireWire port; and USB
2.0 Hi-Speed throughput is ~ 70% of FireWire for the 2.5"
enclosures I've seen.
If anyone knows a 2.5" USB+FireWire enclosure that can
operate over USB at 17 MB/s, please let me know. (Yes, I
have an enclosure that operates that fast with FireWire.)
\_ Well, I have exactly one 2.5" enclosure and can't detect
the difference between FW and USB transfers. |
| 2005/5/17-19 [Computer/HW/Display, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:37722 Activity:nil |
5/17 To the person who was looking for a Dell 20.1 widescreen before:
http://tinyurl.com/crzhu $397. |
| 2005/5/16-17 [Computer/HW/CPU, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:37704 Activity:moderate |
5/16 I am looking for recommendations for a how-to-assemble-one's-own-
computer-book. I would just buy a Dell but I want something quiet.
The system will run XP and SuSE. -- ulysses
\_ Buy Dell, donate to Republicans. It's as simple as that.
\_ Is that worth it? One standalone copy of XP is so expensive.
\_ Worth it? Probably not. Fun and instructive, yes. Also you
don't have to pay full retail for XP. -!op
\_ My Dell is very quiet.
\_ My Dell is very noisy (the power supply) and the
replacement from Dell is not much better either. I hate
the fact that I cannot put in a standard ultra-quiet
power supply because it won't fit Dell's propretary
case!! I am never getting a Dell computer again.
\_ Who sells cheap standard PCs? Tiger Direct?
\_ Tiger Direct? Only if you take their rebates into account,
and that might not be an entirely wise thing.
\_ I build my own now. I enjoy doing it and once
every few years gives me the opportunity to be
informed about the latest PC building trend. There
are tons of places that sells standard PCs.
\_ Care to recommend one?
\_ My Dell dual Xeon at work is noisy, but my home machine is
silent. I can't hear the fan or hard drive at all. It was a
Dimension 4600.
\_ The Dell OptiPlex GX280 (Small Business only) is reviewed by
http://cnet.com as very quiet, due to its new BTX case design (which
funnels air down a central corridor as my Geek Squad friend
tells me). http://csua.org/u/c2w
Our office is buying them, but I'm too lazy to walk over and check
how loud they are. These are standard Dell Small Business desktops
as of ~ half a year ago. Don't get the Small Form Factor version,
which only has 2 DIMM slots (I would get the Mini Tower).
Don't get any Pentium 4 above 3.2 GHz.
\_ The Precision series is pretty quiet. In spite of the above
advice, the desktop is even quieter than the minitower.
\_ Do you stand the Desktop on its side like in the picture?
How do you insert CD-ROMs? The Precision series is a
"workstation" series right?
\_ You can stand it vertically with a plastic stand you
order or use it horizontally. Yes, Precision is the
workstation series. Like someone else noted, the Xeon
systems are loud. So it would be the 3x0 series which
is quiet.
\_ And the Dimension 4600's. Just watch http://slickdeals.net for
a good deal to come up.
\_ http://endpcnoise.com has great parts and complete custom systems.
\_ Has anyone used "Zalman TNN-500AF Noiseless Case" at $1200? Is
it worth the price? |
| 2005/5/16-17 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:37702 Activity:nil |
5/16 Netgear Storage Central, at $129 it seems like a good deal
for a home network file server:
http://www.livedigitally.com/?p=166
\_ Google NSLU2. It runs Linux, I have one and I spool media to
my Roku audio player a-la:
http://www.fibiger.org/musicserver/nslu2-mtdaapd-howto.html
It also acts fine as NAS. The advantage over the NetGear is
that it's a Linux server. The downside is you supply your own
external USB drives. -ax
\_ Google NSLU2. It runs Linux, I have one and I spool media to my
Roku audio player a-la:
http://www.fibiger.org/musicserver/nslu2-mtdaapd-howto.html
It also acts fine as NAS. The advantage over the NetGear is that
it's a Linux server. The downside is you supply your own
external USB drives. -ax
\_ I wanted to avoid externa usb/fw drives, but this sounds
pretty cool. |
| 2005/5/11-12 [Consumer/Audio, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:37625 Activity:nil |
5/11 I'd like to be able to use my mp3 player as a rescue os disk as well.
