After my friend Brian's post about trimming expenses, I've been thinking about my own complete lack of doing so. It's a bit of a problem, potentially.
I've been eating out a lot more than usual, lately. I've been driving more than usual, too, partially as a result of eating out more. I'll need to make repairs to my car pretty soon, and I'm not sure how much those will be yet. Speaking of repairs, I also repaired my file server, to an extent. I bought a couple 2TB hard drives for $99.99 each. I was able to save most of my files, and all of my important files, so that was good. Still, $200.
I'm also thinking of buying things that I really don't need at all. For example, I want to buy another digital camera. Why? Because I keep one in the car to take pictures of personalized license plates. Why does that mean I need two? Because I never have one with me when the cats are doing cute things, and taking videos of cute cats is the quickest way to youtube stardom! I fully recognize that this is not the best investment, but I'll probably end up doing it before too long.
Then there's utilities. The hot weather of late has skyrocketed my power bill along with everyone else's. I've also tried watering my lawn to get some grass seed to grow. That didn't really work, but I'm sure my next water bill will be higher than I've ever seen it. I also bought that new grass seed, some starter fertilizer, and a small spreader at The Home Depot using gift cards. And for the little remaining grass I have combined with the small amount of new grass that came up, I'll need a new lawnmower soon. I'd like a nice quiet electric one, which apparently means $300 or so. I'd also like to avoid the battery problems people have reported, which means $200 or so instead, but having to use an extension cord. So far, I'm leaning toward this cordless 36V mower. We'll see.
Finally, I've been donating (or pledging to donate) more to charity. If that isn't a stupid use of money, I don't know what is! Seriously, though, I'm going to try eating at home more often again. When I do, it tends to be really cheap. Hopefully the fall brings more reasonableness to my power bill, and whatever lawn mower I buy is reliable and durable. You all can hope that I don't buy that extra camera so that you're not flooded with videos of my cats. And you can also thank me for keeping the economy going these past few months!
Showing posts with label file server. Show all posts
Showing posts with label file server. Show all posts
Monday, September 27, 2010
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
New Parts for File Server
I fixed my file server a couple of weeks ago. I now have my 3.5TB of storage space available again! If you'll recall, I've fixed my file server a few times before...
I started trying to fix my file server a couple of months ago by reinstalling Ubuntu. Unfortunately, this would hang at about 5% on the formatting/partitioning step. I suspected a faulty system hard drive, but didn't get around to trying another one until early October. I tried an old (from back in high school, for at least part of the machine) 40GB drive. The installation went through, but the system wouldn't boot from that drive. Since the drive had been in my garage for a number of years, I didn't particularly trust it. So, I went to Micro Center and picked up a 500GB hard drive that was on sale. It, too, allowed the installation to complete but would not boot up. It should be noted that the system hard drive has to be an IDE hard drive because I use all the SATA ports for the RAID array.
I figured it was most likely a faulty motherboard at this point. I went to newegg.com and picked out a cheap motherboard and processor (I always prefer to buy them together to ensure I have the right socket and so I don't have to mess with reapplying thermal grease whenever possible). Along with my new camera, the parts arrived in just a few days. I really do love Newegg.
There's not much else to tell. The installation went well, the raid was recreated without much hassle. I did learn a new command: mdadm --scan --detail /dev/md0 >> /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf. I don't remember having to run this command or having to mess with mdadm.conf at all, in fact, in the past. I'm not sure what has changed, but in order to get the raid device to persist after rebooting, I had to do this. I'm just happy it all works.
And it does all work! I no longer have that noisy north bridge fan (this motherboard doesn't have a north bridge fan to get noisy)! Everything seems much more stable and efficient. I'm really quite pleased with the new motherboard. I'm also happy with the new camera. I took some pictures of the file server, which I can't believe I haven't done before!
I started trying to fix my file server a couple of months ago by reinstalling Ubuntu. Unfortunately, this would hang at about 5% on the formatting/partitioning step. I suspected a faulty system hard drive, but didn't get around to trying another one until early October. I tried an old (from back in high school, for at least part of the machine) 40GB drive. The installation went through, but the system wouldn't boot from that drive. Since the drive had been in my garage for a number of years, I didn't particularly trust it. So, I went to Micro Center and picked up a 500GB hard drive that was on sale. It, too, allowed the installation to complete but would not boot up. It should be noted that the system hard drive has to be an IDE hard drive because I use all the SATA ports for the RAID array.
