HMMM....What could this be.... ;) TC's first X8DAi Build!

[Pentium4]

Re: HMMM....What could this be....

^ Really? Wow, I know quite a few people that use carbonite. I never was interested in using any cloud based storage, I just never could trust any of them with my data. We're targeted for advertising enough as it is!

[kaboom]

Re: HMMM....What could this be....

^ Really? Wow, I know quite a few people that use carbonite. I never was interested in using any cloud based storage, I just never could trust any of them with my data. We're targeted for advertising enough as it is!

Carbonite's apparently bad news.

I forget just which "datamining" company the docs, etc found their way to. But it's almost no surprise to me- I've gotten so jaded lately from all the internet/scam bullshit.

I mean why else would they have to "draw" people in, with radio, tv and "other" advertising means?

This plays into the "You can't do anything for yourself, let us do it for you" routine. I had doubts about carbonite, and suspected they'd eventually play games, but what happened seems to have set a precedent. Oh well, they'll just be more obvious and easier to avoid.

They more desperate they get, the more slimey they get.
And that goes not only for carbonite, but for those stupid "PC optimizer" and "antivirus" commercials too.


At 3:40 am, I don't have a link for you, sorry. me

[shovenose]

Re: HMMM....What could this be....

Carbonite's apparently bad news.

I forget just which "datamining" company the docs, etc found their way to. But it's almost no surprise to me- I've gotten so jaded lately from all the internet/scam bullshit.

I mean why else would they have to "draw" people in, with radio, tv and "other" advertising means?

This plays into the "You can't do anything for yourself, let us do it for you" routine. I had doubts about carbonite, and suspected they'd eventually play games, but what happened seems to have set a precedent. Oh well, they'll just be more obvious and easier to avoid.

They more desperate they get, the more slimey they get.
And that goes not only for carbonite, but for those stupid "PC optimizer" and "antivirus" commercials too.


At 3:40 am, I don't have a link for you, sorry. me

Backblaze is the only company I'd trust for mainstream online backup. because they're super awesome storage pod design

[smason]

Re: HMMM....What could this be....

Just a little point to make note of....When I replaced the battery and got it charged/tested/etc, I noticed the system was performing like crap. Write caching disabled. I guess when the battery dies, it does this automatically to potentially avert dataloss....but boy does it make the system perform like poo. I put everything back where it needed to be, and YAY!! My system came back to life!!

Yup. Standard procedure for most decent RAID controllers when the battery gets low.
I have a server in my rack at work that needs a new battery (the 1-week power outage killed it) and it's not performing too well at the moment.
Have the replacement on my desk (friggin thing was $60.00) just need to schedule an outage...

[shovenose]

Re: HMMM....What could this be....

just need to schedule an outage...

I do my scheduled maintenance at night because most of my customers are local to me and in my time zone. If somebody halfway across the world has a mission critical site hosted with me, well, that's why I make scheduled maintenance as short as possible with plenty of advance notice, and if they ticket beforehand I'll put them on another server (if the entire network is not the planned maintenance)

[Topcat]

Re: HMMM....What could this be....

I do my scheduled maintenance at night because most of my customers are local to me and in my time zone. If somebody halfway across the world has a mission critical site hosted with me, well, that's why I make scheduled maintenance as short as possible with plenty of advance notice, and if they ticket beforehand I'll put them on another server (if the entire network is not the planned maintenance)

I always did planned server outages in the wee hours of the morning....like 4~5am. Traffic is at its lightest around then.

[shovenose]

Re: HMMM....What could this be....

I always did planned server outages in the wee hours of the morning....like 4~5am. Traffic is at its lightest around then.

If you're awake at 4AM that is the best time. But I typically choose 10-12 at night because:
1. The guy at the datacenter is usually awake then too because I don't live near it
2. I am awake then; I am not usually ever awake at 4AM
3. If I screw up I have more time to fix it.

[smason]

Re: HMMM....What could this be....

I have 3 or 4 users who work late to 11:30 or so, and 2 that are earlybirds at 6am.
I refuse to do work between midnight and 6 (they don't pay me enough) to someone gets to wait.

[Topcat]

Re: HMMM....What could this be.... TC's first X8DAi Build!

Just to wake up an 11yr old thread that has been asleep for 8yrs..... This system has been mothballed for years.....but I fired it today to test a couple things....if anyone remembers the Quadro M6000 24gb goodie box find and now some memory....



This will go back into the mothballs since the testing is done & successful....but this is being groomed to be the replacement for my Harpertown X7DWA-N system in my office...if it ever dies....

[TechGeek]

Re: HMMM....What could this be.... TC's first X8DAi Build!

That's quite a bit of RAM there! Makes my 16GB look absolutely puny in comparison.

I've got a few systems in various stages of mothballing. I un-mothballed one a few months back in preparation to send it to a friend, but got busy with other stuff. Need to re-mothball it and fully mothball some other systems that are out of service.

