• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • About
    • Stephen Foskett
      • My Publications
        • Urban Forms in Suburbia: The Rise of the Edge City
      • Storage Magazine Columns
      • Whitepapers
      • Multimedia
      • Speaking Engagements
    • Services
    • Disclosures
  • Categories
    • Apple
    • Ask a Pack Rat
    • Computer History
    • Deals
    • Enterprise storage
    • Events
    • Personal
    • Photography
    • Terabyte home
    • Virtual Storage
  • Guides
    • The iPhone Exchange ActiveSync Guide
      • The iPhone Exchange ActiveSync Troubleshooting Guide
    • The iPad Exchange ActiveSync Guide
      • iPad Exchange ActiveSync Troubleshooting Guide
    • Toolbox
      • Power Over Ethernet Calculator
      • EMC Symmetrix WWN Calculator
      • EMC Symmetrix TimeFinder DOS Batch File
    • Linux Logical Volume Manager Walkthrough
  • Calendar

Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat

Understanding the accumulation of data

You are here: Home / Archives for Everything / Computer History

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

Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

A man provided with paper, pencil, and rubber, and subject to strict discipline, is in effect a universal machine.

Alan Turing

Subscribe via Email

Subscribe via email and you will receive my latest blog posts in your inbox. No ads or spam, just the same great content you find on my site!
 New posts (daily)
 Where's Stephen? (weekly)

Download My Book


Download my free e-book:
Essential Enterprise Storage Concepts!

Recent Posts

Electric Car Over the Internet: My Experience Buying From Vroom

November 28, 2020

Powering Rabbits: The Mean Well LRS-350-12 Power Supply

October 18, 2020

Tortoise or Hare? Nvidia Jetson TK1

September 22, 2020

Running Rabbits: More About My Cloud NUCs

September 21, 2020

Introducing Rabbit: I Bought a Cloud!

September 10, 2020

Remove ROM To Use LSI SAS Cards in HPE Servers

August 23, 2020

Test Your Wi-Fi with iPerf for iOS

July 9, 2020

Liberate Wi-Fi Smart Bulbs and Switches with Tasmota!

May 29, 2020

What You See and What You Get When You Follow Me

May 28, 2019

GPS Time Rollover Failures Keep Happening (But They’re Almost Done)

April 6, 2019

Symbolic Links

    Featured Posts

    Why I Am Biased Against FCoE

    October 21, 2011

    Nimble Storage Rolls Out an All-Flash Array

    February 24, 2016

    Microsoft’s Overlooked Innovation

    February 15, 2010

    How To Keep Your Family Activities In Sync With A Shared Google Calendar

    April 18, 2010

    Sony NEX-5 Camera Review

    September 15, 2010

    From LAN Manager and SMB to CIFS: The Evolution of Prehistoric PC Network Protocols

    March 22, 2012

    Free as in Coffee – Thoughts on the State of OpenStack

    May 2, 2016

    Thinking About Storage In a New Way, From Cloud to Flash, with Dropbox and Fusion-io

    July 23, 2013

    Virtualized and Distributed Storage: This Time For Sure!

    September 2, 2014

    The Myths of Standardization

    December 15, 2011

    Copyright © 2021 · Log in