I figured it was most likely a faulty motherboard at this point. I went to newegg.com and picked out a cheap motherboard and processor (I always prefer to buy them together to ensure I have the right socket and so I don't have to mess with reapplying thermal grease whenever possible). Along with my new camera, the parts arrived in just a few days. I really do love Newegg.
There's not much else to tell. The installation went well, the raid was recreated without much hassle. I did learn a new command: mdadm --scan --detail /dev/md0 >> /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf. I don't remember having to run this command or having to mess with mdadm.conf at all, in fact, in the past. I'm not sure what has changed, but in order to get the raid device to persist after rebooting, I had to do this. I'm just happy it all works.
And it does all work! I no longer have that noisy north bridge fan (this motherboard doesn't have a north bridge fan to get noisy)! Everything seems much more stable and efficient. I'm really quite pleased with the new motherboard. I'm also happy with the new camera. I took some pictures of the file server, which I can't believe I haven't done before!
The old, very dusty, motherboard.
My newly installed motherboard. So pretty.
The entire case. This is my first Micro ATX motherboard, and it is surprisingly tiny.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
One-Time Expenses
A couple of days ago, my friend and I were talking about many things. One of these things included a comment about one-time expenses and how there seems to be one every month. I decided to analyze my one-time expenses over the past year and see what I can learn about my budget (as informal as it is). So:
This puts me at just about $300 per month for one-time expenses. I also want to get a new bed at some point, a storm door for the front, a new car eventually, and probably a few other things I have forgotten about while compiling the above list. The storm door will improve the heating/cooling efficiency of the house. The bed, at least, will likely be purchased at Nebraska Furniture Mart (can you believe I used to be anti-NFM at one point?) and therefore be spread out over the following 24-30 months...
I think the video games will also be a less frequent expense for awhile, since a lot of the video game purchases were large packs of games, and should keep me busy for quite a long time, really. There are still at least 10-20 games I haven't even installed/tried. I really hope my pet expenses (one-time, that is - food and litter are frequent purchases) are very low going forward. Regular check-ups only, please! My file server is running much smoother now (see future post), so that will hopefully truly be a one-time expense for the year or more. I remember justifying my living room TV as roommate retention. It's at least getting use. Some car repairs are definitely necessary - I worry about every strange noise I hear when I drive right now, which is not pleasant at all.
...I think what I learned is that even after compiling a list of one-time expenses while expecting a ridiculously high total, I still went into justification-mode after seeing it. I do keep my regular expenses fairly low, and I'm not at all worried about my cash flow. As I discussed previously, I save $200 each month, and that's after maxing out my 401(k) and Roth IRA contributions every year. I save a lot of money each year, and have multiple layers of financial cushions should I ever need to cut back on expenses. However, even if it's not strictly necessary, I think an occasional analysis of spending patterns is helpful.
Update: Speaking of Nebraska Furniture Mart, I forgot about my living room couch. It was purchased on my NFM card, though, and I technically haven't started paying that off yet - I'm still working on my dining room furniture. Or maybe it is my downstairs TV. I love 0% interest! Also, I think it important to mention my new furnace, since it was almost a full year's worth of one-time expenses by itself. Things happen.
- December: Living room TV: ~$800, second 24" monitor: ~$300.
- January: Video games: ~$100. Not too bad...
- February: Ladder to fix the roof: ~200, paying some guy to fix the roof: ~$60.
- March: No big expenses. Go me!
- April: Nothing again!
- May: Fiona died, and I took Apple in to get tests and shots: $130.
- June: Adopted Mac & Cheese: ~$100, initial vet visit for Mac & Cheese: $110
- July: Apple's eye infection: ~$50, Mac & Cheese declawed: ~$260, new tennis racquets: ~$230, video games: ~$100.
- August: I did good again!
- September: Video games: ~$75, miscellaneous family expenses: ~$200.
- October: File server parts & digital camera: ~$400.
- November: Planned car repairs: ~$400
This puts me at just about $300 per month for one-time expenses. I also want to get a new bed at some point, a storm door for the front, a new car eventually, and probably a few other things I have forgotten about while compiling the above list. The storm door will improve the heating/cooling efficiency of the house. The bed, at least, will likely be purchased at Nebraska Furniture Mart (can you believe I used to be anti-NFM at one point?) and therefore be spread out over the following 24-30 months...