P.S.: What do you do when mothballing a system?

[Dan81]

Re: HMMM....What could this be.... TC's first X8DAi Build!

192GB!?

What you gonna do with that, steal NASA's servers?

[Topcat]

Re: HMMM....What could this be.... TC's first X8DAi Build!

P.S.: What do you do when mothballing a system?

I store them someplace where they'll remain clean and temperature controlled. I remove CMOS batteries, BBU batteries, or any power source that could either leave a current or possibly leak. Even though I don't have problems with rodents around here, I make sure all expansion slots are covered. Mice like PC cases for some reason. That's about it. In the case of this system, I still have the original Supermicro double box & packing material, it's been stored in that.

192GB!?

What you gonna do with that, steal NASA's servers?

I got a good deal on the RAM (under $200), so I said why not! Max the system can take 'officially'.....but it unofficially can take 32gb modules, which would max it @ 384gb.....but that would cost close to a grand....no thanks.

[momaka]

Re: HMMM....What could this be.... TC's first X8DAi Build!

This system has been mothballed for years.....but I fired it today to test a couple things....if anyone remembers the Quadro M6000 24gb goodie box find and now some memory....

Yeah, that Quadro is a beast!
If you game, though, it's probably better to put it in a system and use it, while you still can. As rare as a card it may be, high-end video cards do still age pretty fast, or at least when trying to play latest release game titles. "Raw" performance is just a few % faster than a GTX 980Ti... which is still quite impressive... though some of the latest release game titles will balk at you for using anything less than a GTX1080, which is a shame. (but then again, a good number of the latest release game titles are quite shameful themselves in terms of what they offer.) So maybe not a big deal.

As for that RAM capacity - it's bigger than the HDD of the PC I am using to post this ATM (my trusty old Optiplex 170L with its Pentium 4 and 80 GB HDD). LOL!

I store them someplace where they'll remain clean and temperature controlled. I remove CMOS batteries, BBU batteries, or any power source that could either leave a current or possibly leak.

Same here. I keep all of my spare PCs in the house - either in the garage, under the stairs / laundry room, or in the depths of my closet that aren't as easily accessible.

And yes, I also remove the CMOS batteries as well. Rare exception are systems I use infrequently enough that I don't want to set up CMOS options on again when I pull them out (i.e. my "universal" video card test rig.)

Even though I don't have problems with rodents around here, I make sure all expansion slots are covered. Mice like PC cases for some reason. That's about it. In the case of this system, I still have the original Supermicro double box & packing material, it's been stored in that.

Right!
And it doesn't even seem logical why mice would like PC cases. After all, they are made of metal and cold. One would think mice would prefer a more cozy and warmer place... but maybe not! I've seen enough cases with mice poop inside to convince me that what you're actually saying is 100% correct. On that note, a good number of the PCs in my garage lack PCI slot covers or PSUs. But so far, I haven't had any mice move in there (or in the garage), luckily. Otherwise, we do keep some food in there as well, but it's high up and not the type of stuff mice would eat (cans and jars mostly.) Only once I made the mistake of leaving a bag of peanuts there with a small hole in it... and before you know it, the next day the bag had a big tear in it and a trail of peanuts across the floor. I guess Jerry got sloppy with the transport part.

Just to wake up an 11yr old thread that has been asleep for 8yrs.....

And this is part of why I love BCN forums - threads aren't closed unless there's a reason for it. Got something relevant to post, even after an eon of years has passed - no problems!

[Topcat]

Re: HMMM....What could this be.... TC's first X8DAi Build!

Today's experiment was some various HDD configs.... Array 1 was a pair of 600gb 15k SAS drives in a raid1 (mirror)..... Array 2 was a standalone/single disk 400gb Sandisk 'Lightning' (thanks Momaka). The Sandisk lightning naturally smoked the spinners. Test 3, I'm looking at some PCIe SSD/NVMe setup, I have the slots.... It would render the RAID backplane unused....but if the speeds are right, it may be a worthy tradeoff.

I did take a couple pics just for the heck of it...

[momaka]

Re: HMMM....What could this be.... TC's first X8DAi Build!

Today's experiment was some various HDD configs.... Array 1 was a pair of 600gb 15k SAS drives in a raid1 (mirror)..... Array 2 was a standalone/single disk 400gb Sandisk 'Lightning' (thanks Momaka). The Sandisk lightning naturally smoked the spinners.

Glad to see it get used somewhere.
If it was here with me, it would still be sitting around collecting dust, and that would be a shame. I was hoping my T7500 could take it when I found it. Sadly no, not without an add-on card (at least to my knowledge), so I opted to keep it simple and go with standard SATA stuff.

I did take a couple pics just for the heck of it...

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1633363922

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1633363922

Proper workstation is proper.

[Topcat]

Re: HMMM....What could this be.... TC's first X8DAi Build!