It shows up as USB HD on most OS. The mp3 player itself works fine
as long as I store all of the music on the first vfat partition. I'd
like to be able to either install linux onto the HD or store various
ISO images on the HD and have it boot from it, with menu, so I can
can select different images. Anyone know of such method?
\_ So, you want to boot Linux from USB-mounted disk, which happens
to be an MP3 player?
\_ Yes, with an added requirement that it can also boot iso images
stored on a partition. |
| 2005/5/9-11 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:37579 Activity:kinda low |
5/8 Poll. If you even had to return a HD, what was your experience like?
\_ Hitachi: Regular RMA, No advanced RMA, test suite sucks
\_ WD: Had 2 consecutive failures (same model) in 6 months, the RMA
website is really good, has tracking and advanced RMA. Advanced RMA
requires you putting in credit card number so that if you don't
return the defective drive in 30 days they'll charge you. It's not
the most reliable drive, but the return process is excellent.
\_ Maxtor: WEB SITE IS HORRIBLE! Keeps getting JSP error. They might
have fixed it though.
\_Never had a problem with Maxtor.
\_ Western Digital: awesome. Dell: awesome. Conner: awesome.
\_ Conner? Eh???
\_ back in the day.
\_ Seagate: not bad! You have to pay for shipping.
\_ WD, Seagate - No problems. Maxtor - took a long time but I
got a new drive back (and then promptly sold it).
\_ IBM/Hitachi x 2: Punched in serial number in web site, received
RMA #, mailed back drive, received refurbished drive which works
fine. Only hard part was ordering the special boxes since they say
they'll void the exchange if you don't use approved padding.
\_ Did you say REFURBISHED? Does the HD say that? I was hoping to
eBay mine, now this totally ruins the plan. I bought a Seagate
2.5" (w/5 year warranty) to replace my default Hitachi drive.
\_ Yes, the refurbished drive isn't as shiny and it comes with
an orange "reconditioned" sticker or somesuch on it. |
| 2005/5/6-9 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:37561 Activity:nil |
5/6 What do you people think of sticking four 250GB IDE Hitachi drives
in a single PC and calling that the backup server for 8 people (each
person gets 125GB for 2 sets of notebook images and other assorted
files).
I do know that SCSI is built for this and IDE is a hack-job /
consumer-grade.
I know you lose throughput by sticking two drives on the same IDE cable
because of the master/slave issue, especially if they are both being
accessed at the same time.
I am assuming if an individual drive gets toasted we just replace the
drive and tell everyone to re-backup (I've heard too many stories of
both drives in a RAID getting toasted anyway). I am assuming if the
computer fries then we just get a new computer and stick in all the
drives.
My original plan was to give a 160GB external drive to every employee
with a notebook, but the boss is inquiring about the server option
because he wants anyone who steals information from the company to
commit more obviously illegal acts, and to avoid the "My external
drive was stolen! What's an encryption option?" problems.
Yes, I know: YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR. The question is:
Is what I get "enough" / workable? Thanks.
\_ Get SATA with a decent raid controller. If it's not relevant for
real time data access your main priority is being able to lose
one drive and not lose data. Do hot standby if you need to be
able to continue without rebooting, although $+ -John
\_ just make sure you are not running Solaris !!!
\_ Fair enough--it sounded like he wanted something reasonably
elegantly improvised, hence my assumption of Linux/*BSD.