I think the video games will also be a less frequent expense for awhile, since a lot of the video game purchases were large packs of games, and should keep me busy for quite a long time, really. There are still at least 10-20 games I haven't even installed/tried. I really hope my pet expenses (one-time, that is - food and litter are frequent purchases) are very low going forward. Regular check-ups only, please! My file server is running much smoother now (see future post), so that will hopefully truly be a one-time expense for the year or more. I remember justifying my living room TV as roommate retention. It's at least getting use. Some car repairs are definitely necessary - I worry about every strange noise I hear when I drive right now, which is not pleasant at all.
...I think what I learned is that even after compiling a list of one-time expenses while expecting a ridiculously high total, I still went into justification-mode after seeing it. I do keep my regular expenses fairly low, and I'm not at all worried about my cash flow. As I discussed previously, I save $200 each month, and that's after maxing out my 401(k) and Roth IRA contributions every year. I save a lot of money each year, and have multiple layers of financial cushions should I ever need to cut back on expenses. However, even if it's not strictly necessary, I think an occasional analysis of spending patterns is helpful.
Update: Speaking of Nebraska Furniture Mart, I forgot about my living room couch. It was purchased on my NFM card, though, and I technically haven't started paying that off yet - I'm still working on my dining room furniture. Or maybe it is my downstairs TV. I love 0% interest! Also, I think it important to mention my new furnace, since it was almost a full year's worth of one-time expenses by itself. Things happen.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Raid Write Intent Bitmaps
During my last raid crash, I couldn't seem to get the damn thing to resync. I tried multiple times, but it would always lock up. I almost took the drastic step of borrowing a raid array to back things up as much as possible and then rebuild from scratch! However, in my many hours of research into potential solutions, I found that most people prevented the problem using a little thing called write intent bitmaps.
As far as I know, they are not available with hardware raid solutions, such as dedicated cards or those built into motherboards. Linux software raid, however, makes it ridiculously easy. Once I finally did get things resync'd (dumb luck, really. I didn't try anything new - it just started working), I immediately turned on the write intent bitmap feature.
mdadm --grow --bitmap=internal /dev/md0
This may reduce write performance slightly (up to 10%), but given that something is funky with my machine and it crashes during most full resyncs, I'm all for the saved resync time. Since I've turned this on, I haven't had a single problem with the array or the machine. There have been a couple blown fuses due to a space heater on the same circuit, but the machine came up and stayed up just fine, barely requiring a few seconds to resync. I can't tell you how happy I was.
So, switch on over to mdadm, add an internal bitmap, and rejoice in the short resync times.
As far as I know, they are not available with hardware raid solutions, such as dedicated cards or those built into motherboards. Linux software raid, however, makes it ridiculously easy. Once I finally did get things resync'd (dumb luck, really. I didn't try anything new - it just started working), I immediately turned on the write intent bitmap feature.
mdadm --grow --bitmap=internal /dev/md0
This may reduce write performance slightly (up to 10%), but given that something is funky with my machine and it crashes during most full resyncs, I'm all for the saved resync time. Since I've turned this on, I haven't had a single problem with the array or the machine. There have been a couple blown fuses due to a space heater on the same circuit, but the machine came up and stayed up just fine, barely requiring a few seconds to resync. I can't tell you how happy I was.
So, switch on over to mdadm, add an internal bitmap, and rejoice in the short resync times.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Fileserver
Before I left for San Diego, my fileserver's northbridge fan and heatsink became separated. It's really worse than a divorce, in many ways, because things are all fucked up, but there's still hope, which means uncertainty, lots of work, and very careful handling of electronics. OK, so I don't know much about divorces.
The lack of heat transfer away from the chip kept my fileserver from booting. Since I've already complained about my loud northbridge fan, I chose to take the opportunity to replace that noisy piece of hardware. I already had a spare fan from somewhere, so I went to the hardware store to find screws long enough to secure it. At the hardware store, I had the bright idea of comparing the screw holes of the two fans and found that they didn't line up. That's when I made the coolest discovery of the week: Krazy Glue comes in a small bottle with a tiny brush built into the lid! I glued the fan to the heatsink, and it stuck almost immediately.
When I got home, I couldn't find my isopropyl alcohol. I was able to get some last Friday night, though, and I set out to clean the bottom of the heatsink and the top of the northbridge heat spreader. I remember isopropyl alcohol working much better than it did. I had to cut the thermal paste off the heatsink, for the most part. Perhaps thermal paste is just that horrible compared to thermal grease. The important thing is that I could now keep my northbridge chip cool.
