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
NAS
Turn Off Error Recovery in RAID Drives: TLER, ERC, and CCTL
Hard disk drives encounter errors from time to time, so it's a good thing that most have the ability to recover data anyway. But RAID systems usually have their own error recovery capabilities and can be thrown off when a hard disk pauses I/O. So it's a good idea to use hard disk drives that allow you to disable or limit error recovery in RAID systems. Error Recovery … [Read more...] about Turn Off Error Recovery in RAID Drives: TLER, ERC, and CCTL
Hello FreeNAS! Goodbye Drobo and Iomega…
Long-time readers of my blog know of my love for Drobo, but the time has come to say goodbye. My old Drobos (and Iomega ix-4) are showing their age and I decided to go in a different direction: I'm building a FreeNAS server. In this article I'll talk about my thinking behind this move; later posts will talk in more detail about the hardware and software setup. Bulk Home … [Read more...] about Hello FreeNAS! Goodbye Drobo and Iomega…
Using NFS to Share Data Between UNIX and Mac OS X
I had a little bit of a learning experience this week regarding NFS exports and Mac OS X that I thought would be interesting to share with my readers. It's part "simple tip" and part "facepalm." Read on! TL;DR: NFS works (insecurely) if you use all_squash and set anonuid and anongid to match your UNIX user ID The Setup: What I Wanted to Do I have an old Iomega ix4-200d … [Read more...] about Using NFS to Share Data Between UNIX and Mac OS X
The Fat Middle: Today’s Enterprise Storage Array
Ask any project manager if it's possible to deliver something that is fast, good, and cheap, and they'll laugh. The phenomenon known as the Iron Triangle limits just about everything in the world from meeting all three conflicting requirements. Yet, for the last two decades, enterprise storage array vendors have been trying to deliver just this. How's that working … [Read more...] about The Fat Middle: Today’s Enterprise Storage Array