\- what i have done because i dont trust the institutional backup
people is to write a little program wich basically reads from
an ssh inbound and dd's into a file. access is controled via
ssk keys. so you can do something like
"tar,ufsdump,cat importantfile | ssh locker@foo dump <label>"
which then creates a file at
server:/locker/hosts/client/<datestamp>label" ... so basically you
are providing a bitstore which is agnostic about the dump format
so people can write their own "backup clients" and have their
own backup policies. it has worked pretty well for say 50-60
machines and netapps. quite a cheep solution with a 3ware raid.--psb
\_ I agree with John, go with SATA, significantly more bang for the
buck performance-wise vs. IDE, easier to expand if you ever want
more than eight drives, and still way cheaper than SCSI. I
actually set up something similar for a company I used to work for,
and its still humming along happily several years later. For this
sort of thing, I actually prefer to use Linux or BSD software raid,
since it's one less piece of hardware in the mix that can fail, and
cpu cycles are cheap. -dans |
| 2005/5/5-9 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:37545 Activity:low |
5/5 I have a Hitachi/IBM Travelstar 80G HD that occasionally makes loud
clicking noise unrelated to head seek. Today while moving a 150M file
I started hearing that clicking noise again, and 1 min later my
computer freezes. I rebooted, tried copying other files and it's fine
and went back to the same file, and it freezes again. Help?
\_ Download the diagnostic from the http://hgst.com web site.
You may be able to query S.M.A.R.T. data, but you probably need
to replace the drive.
A controlled 2 second sound every 15-30 minutes of idle is normal
though for new Hitachis.
\_ Your drive has become defective and will fail "soon". Move all
data to working drive ASAP.
Go to the http://hgst.com web site and enter in your HD serial number to
determine if it is still in warranty. If so, register for RMA and
return problem drive.
\_ I went to the Hitachi web site and they refused to give me a RMA
until I run their diagnostic tools which returns a specific error
code they want. Unfortunately my laptop has no
floppy disk so I had to take it out, buy a 2.5" to 3.5" IDE adapter
and boot from there. However, their tool SUCKS because it would
code they want. Unfortunately my laptop has no floppy disk so I
had to take it out, buy a 2.5" to 3.5" IDE adapter and boot from
my desktop. However, their tool SUCKS because it would
exit for no reason. After dicking around for 2 hours I found out
that unplugging my CD-ROM made it go through. Then, the sucky tool
took 2 hours to scan the disk, then went to the repair mode, which
did the EXACT SAME redundant scan for repair. After 3 hours, it
gave up and finally gave me an error code. I went back to the
Hitachi web site, put in the code, and they said they will mail me
a repaired drive AFTER I send mine in, in 3 weeks. There's no
"Advanced RMA" like Western Digital, where they send you a new
HD before they received yours. FUCK HITACHI/IBM DRIVES. FUCK THEIR
SUCKY TOOLS AND SUPPORT.
SUCKY TOOLS AND SUPPORT. -op
SUCKY TOOLS AND SUPPORT. -op P.S. http://www.mctubster.com/hd.html |
| 2005/5/3-4 [Computer/HW/Laptop, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:37464 Activity:low |
5/3 http://tinyurl.com/6999d Dell 20.1" monitor for only $561. WSXGA+ resolution (1680 x 1050). Good deal? \_ 20" monitor at that low resolution sounds awful to me. \_ That's not low, and the monitor is pretty good. I've got two. What I wonder is why most people care about a widescreen instead of the 2001FP. \_ I used both, I like the wide screen much better for a variety of reasons. In fact, I can hardly think of any reason to ever use 4:3 again. -chiry \_ Actually, a 20" at any higher resolution is probably aweful to use because the pixels are too small to be viewed comfortably. Yes you can increase your font, but at least on Windows not everything sizes up nicely, such as web pages. What size and resolution do you currently use? \_ My laptop is SXGA (1400x1050) and I use it 90 degrees so that I don't have to scroll to the