Doh! The power cord for the fan doesn't reach! I had to pry the fan off the heatsink and re-glue it, rotated ninety degrees. A little thermal grease later, and I was ready to plug my motherboard back into the rest of the computer.
Everything is working mostly. The only weird things are related to mdadm and the raid, I think. The automatic resync operation seems to fail. The first night, I had "watch -n 1 cat /proc/mdstat" running, but I woke up to stack traces being dumped to the screen every second instead of the nice md status. I tried again, but came back later to find the same stack traces showing up every once in awhile. So, I loaded the graphical interface to try and catch more information - but the error stopped. The resync also stopped at 8% and refused to go any further.
I decided that some write activity might wake it up, and started up some bittorrents. They worked well for a few tens of MB, but now my fileserver seems to have rebooted to an initramfs prompt and automatically started a resync. It's currently at 6.9%. I'll see what happens at 8% before I go to bed, and will update as things progress.
Update: 1:49 AM: resync is at 9.6% and going strong.
Update: 9:21 AM: resync is at 64.9% and going strong.
Update: 12:14 PM: resync is at 85.9% and going strong. I'm getting bored waiting for this.
Update: 3:16 PM: resync is done. Things have rebooted, and I will begin some bittorrent stress testing shortly.
Update: 10:23 AM: Fileserver is still up after a couple days of heavy I/O. I'm happy!
The lack of heat transfer away from the chip kept my fileserver from booting. Since I've already complained about my loud northbridge fan, I chose to take the opportunity to replace that noisy piece of hardware. I already had a spare fan from somewhere, so I went to the hardware store to find screws long enough to secure it. At the hardware store, I had the bright idea of comparing the screw holes of the two fans and found that they didn't line up. That's when I made the coolest discovery of the week: Krazy Glue comes in a small bottle with a tiny brush built into the lid! I glued the fan to the heatsink, and it stuck almost immediately.
When I got home, I couldn't find my isopropyl alcohol. I was able to get some last Friday night, though, and I set out to clean the bottom of the heatsink and the top of the northbridge heat spreader. I remember isopropyl alcohol working much better than it did. I had to cut the thermal paste off the heatsink, for the most part. Perhaps thermal paste is just that horrible compared to thermal grease. The important thing is that I could now keep my northbridge chip cool.
Doh! The power cord for the fan doesn't reach! I had to pry the fan off the heatsink and re-glue it, rotated ninety degrees. A little thermal grease later, and I was ready to plug my motherboard back into the rest of the computer.
Everything is working mostly. The only weird things are related to mdadm and the raid, I think. The automatic resync operation seems to fail. The first night, I had "watch -n 1 cat /proc/mdstat" running, but I woke up to stack traces being dumped to the screen every second instead of the nice md status. I tried again, but came back later to find the same stack traces showing up every once in awhile. So, I loaded the graphical interface to try and catch more information - but the error stopped. The resync also stopped at 8% and refused to go any further.
I decided that some write activity might wake it up, and started up some bittorrents. They worked well for a few tens of MB, but now my fileserver seems to have rebooted to an initramfs prompt and automatically started a resync. It's currently at 6.9%. I'll see what happens at 8% before I go to bed, and will update as things progress.
Update: 1:49 AM: resync is at 9.6% and going strong.
Update: 9:21 AM: resync is at 64.9% and going strong.
Update: 12:14 PM: resync is at 85.9% and going strong. I'm getting bored waiting for this.
Update: 3:16 PM: resync is done. Things have rebooted, and I will begin some bittorrent stress testing shortly.
Update: 10:23 AM: Fileserver is still up after a couple days of heavy I/O. I'm happy!
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Fileserver drama
It's been an exciting few days here in Geekland. I successfully installed my two new hard drives. That involved routing cables in an ugly manner, but was otherwise uneventful. I was not able to replace my north bridge fan, though - the wiring for the current one goes under the heatsink, but to remove that I think I need to remove the motherboard from the case. Anyway, at that point, I was all ready to grow my raid5 array.
But wait! How could this be? My 4-disk raid5 array is only running with 3 active disks1. It would appear that sometime on December 17, a power outage or similar caused a hard drive to be marked as failed. I should really set up some sort of notification. Well, I took the opportunity to learn all about recovering a dirty raid array. Good ol' mdadm was marvelous!2
With a fully functioning, clean, 4-disk raid5 array, it was time to grow the array. I called upon mdadm once again3 and got my two new drives added as hot spares. Just one more command4 to grow the array --
What's this? Linux and mdadm require versions 2.6.17 (2.6.19 according to some) and 2.4.1 and later, respectively, in order to grow a raid5 array? Surely Ubuntu, the most user-friendly linux version available will have a convenient upgrade mechanism - well, sort of. Upgrading reported a few errors, but I was running 2.6.20 and mdadm4 wasn't throwing an error anymore. Huzzah, my raid array was growing!
