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Next PC, and some other stuff for the technically minded - 4/4/2009 9:14:23 PM

Termyn8or

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I am going back to an older plan. I have decided to get an extra IDE controller. My PC works right now, that drive is good. The other drive had XP on it but of course would not run as a transplant. This means this other drive rolling around here might be good as well. perhaps the problem was always in the IDE controller on this POS.

The new PC has one of those card readers, most of them are IDE right ? I don't want to really go with external enclosures, I want all of it all the time, and whenever I get a chance I'll go downstairs and do backups. Then those can eventually be burned to DVDROMs, but if I start downloading again we are going to be in the bluray realm here.

But I don't ever want to depend on one harddrive again, and preferably not the boot drive.

Geez, I just did a little mental math, if I can get a full blown quad IDE controller that's eight drives. But then the card reader is about five drive letters. That is just about halfway through the alphabet, and if I take the main boot drive and backup my Windows CD and updates on a seperate partition on it , there's even one more.

I think I like that idea. A few years ago I was getting good TIVO quality drives for like $52 to my front door. These things are very quiet and fast. I am also a firm believer in a tenet of machinery that noise is bad. The quieter something runs, the more reliable it is, as there is less wasted mechanical energy. There are exceptions of course, like a punch press. Which was under consideration for a final destination for this PC.

I am glad it worked, as much GRRRRR as it may have caused I know I did not lose my stuff. Being XP this OS is not going to boot on any other machine so, I'm OK you're OK.

However I think I am still going to use it for target practice on the fourth of July :-)

Now on the new PC, just how far can I take this ? I mean what haoppens when you go past drive Z ? Has it ever been done ?

Yes, I am a nut. When I had SCSI I bought drives until the power supply choked, and being AT form factor, it was easy, I just used two power supplies. The ATX form factor complicates it a bit but I am sure I can deal with it. If not, shoot me at sunrise.

Interestingly, if I were to get SCSI again I have this neat thing for it. A five disk CDROM changer. It fits in the normal spot in a PC case but is a bit longer. I never used it, but how it must work drove the engineer in me crazy. Note that these things are old as well.

Think of the actual radius of the CD used for data, and the extra length of the unit. The only way in hell it could work is if the laser is directed through the holes of the CDs that are not being read at the time. That would mean the spindle motor is on a rack,rather than the laser. That, while a bit tripped out, does nothing to explain how they get the desrired CD to spin.

I have two of them, and despite the SCSI interface I think they can be used as a CD player. I would like to see one actually work, and then pretty much take the other one apart. I think it's quite an engineering feat actually.

Understand that this was sort of a rant for me, although I am not really bitching about stuff. Well except for that one thing. That and the fact I ordered a new PC and monitor on Monday and they sent the monitor, but I had nothing to monit. And with this thing running, I am not TOUCHING it, not even to change the monitor.

This thing has and may again corrupt my data, so it is a simple dilemma. I don't want to leave it running constantly and I don't want to shut it off.

T

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RE: Next PC, and some other stuff for the technically m... - 4/4/2009 9:20:59 PM

FirmhandKY

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One word:

SATA

Firm

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RE: Next PC, and some other stuff for the technically m... - 4/4/2009 9:58:04 PM

Fnordstrum

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First of all, if you're worried about losing data / hard drive failures... Set up a few drives in a RAID array, specifically one of the types with mirroring/parity, so that if a drive fails you don't lose data.

Secondly, as the post above me states, you might want to look into SATA. =)

As far as drive letters go, in windows, as far as I know you might have to mount drives inside of folders to get more than 26 (a-z) drives. (Haven't done anything with that myself so, fnord)

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< Message edited by Fnordstrum -- 4/4/2009 10:04:42 PM >

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RE: Next PC, and some other stuff for the technically m... - 4/4/2009 10:05:45 PM

Termyn8or

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What does SATA do for me, as far as I knew it was limited to one drive. Fast as hell but no master/slave or anything like that. Maybe I am not up on everything but I have not even heard of striped and mirrored quad RAID arrays on SATA.

Of course I would never stripe unless I also mirrored, so that's four drives.

What did I miss ? I stopped building and re whatevering PCs for people a while back, CYM for the reason, I don't think it would go over too well out here.

T

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RE: Next PC, and some other stuff for the technically m... - 4/4/2009 10:22:54 PM

FirmhandKY

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Striping and mirroring is almost immaterial as far as the data connection method.