bottom as often. Also it is a natural size to read 2 column technical PDFs, which I do most of the time. \_ On its side? Oh gawd. \_ i bought the monitor a month or so ago for $505+tax. since then i've seen deals selling it for ~$425+tax. i like it because it has composite and s-video hookups. Also, what resolution do you expect on a 20" monitor? Apple's 20" display has the same res. \_ Can I plug this into my Mac Mini? \_ I should've bought it when it was on sale for $380 a few weeks ago! \_ Dont buy it. Wait. I know someone with it, the dimensions suck. Wait for price to come down on a more traditional dimensions 1600x1200 or 1920x Wait for price to come down on a more traditional dimensions 1600x1200 or 1920x \_ I say no at that price. That's not a particularly rare deal. And I got that monitor and returned it... I was not impressed with it. I think it's better to aim for a bit bigger one. I'm pretty picky about LCDs though. \_ No, not a good deal. It has been significantly cheaper. |
| 2005/5/2-4 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:37459 Activity:kinda low |
5/2 To silent PC builders, make sure your HD is cool! You can download
a program that checks for the temperature, here:
http://www.quietpcusa.com/acb/showdetl.cfm?&DID=8&Product_ID=198&CATID=1
Click on "Click here to download DTemp"
\_ Interesting. On my desktop with good airflow, my Western Digital
is 37C, and my Maxtor is 28C. My laptop (with Hitachi HD) is 47C.
Using a laptop fan blower cools it by 1-2C. What about you guys?
\_ My Hitachi 7200rpm 60GB (7K60) notebook HD was between 42 and
47 today.
\_ Similar HD at ~36-37C without a pad cooler, around 35C with a
cooler.
\_ not sure how accurate smart data is... my thinkpad is reporting
37 C for the drive and the ambiant temp here is 37.7 C if
I can believe http://weather.com. I am running linux w/ laptop mode
so maybe I was lucky and the drive has been suspended for a
long while...
\_ INTERESTING. My ambient temperature is 30C and my Western
Digital Caviar 200G drive says 27C. Either WD drives are
really really cool, or they suck.
\_ this doesn't support external (usb2.0) drives, right? :(
\_ I tried it yesterday, didn't work for me on FireWire.
\_ As I was scanning through the motd, I saw 36-37C and thought hey ho,
this is going to be good, then I realized you weren't talking about
breasts. -ax
\_ hahahaha you are funny ax! LEARN TO INDENT. |
| 2005/4/29-30 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:37410 Activity:nil |
4/28 To the guy who answered my question about FreeBSD/RAID--thanks.
I'm not actually booting off the RAID array--was just wondering if
it's possible to add disks later if I intend to do so. Question
answered though (haven't played with PC RAID before.) -John
\_ You're welcome. |
| 2005/4/28 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:37389 Activity:kinda low |
4/28 Almighty MOTD: I have a FreeBSD 5.3-R box running on an Adaptec 2810
raid controller--the setup consists of one big raid-5 setup using 4
disks on an 8-port controller. Can I just add another 4 drives to
this controller into the same raid-5 array? Can FreeBSD figure out
the larger array? -John
\_ Yes, just add in the disks, reconfigure the controller, and reformat
from the OS.
\_ Ergh, what if this is my boot partition? -John
\_ Why the fuck did you make your RAID the boot partition??
If it is, you're hozed. You'll need to reinstall the system
from scratch in order to add disks instead of doing a backup
of your RAID before upgrading.
\_ #l |
| 2005/4/27-28 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:37388 Activity:nil |
4/27 Hi, I can't seem to find a FREE (no filesize limit) tool that rips
CD/DVD into an ISO file. I'm looking at http://download.com. Is this the
right place to look? Can somebody point me to such a tool if it
exists? Thanks.
\_ Google for discdump.
\_ for movie DVD, use DVD Decrypt.
\_ http://csua.com/?entry=35868
http://csua.com/?entry=26665 |
| 2005/4/27-28 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:37383 Activity:moderate |
4/27 I am seeking data backup suggestion for my wife's computer. We are
talking about 4G and we have about $400 to play with. A flash drive?
