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Jan. 25th, 2018 01:50 amThe server is officially online, with 4x10TB hard drives in a mirrored/striped setup, yielding a 20TB volume (17.5TB usable). That sounds like a lot, because it is. I figured I might as well go with a mirrored setup instead of trying to squeeze out more space, even though 10TB drives aren't exactly cheap. If one of the drives craps out, the mirrored setup is the easiest one to recover with.
The mirrored setup is also easier to expand as well. If I get around to filling the 20TB, I can just add more hard drives. Because the HBA card is only half-utilized, I can add another 4 drives. Sticking with the RAID10 setup, and 10TB drives, that would give me a total of 40TB. That doesn't include any available ports on the motherboard, although those are reserved for other uses.
Side note: The first external hard drive I bought was a 60GB, in 2002. Adjusted for inflation, the price would be currently about $300. The drive itself is an IBM Deskstar, which were frequently called "Deathstars" due to their tendency to fail early. The 10TB drives I put in the server cost me about $340 each, and those are high-end datacenter drives. It's a red-herring comparison anyway. Back in 2002, 60GB was a lot, especially when the laptop I was using had only a 20GB drive. Computers back then wouldn't handle the space (or the files) I have now. Even some of my older SATA enclosures have problems with anything bigger than 1TB.
Currently I'm in the process of consolidating data from older/smaller IDE hard drives. Many of them were formatted in HFS+, because at the time I was using my PowerBook as my main computer. So far, everything seems to see the server volume, including the Wayback Machine running Windows 2000. The Powerbooks kinda see it, they can access files on it, but they can't put anything onto it. Probably a configuration thing in FreeNAS will fix that. The PBs aren't active so there's no hurry.
I wanna try an ITX build, even though I already have more than enough computers. That's because computers are like cats. It's easy to start with one, and it's easy to get another after that, then another. Next thing ya know, there's over a dozen of them hanging around, and you're not entirely certain where they all came from.
Fixing computers for other people is like feeding stray cats. Do that a few times, and before long, they show up in greater numbers. Just the other day, I had to chase off an old P4 with bad RAM and a hard drive full of malware. Before that it was an old laptop that smelled like someone was using it for an ashtray.
Computers are like dogs. They kinda sense when someone is not able to handle them, and will assert dominance over that person. Meanwhile, on the opposite end, a sysadmin would be like a professional dog handler. As soon as those people enter the room, the computers/dogs learn very quickly who's in charge, and they don't dare to challenge that person or test their patience. I don't consider myself at sysadmin levels, but I can hold my own against a car-load of computers. I can easily get mine to behave. Unless I'm dealing with Linux, then I'm in coyote territory.
The mirrored setup is also easier to expand as well. If I get around to filling the 20TB, I can just add more hard drives. Because the HBA card is only half-utilized, I can add another 4 drives. Sticking with the RAID10 setup, and 10TB drives, that would give me a total of 40TB. That doesn't include any available ports on the motherboard, although those are reserved for other uses.
Side note: The first external hard drive I bought was a 60GB, in 2002. Adjusted for inflation, the price would be currently about $300. The drive itself is an IBM Deskstar, which were frequently called "Deathstars" due to their tendency to fail early. The 10TB drives I put in the server cost me about $340 each, and those are high-end datacenter drives. It's a red-herring comparison anyway. Back in 2002, 60GB was a lot, especially when the laptop I was using had only a 20GB drive. Computers back then wouldn't handle the space (or the files) I have now. Even some of my older SATA enclosures have problems with anything bigger than 1TB.
Currently I'm in the process of consolidating data from older/smaller IDE hard drives. Many of them were formatted in HFS+, because at the time I was using my PowerBook as my main computer. So far, everything seems to see the server volume, including the Wayback Machine running Windows 2000. The Powerbooks kinda see it, they can access files on it, but they can't put anything onto it. Probably a configuration thing in FreeNAS will fix that. The PBs aren't active so there's no hurry.
I wanna try an ITX build, even though I already have more than enough computers. That's because computers are like cats. It's easy to start with one, and it's easy to get another after that, then another. Next thing ya know, there's over a dozen of them hanging around, and you're not entirely certain where they all came from.
Fixing computers for other people is like feeding stray cats. Do that a few times, and before long, they show up in greater numbers. Just the other day, I had to chase off an old P4 with bad RAM and a hard drive full of malware. Before that it was an old laptop that smelled like someone was using it for an ashtray.
Computers are like dogs. They kinda sense when someone is not able to handle them, and will assert dominance over that person. Meanwhile, on the opposite end, a sysadmin would be like a professional dog handler. As soon as those people enter the room, the computers/dogs learn very quickly who's in charge, and they don't dare to challenge that person or test their patience. I don't consider myself at sysadmin levels, but I can hold my own against a car-load of computers. I can easily get mine to behave. Unless I'm dealing with Linux, then I'm in coyote territory.
