SanDisk

14 Drives For 14 Ports: A Case For FreeNAS

August 10, 2016 by Stephen 12 Comments

I’ve written a few times about my quest to build the ultimate home storage/server rig. But one issue was surprisingly vexing: What kind of case has room for a dozen or more hard disk drives? In this update, I’ll talk about the various options as well as the one I ultimately picked: The NZXT H440 (and a Corsair power supply).

My FreeNAS Build: Supermicro X10SL7, Intel Haswell Xeon, ECC RAM

August 4, 2016 by Stephen 2 Comments

Today I’m going to dive into the hardware I selected for FreeNAS, starting with the motherboard, CPU, and memory. FreeNAS runs on any PC hardware, but building a reliable and scalable storage solution means picking higher-end components. I selected a Supermicro X10SL7 server-class motherboard with 14 (!) SAS/SATA ports paired with an Intel Xeon E3-1231v3 (Haswell) CPU and ECC memory from Crucial.

Review: Cable Matters Ultra-Mini 4-Port SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Hub

March 30, 2015 by Stephen Leave a Comment

I’m a big believer in USB 3.0, having come to rely on it as part of the Tech Field Day video production workflow. But I’m also a believer in traveling light and reducing clutter in my computer bag. That’s why I’m thrilled about the Cable Matters Ultra-Mini 4-Port SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Hub!

NexGen Storage is Back!

January 13, 2015 by Stephen Leave a Comment

The re-birth of NexGen Storage is surprising to be sure, but it’s a positive move for the industry. Competition is good, especially when it comes from folks who know how to “do” storage. And the world of midrange storage just got a strong new competitor!

The Rack Endgame: A New Storage Architecture For the Data Center

September 3, 2014 by Stephen 3 Comments

Top-of-rack flash and bottom-of-rack disk makes a ton of sense in a world of virtualized, distributed storage. It fits with enterprise paradigms yet delivers real architectural change that could “move the needle” in a way that no centralized shared storage system ever will. SAN and NAS aren’t going away immediately, but this new storage architecture will be an attractive next-generation direction!

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

This is week “1111111111” in the GPS system. Tomorrow morning it will roll over to week “0000000000”. How well will various systems handle this change? Not well, judging by what we’ve seen so far!

Ranting and Raving About the 2018 iPad Pro

I remain enthusiastic about the iPad Pro, despite getting a scratched screen and my concerns about durability. It’s a worthy successor to the original and offers enough improvements that I’d recommend the upgrade for just about anyone who uses their iPad for serious work. It’s still not yet a laptop replacement, but this is due more to a lack of desktop-class software for iOS than anything in Apple’s control.

Datacenter History: Through the Ages in Lego

October 22, 2013

Readers of my blog know that I love computer history. Therefore, I decided to focus my entry in Juniper Networks’ “Build the Best (Lego) Data Center” contest on the history of computing. Specifically, I would re-create key historic machines to contrast them with a modern view.

Edward Snowden Is Right: We Must Protect The Internet

March 19, 2014

Edward Snowden, NSA whistleblower, appeared at TED2014. His video, embedded below, must be watched. You may think he’s a hero or you may think he’s a villain, but he’s unequivocally right about one thing: We must protect the integrity of the Internet and online communications or we risk disrupting the world economy and all of our lives.

What More Could Alan Turing Have Accomplished?

October 7, 2012

Many of you have probably heard the name of Alan Turing, but most of those probably don’t appreciate the extent of his contributions. To say that he invented the modern world is an overstatement, but he did dream up the computers we see around us today, and helped win World War II in the process. But the story of Alan Turing is as much about exclusion and defeat as it is of genius.

Follow the Yellow Brick Road to the Software-Defined Future

November 29, 2012

The Software-Defined Datacenter is a great concept, but it just won’t work. The big enterprise companies will never allow VMware (and daddy EMC) to commoditize them out of existence, so useful implementations will be rarer than ruby slippers. The best we can hope for is point enhancements to enable greater virtual machine mobility through SDN and improved storage integration.

Defining Failure: What Is MTTR, MTTF, and MTBF?

July 6, 2011

Most computer industry vendors use the term â€œMTBFâ€ rather indiscriminately. But IT pros know that systems do not magically repair themselves, at least not yet, so MTTR and MTTF are just as important!

The Four Horsemen of Storage System Performance: The Rule of Spindles

August 25, 2010

Why do some data storage solutions perform better than others? Mechanical performance, RAM caching, I/O capacity, and the intelligence of the system all have a part to play. Today we examine the rule of spindles: Adding more disk spindles is generally more effective than using faster spindles.

From Kipling’s Dirigibles to the Jet Age

May 13, 2012

I don’t get much chance to read for pleasure, but two things I’ve been reading recently spurred my imagination. After reliving the advent of modern transportation in the solid non-fiction Jet Age by Sam Howe Verhovek, I stumbled upon two pieces of speculative fiction from an unlikely source that predated everything presented there.

The Myths of Standardization

December 15, 2011

I certainly benefit from standardization of the world around me, and I welcome interoperability and interchangeability as well as the price and product selection advantages. But I am not blithely focused on standardization above all else. I will happily use a proprietary solution if the alternative is inelegant, ineffective, or insufficient.