A standalone RAID box? A Zipdrive. What says the mighty motd?
-- ulysses
\_ If it's just 4G, then back it up to DVD. Plextor/TY media. -chiry
\_ We have found CDs and DVDs to be an unreliable means for
backing up data. YMMV and thanks for the input. -- ulysses
\_ external HD and keep the external HD far away from your computer
\_ Yes, just buy a USB drive for like $150.
\- external drive + gtar/rsync. at 4gb, i would probably not
do incrementals. --psb
\_ whether you need incrementals depends on what you're
trying to protect against, not how much data you have. -tom
\_ Is there a windows equiv to rsync? Her computer runs
XP and that ain't something I can change. Thanks for the
suggestion. I was already leaning towards an external
drive. -- ulysses
\_ get cygwin's rsync.
\_ Press the button, it backs up everything on C:
http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144382
If you lose a hard drive partition, you need to re-install, but
at least you can copy files over one-by-one.
If you want to make disk images while still in Windoze:
http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E1681279691SF
You can also use the external drive with the software above.
On my boss's T42 notebook, it did 20 GB in 17 minutes, which is kind
of unbelieveable.
If you have USB 1.1, it'll be 1 MB/s.
\_ whether you need incrementals depends on what you're
trying to protect against, not how much data you have. -tom
\_ My god, somebody on the motd actually answered the actual
question with useful information. You will certainly be punished. |
| 2005/4/21-22 [Computer/HW/Drives, Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:37304 Activity:nil |
4/21 Is it possible to boot from an external Firewire or USB drive? I'd
like to install Windows XP on such a drive and occasionally boot
my SCSI Linux box into Windows from it.
\_ depends on your hardware. -tom
\_ What is the requirement in the hardware?
\_ If your BIOS allows it, then yes. If not, then no.
\_ Do we have to go through this every week?
\_ "After many failed attempts and investigation, I believe Windows XP
does not support booting off of a USB drive no matter how much
wishful thinking" [Dec 15 2004]
http://www.ehomeupgrade.com/entry/425/how-to_boot_windows
Lots of no, sorry, nope posts: [Apr 5 2005]
http://csua.org/u/bsy |
| 2005/4/20-21 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:37275 Activity:low |
4/19 I went to Fry's today and saw a 400GB HD by Seagate, with 5 years
warranty!!! That is just amazing. By the way, what is the current MB
limitation on size? I remember back in the 90s I had to get special
HD card to go above 4G, and then in the late 90s a special card to
go above 80G. I'm just wondering what the current limitation is.
\_ Why would there be a limitation? Granted, I always buy SCSI.
BTW, 5 year warranty is standard. I am going to guess that you
went to Fry's today and it got you all excited, huh? Calm down.
\_ 5 years is not even close to standard, for IDE anyway.
\_ I wouldn't know about IDE crap.
\_ A year or 2 ago you could buy motherboards with a 137GB
limitation (128*2^30bytes). Except for a few external enclosures,
you shouldn't have to worry about it. |
| 2005/4/13-15 [Computer/HW/Laptop, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:37181 Activity:nil |
4/13 I have 3 250G HDs with lots of videos in my desktop and I'd like to
make them portable and easily mountable for my laptop. Do you guys
recommend a detacheable IDE/USB2 drawer thingie, and if so, what kind
do you guys use? -ok thx
\_ $38 http://csua.org/u/b4x
Easy to slide open and stick in a new drive. Video review:
http://www.3dgameman.com/vr/ams/venus_ds/video_review_03.html
\_ What OS? |
| 2005/4/11-14 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:37147 Activity:nil |
4/11 I have a ripped DVD that I would like to view without having to
go through the bother of burning it to DVD, what is the easiest
way to do this? (windows or linux or both)
\_ For windows use Daemon Tools: http://csua.org/u/bnj
--dbushong
\_ Rip it as an ISO image and then mount it with Daemon Tools.
\_ PowerDVD lets you do it.
