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Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat

Understanding the accumulation of data

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Computer History

Considering the history of computing, from the enterprise to the home.

Recalling An HP MediaSmart Server To Active Duty

July 21, 2017 By Stephen 5 Comments

I was recently given an old HP MediaSmart EX470 server along with some other junk hardware. Although it has no graphics, a slow single-core AMD Sempron CPU, and just 512 MB of RAM, I was able to revive it quite satisfactorily. Here's how I upgraded the hardware and software. Remembering the MediaSmart HP released the first MediaSmart server in 2008, and there was much … [Read more...] about Recalling An HP MediaSmart Server To Active Duty

ZFS Is the Best Filesystem (For Now…)

July 10, 2017 By Stephen 53 Comments

ZFS should have been great, but I kind of hate it: ZFS seems to be trapped in the past, before it was sidelined it as the cool storage project of choice; it's inflexible; it lacks modern flash integration; and it's not directly supported by most operating systems. But I put all my valuable data on ZFS because it simply offers the best level of data protection in a small … [Read more...] about ZFS Is the Best Filesystem (For Now…)

Co-Processors, GPGPU, and Heterogeneous Computing

June 26, 2017 By Stephen 2 Comments

I've been thinking a lot lately about microprocessors, from the many-core CPUs that AMD and Intel introduced recently to the massively scalable GPGPU processing that's taking machine learning by storm. After years of consolidation on commodity x86 CPUs, it seems that the computing paradigm is turning again to specialized offload processors. This trend towards heterogeneous … [Read more...] about Co-Processors, GPGPU, and Heterogeneous Computing

What is OCuLink?

June 22, 2017 By Stephen 4 Comments

I'm a storage connectivity nerd, but I often learn new things I missed. Reading about the new Tyan servers with AMD's Epyc server processor, I was surprised by an off-hand mention of "OCuLink" as a storage expansion port. Naturally, I did some digging and discovered what it is: OCuLink is a competitor for Thunderbolt for cabled PCI Express connectivity, offering similar … [Read more...] about What is OCuLink?

Dell, Wall Street, Magic Beans, and the End of EMC

September 7, 2016 By Stephen 1 Comment

As of today, EMC Corporation is no longer an independent company. Who thought we would see this day? From now on, EMC is simply a brand for parts of Dell's Infrastructure Solutions and Services businesses. This marks a major shift in the enterprise storage world, for IT, and perhaps for American business in general. Investors Are Happy with Magic Beans? I have been … [Read more...] about Dell, Wall Street, Magic Beans, and the End of EMC

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