SATA will allow hot-swapping (with the correct MB or SATA RAID card).

Get a 4 slot SATA RAID card, make two of them mirrored, keep all of you "can not lose" data on the mirrored 1.5 TB set, and then get a couple of quick disconnect, front end cages for the other two drives. Buy and swap drives as needed for any additional data.

If you wanna keep more HD in the PC, then get another SATA RAID card, run it as just a bunch of single drives, with hot swap cages.

I run nine HD on my main PC, with 5 of them hot swappable, and when I fill up a terabyte or a 1.5, I index it and just swap it out.

I plan on building a ZFS system soon, with about 20 or 30 HD all running and hooked up at the same time.

Not in Windows, of course.

Firm

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RE: Next PC, and some other stuff for the technically m... - 4/5/2009 12:43:22 AM

awmslave

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Just wandering what kind of massive database you guys are running? I have two 1Terabyte Seagate SATA II drives ($85.00 ea. from Ewiz.com) and 250 GB main drive with programs. No need for letter Z for long time. Storage is cheap these days.

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RE: Next PC, and some other stuff for the technically m... - 4/5/2009 5:03:11 AM

FirmhandKY

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I have about a TB of business data, or various sorts, from years of visual modeling, large excel spreadsheets, and pdf files.

I have a digital library of photos, music, books, audio books, programs, ISO rips of program CDs and DVDs, backups of mirrored drives, movies, and other videos that pretty much covers the rest.

Thank gawd that a 1.5 TB only costs about $129 at the local Microcenter nowadays.

Firm

< Message edited by FirmhandKY -- 4/5/2009 5:05:16 AM >

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RE: Next PC, and some other stuff for the technically m... - 4/5/2009 7:45:09 AM

pahunkboy

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Term, you sound like a confused dude.

1. Recover your data.

2. put it on USB plug in memory.

3. copy the irreplaceable data so then you have 2 back ups.

Now- you might not like such a small memory piece, but and me knowing a tad of your bad boy history, such a USB stick is easily hid able- so that- if for any reason your computer is ever not yours- then you still retain the priceless data.

So get past having it all on one machine, in one place. Where this country is going- that is close to the worst place to store online valuables.

Think about it.

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RE: Next PC, and some other stuff for the technically m... - 4/5/2009 7:53:51 AM

Termyn8or

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Interesting, I sat there and insisted on IDE. Now it looks like one day I'll have to get a SATA card. Well, my main thing was to get up and running.

Funny thing, $500 later, about eight months ago Global had PCs for about $199. I was thinking of getting one for the basement, throw a hugr HD in it and just use it to serve files and run the Majicjack phone system, which since we have two sets of phone wires in the house would work out pretty well.

I am not really ready for terabytes, but if I keep downloading...........

Now I am wondering if I could use a basement PC to actually serve up files on the net. I knew a kid in Wisconsin who actually did it, but that doesn't mean I can do it :-) I also heard that some ISPs don't allow it, so I wonder about this, which is second tier SBC DSL. But it would be nice, I would never have to pay for FTP nor be dependent upon a server who knows where for my links to work.

That's all in the future, mainly I want that PC here tomorrow because I am off Mondays and I'll have time to load it and set it up.

If this old box will keep working I am tempted to run 98SE on it and use it to run my Visioneer scanner. Can't get XP drivers for it, and then the reason I got XP is because I didn't know how to set 98 up on the router. But this scanner is the most awesome thing I have ever seen. The beam is so coherent that you can get a decently focussed image up to about six inches from the glass. I have scanned many 3D objects and people think I have a digital camera. I mean car parts, guns, people's faces. If you ever want a laugh scan your own face. Sharp as hell, but it makes you look like some sort of ghoul or something. At any rate I really wish I could run the thing again. The software is quite unobtrusive, it has all the good features, like preapplication of gamma correction, things like that. But then if I run 98 I can't run it on the network. That is unless someone can walk me through the setup. Dlink flat out refused because they "no longer support 98". Of course I asked them if my money had expired, they did not have much to say.

It was so nice when absolutely everything worked.

T

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RE: Next PC, and some other stuff for the technically m... - 4/5/2009 7:55:46 AM

LaTigresse

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I take hundreds and hundreds of photos. I have a high end digital camera which means the files are quite large. I do periodic back ups onto an external hard drive and also make sure the really important photos are saved to a data DVD.

Not a big deal, no drama, just a CYA. Relatively inexpensive, all things considered.

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