\_ PowerDVD, WinDVD, allows you to "open DVD from file" on your HD.
\_ mplayer and vlc used to let you play the vobs directly |
| 2005/4/10-14 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:37135 Activity:nil |
4/10 My iPod prefetches a few songs from the HD, buffers them into memory,
and then shuts down the HD to save power. If possible, how do I do the
same thing on my iTunes where I pre-declare non OS swapped mem so that
I can save power on my notebook? -ok thx
\_ <crickets chirping>
\_ This might work for you on OS X:
1. In System Preferences->Energy Saver, click 'Put HD to sleep
when possible'
2. Create and mount a ramdisk:
$ hdid -nomount ram://[2 * 1024 * disk size in mb]
/dev/disk5 [Note this may be different]
$ diskutil eraseDisk HFS+ RAMDISK disk5 [Use the dev hdid made]
Started erase on disk disk5
Creating Partition Map
5% ..Formatting Disk 100% ..
Finished erase on disk disk5
Finished partitioning on disk disk5
3. Copy your MP3s into the disk called RAMDISK on your desktop
(you can use the finder or cp mp3 /Volumes/RAMDISK)
4. To eject the disk either drag it to the trash or
$ hdiutil detach /dev/disk5
\_ That's a total hack and will only work for small numbers of
files. I think what the OP wants is iTunes to do some disk
caching so it spins up the disk, reads the next X-MB of music,
and then the disk can auto-sleep for 5-10 minutes. BTW I mean
hack as 'horribly inelegant', not 'bad idea'.
\_ I agree this is a total hack and OP probably can't get
more than 256 MB or so worth of MP3s into memory at any
given time (assuming that OP has something like 768MB or
1GB of RAM). However, 256 MB is probably enough space to
fit 2 hrs of mp3s (at 2 mb/min). Parking the hd for 2 hrs
might yeild some battery savings.
If OP wanted to really go nuts he could write himself a
little caching daemon that talked to iTunes every 30 mins
or 1 hrs and determined which mp3s had been heard and
removed them in favor of those mp3s that were likely to
be heard in the future (same album, remaining songs in
play list, &c.).
Personally I think all this is just crazy. What might
save more power is to get a 1GB Kool-Aid Shuffle or USB
thumb drive and stick your mp3s on that. The battery
usage for USB might be less than for running the hd. |
| 2005/4/1-3 [Computer/SW/Apps/Media, Computer/HW/Drives, Computer/Rants] UID:37041 Activity:kinda low |
4/1 Man killed over virtual sword:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4397159.stm
\_ I thought you wrote "Man killed *with* virtual sword".
Now that would be cool.
\_ But he sold it for non-virtual cash, and screwed over the guy who
lent it to him. What an asshole. |
| 2005/4/1-3 [Computer/HW/Laptop, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:37032 Activity:low |
4/1 I'd like to play my favorite EA game on the laptop. However, I
don't have a CD player for my laptop and I'm wondering if it
is possible to mount the CD on my desktop and access it via
wireless. I know that EA has really weird CD protection
schemes, that's why I'm wondering if anyone has successfully
done this. -ok thx
\_ Never tried that, and I suspect it won't work. You can install
VirtualCD or Alcohol 120% on the laptop, then make a SafeDisc-aware
rip of the CD, put the image whereever, and then mount it in the
virtual drive.
\_ Does VirtualCD or Alcohol "simulate" bad sectors or weirdness
in CDs that EA games use for protection? Which one is better?
\_ A120% has never failed to deal with any copy protection I've
encountered on CDs. Daemon Tools also has some good
copy protection emulations. -John
\_ Rip with discdump and then mount the ISO with Daemon Tools.
\_ CDAnywhere is a tool to do this too, mounting a disk image as a
virtual CDrom device. |
| 2005/4/1-2 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:37014 Activity:nil |
3/31 Oh great all knowing motd, what's the deal with CD-R/RW quality and
possible degradation? Does it matter? What's the best value for
bulk purchasing of CD's that won't degrade? Costco? Fry's? Oh,
and ditto for DVD+R's.