Alpha testing (testing all hardware for support/compatibility) S2K16 on this machine; which has mainstream support up through 2022 and extended support through 2027. It's basically the Win10 interface without all the usual Win10 nonsense. This is the next best thing to Win10 Enterprise; since a legit copy of Enterprise is impossible to get for us lowly peons.... Server 2016, like Enterprise, telemetry can be completely killed. It's off by default except what's needed for WSUS, which can be controlled...and unlike Pro or Home, if you turn it off it stays off...no updates mysteriously turn it back on. There's no stupid 'windows store', and no piles of useless bloat in the name of 'features'. This version so far has needed the least amount of carving of all the M$ server OS's thus far, and I've been running Windows Server OS's carved into Workstations since Server 2003 R2. S2K3 required a TON of carving just for basic functionality without it being completely counter-productive...infact, it honestly just wasn't worth the effort versus simply running XP Pro / XP64. S2K8 required a moderate amount of carving/modding, I only stopped using it in favor of Win7 because it would only use 32gb of the 64gb of RAM in the system; a limitation in the the S2K8 R1/R2 Standard version. S2K12_R2 OTOH Improved exponentially on the 'carving down' front. It still needed a fair amount of tweaking, but it was minuscule compared to previous versions.....and I really like S2K12 R2, but it's support is coming to an end in 2023....not sure I really want to build a long-term-use system around that with support ending so soon....but it hasn't been ruled out; as by the time support ends, it will be quite nicely matured and it has a great interface (8.1 + a few mods + aero glass + can be activated with DAZ )....it wouldn't be horribly insecure....but anyway....back to S2K2016....

M$ allows you do download an eval copy, which is good for 180 days. I do have a legit copy, but most certainly don't want to activate the key on an alpha/beta test bed system.... I still haven't gotten the HDD's I want for this yet, but it'll definitely be something solid state in a mirror....but this give me time to tinker & play....and with any OS change, chase bugs & quirks. Beta testing will come with the new drives and install of the full licensed copy of S2k16...and then of course the rollout....

This machine has officially been taken out of 'mothballing'; soon to replace THIS SYSTEM, which has been a stellar system running Win7 with ESU. Worry not, it's not going to be retired! It will be moved to a different location in the shop. I will not reload it either. It is packed with utilities I use constantly, so it's simply going to become the front bench system. The system that's currently on the front bench is being retired....so yea, it'll be a system shell game for a while....but so far so good!!

[Per Hansson]

Re: HMMM....What could this be.... TC's first X8DAi Build!

M$ allows you do download an eval copy, which is good for 180 days. I do have a legit copy, but most certainly don't want to activate the key on an alpha/beta test bed system.... I still haven't gotten the HDD's I want for this yet, but it'll definitely be something solid state in a mirror....but this give me time to tinker & play....and with any OS change, chase bugs & quirks. Beta testing will come with the new drives and install of the full licensed copy of S2k16...and then of course the rollout....

Do remember you can also run "slmgr.vbs /rearm" up to 5 times.
I installed my Server 2016 machine in 2018-05-27 and I still have 104 days to go on my last rearm

[Topcat]

Re: HMMM....What could this be.... TC's first X8DAi Build!

Do remember you can also run "slmgr.vbs /rearm" up to 5 times.
I installed my Server 2016 machine in 2018-05-27 and I still have 104 days to go on my last rearm

Duly noted for play systems! 2.5yrs on a eval copy, pretty darn good!

[Per Hansson]

Re: HMMM....What could this be.... TC's first X8DAi Build!

Yup^^
Just realized it's 6 rearms too, and I guess you have to count the initial eval period too so that makes it over 3 years!
You can check remaining rearm count with: slmgr.vbs -dlv

[Topcat]

Re: HMMM....What could this be.... TC's first X8DAi Build!

Getting ready for the rollout....a couple of pics only to test some fickle software (Adobe Elements).... The drives I finally decided on were indeed Sandisk Lightning 6G/sec SAS. Speed-wise, they're comparable with the other brand SAS SSD's, the final deciding point was reading what a lot had to say about lifespan....they're million-mile drives! I bought a couple used ones with low POH....they shouldn't give any trouble anytime soon.....but I still ran a mirror, just incase. I'm running a pair of 800gb in a RAID1 (mirror) on a Supermicro AOC-SAS2LP-H8IR controller; which is nothing more than a LSI MegaRAID 9260 with some very minor variations...The only thing I noticed, there's no headers on the controller for activity LED's (not even blanks for them), but being intended for supermicro, they're not needed....as the SM backplane(s) all have embedded LED's that function internally. Otherwise, they're the same, using the same LSI firmware. I did get a fresh BBU battery.

The migration won't be too bad, as the old system is not being taken out of service....so if I miss something, it'll be easy enough to retrieve....







I did discover a strange quirk though.... This system has a floppy drive in it, but the drive does not show up in Explorer or device manager. The controller does though.... Haven't figured that one out yet.