\_ Conventional wisdom says to avoid the cheapo bulk ones. Spend a
little more and get Taiyo Yuden manufactured media (basically
look for a Made in Japan label). Brand names don't matter;
the actual media supplier is what matters, and brands often
changes suppliers.
\_ The chemical layer is very important. Better manufacturers will use
a gold dye (best) or a silver dye (good). Less stable are the
blue-green dyes which I believe are cyano-acrylics.
For DVDs there are also good and bad dyes, but I don't remember
which is which.
\_ The TDK cheapos at CostCo have served me well. I put them and a
bunch of Imation disks in a container that held 80 CDs and the
plastic of the container appears to have damaged the CDs. The
Imations were nearly unreadable (some were unreadable). The TDKs
were just fine. |
| 2005/3/29-30 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:36935 Activity:nil |
3/28 How do I know if an external USB 2.0 DVD/CD-R drive will *BOOT*
for my Toshiba M200? According to Toshiba, these are approved, but
what about other brands? How do I tell?
http://www.csd.toshiba.com/cgi-bin/tais/su/su_sc_dtlView.jsp?soid=886254
\_ if you can't get info from the mfr, the only way to know for sure
is to try it. |
| 2005/3/29-30 [Finance/Banking, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:36934 Activity:nil |
3/28 Has anyone tried http://everbank.com for world currency/foreign-CD? Any pros/cons to say? What are some hidden fees that's not on the web site? I don't plan to touch my money for a long time, should I do Multi-Currency Index CDs, WorldCurrency Certificates of Deposit (CDs), or WorldCurrency Deposit Accounts (what's the interest?) Do I HAVE to open up a checking or MM along with these accounts? |
| 2005/3/19-20 [Computer/HW/Drives, Computer/HW/CPU] UID:36772 Activity:high |
3/19 Given the choice between a firewire and USB2.0 connection
(between an external hard drive and my computer), which one is
better and why? Thanks.
\_ Firewire is faster and more robust for that application. USB
is more widely available if you'd ever want to move the disk to
another machine. -tom
\_ Interface-wise, FireWire is better technically speaking, but to
most users they see no difference.
As tom said, you see USB 2.0 on more notebooks and desktops than
FireWire, because Intel p0wnZ dat f00l st3vee j0b5, I mean,
Intel produces mobo chipsets with USB 2.0 on-board as a std feature.
\_ Cool, thanks for the responses.
\_ Firewire. It's peer-to-peer instead of host/client, so you don't
load your CPU while transferring data. You can burn one CD while
ripping another one, etc.
\_ nothing personal, but this is a fine example of the utterly
bizarre, meaningless techno-babble advice often disgorged
on the motd. what happened to the CS in CSUA?
\_ Uhm, the firewire peer to peer connectivity between computers
has nothing to do with how efficiently peripherals functions.
The spec has provisions for peer to peer networking which
would allow for fast grid computing. This doesn't mean you
get higher efficiencies when transferring information to a
CD burner.
\_ http://csua.com/?entry=35792 (specs)
http://csua.com/?entry=12107 (speed)
Also just search for "usb firefire" on Kais Motd |
| 2005/3/13-15 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:36674 Activity:moderate |
3/13 HDD question: ran badblocks (hda1) once: found 1 badblock.
ran it again (hda), found 0 badblocks. The HDD is still
in warranty. If it were yours, would you replace it?
\_ To all potential repliers: Please note the question is primarily
about "how accurate is badblocks if it reports 1 badblock on one
run and 0 on the second". For the obvious example of Windows
stalling on just one sector or reporting any bad sectors at all, I
would schedule that disk to be replaced as soon as possible.
\_ is badblocks a linux tool? I would find a SMART tool such as
smartctl on linux and check the disk status. if it has run low
of block-remapping entries, replace it yesterday.
\_ Thanks. Yes, I used badblocks (-w) on the KNOPPIX CD.
I just ran smartctl in KNOPPIX, and it doesn't appear
to have any block-remapping entries that I can find.
I ran: smartctl -a /dev/hda and noticed that it says
"Warning! SMART Selective Self-Test Log Structure error:
invalid SMART checksum. SMART Selective self-test log data
structire revision number 1." How serious is this error.
BTW, I've ordered a replacement disk from dell. Hope it
was the right thing todo.
\_ sorry it is called Reallocated_Sector_Ct in the
output from -a. I think it is in percent and starts
at 100 for a new, healthy disk. i'm not familiar
with log checksum errors.
\_ It looks like that starts at 0 and goes to 100.
The WORST and VALUE columns are 100.
This RAW_VALUE is 0. That test looks okay.
This SMART stuff is pretty nifty.
\_ hmm, on mine it starts at 100 and goes to zero
when all reallocation entries are in use. if
yours is 100, I have no idea why you have block
errors. cable/controller problems? the disk
should self-correct until it runs out of map
entries. |
| 2005/3/7-8 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:36558 Activity:high |
3/7 What is everyone doing to backup data on their home computers?
\_ cron + ssh + rsync.
\_ I back up my p0rn to soda.
\_ http://csua.com/?entry=36448
http://csua.com/?entry=36437
- jvarga
\_ I have a semifunctional scheme working involving tar.gz, crypto, and
cron'ed web fetches with friends. I'm looking to add something
involving rdiff to send smaller tarballs. This is only for critical
data (just a few gigs) --dbushong
\_ I scp the whole directory tree over to my home account at work
periodically (like three times a year, max). -ausman
\_ rsync to a firewire/IDE enclosure.
\_ I burn it to DVD+R/RW every now and then.
\_ DVD-RW + Toast |
| 2005/3/5-8 [Computer/HW/Memory, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:36543 Activity:low |
3/5 Can a PC boot from external (usb or ieee-1344) hard drives?
\_ did you mean 1394?
\_ depends on your bios support. Quite a few now can boot from
external usb-anything
\_ If you're trying to boot XP, look for Bart's PE Builder. For
a USB-bootable Linux, have a look at
http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12964
I have another one lying around somewhere, so drop me a mail
if you want me to dig for it. -John |
| 2005/3/3-5 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:36516 Activity:nil |
3/3 What server do I use in cdex to successfully download some of the
chinese CD track names? windows media player gets it, but cdex gets
garbage or nothing at all. Thx.
\_ When you get "garbage," it's only because it's not in unicode. If
you switch Windows language setting so that the default code is set
to Chinese, cdex will display and title it correctly. You can then
switch back to English, and the file names will stay in Chinese.
It's a pain, I know. I don't know how WMP does it, though. |
| 2005/2/27-3/1 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:36448 Activity:nil |
2/28 jvarga, I have 1 250G HD and an external 200G HD that I use for
backup. I have about 20G of music, 80G of anime, 80G of movies, and
the rest I use as OS, data, and some pron. 250G is a lot for me. What
the hell do you put into your EIGHT HD systems? -curious
\_ My desktop is only 5 drives, my server has the other 3. I keep
ISO copies of all of my CDs on my hard drive for a) fast access,
and b) keeping my CDs safe from scratches. That's about 140GB. My
media (mp3s, movies, etc) is only about 20GB. I have about 50GB of
"personal data" (I have every document/project I've created since
I got my 386. My main drive is about 250GB and I tend to keep it
filled about 60% with software installations and etc. And finally,
I keep about 200-250GB of virtual PC images for software
development. I used to keep system snapshots, but that got slow.
My server maintains snapshots and backups of my personal data and
media. - jvarga
\_ I have the same sort of stuff you do and it fills 430GB local disks,
220GB of backup drives, and 250GB or so in DVD-Rs. -!jvarga |
| 11/23 |