Kernel Panic? Aiee! Oh god oh god oh god. 2TB of data lost! Please let this reboot erase this bad dream... Eep! /dev/md0 no longer exists! There has to be a way to fix this - it's linux! Why, of course! I can always rely on mdadm. Why, once you reassemble the array5, it goes right on growing! Kernel Panic, again? Screw this.
After tiring of kernel panics and screaming "Aiee!" I downloaded an installation CD for the latest Ubuntu distribution. I had to reformat /root and /boot (and opted to format /home while I was at it), but I had a clean installation. In fact, it made everything easier. Once I reinstalled the mdadm package, /dev/md0 magically reappeared and was growing once again. It's now 56.7% done growing. After that, I need to resize the ext3 file system6, but I think that will go smoother.
At least I know the data is still there (at least mostly). After another while reinstalling and configuring samba and mounting /dev/md0, I have successfully watched an episode of TV. Indeed, I can still use my 2TB of file storage while it's growing into 3.5TB! If it weren't for a faulty upgrade, I probably wouldn't have had to reboot except for the hardware installation (and I admit that can even be avoided given proper cable planning in the case). I'm still amazed that mdadm can handle a bad disk, adding two disks, a faulty OS upgrade, kernel panics interrupting a reshape, reassembling unclean disks and making them clean again, resuming an interrupted reshape operation from a different version, and almost all while allowing the drive to remain accessible. Simply amazing.
Commands to remember:
But wait! How could this be? My 4-disk raid5 array is only running with 3 active disks1. It would appear that sometime on December 17, a power outage or similar caused a hard drive to be marked as failed. I should really set up some sort of notification. Well, I took the opportunity to learn all about recovering a dirty raid array. Good ol' mdadm was marvelous!2
With a fully functioning, clean, 4-disk raid5 array, it was time to grow the array. I called upon mdadm once again3 and got my two new drives added as hot spares. Just one more command4 to grow the array --
What's this? Linux and mdadm require versions 2.6.17 (2.6.19 according to some) and 2.4.1 and later, respectively, in order to grow a raid5 array? Surely Ubuntu, the most user-friendly linux version available will have a convenient upgrade mechanism - well, sort of. Upgrading reported a few errors, but I was running 2.6.20 and mdadm4 wasn't throwing an error anymore. Huzzah, my raid array was growing!
Kernel Panic? Aiee! Oh god oh god oh god. 2TB of data lost! Please let this reboot erase this bad dream... Eep! /dev/md0 no longer exists! There has to be a way to fix this - it's linux! Why, of course! I can always rely on mdadm. Why, once you reassemble the array5, it goes right on growing! Kernel Panic, again? Screw this.
After tiring of kernel panics and screaming "Aiee!" I downloaded an installation CD for the latest Ubuntu distribution. I had to reformat /root and /boot (and opted to format /home while I was at it), but I had a clean installation. In fact, it made everything easier. Once I reinstalled the mdadm package, /dev/md0 magically reappeared and was growing once again. It's now 56.7% done growing. After that, I need to resize the ext3 file system6, but I think that will go smoother.
At least I know the data is still there (at least mostly). After another while reinstalling and configuring samba and mounting /dev/md0, I have successfully watched an episode of TV. Indeed, I can still use my 2TB of file storage while it's growing into 3.5TB! If it weren't for a faulty upgrade, I probably wouldn't have had to reboot except for the hardware installation (and I admit that can even be avoided given proper cable planning in the case). I'm still amazed that mdadm can handle a bad disk, adding two disks, a faulty OS upgrade, kernel panics interrupting a reshape, reassembling unclean disks and making them clean again, resuming an interrupted reshape operation from a different version, and almost all while allowing the drive to remain accessible. Simply amazing.
Commands to remember:
- cat /proc/mdstat
- mdadm --add /dev/md0 /dev/sdd1
- mdadm --add /dev/md0 /dev/sde1 /dev/sdf1
- mdadm --grow /dev/md0 -n 6
- mdadm --assemble /dev/md0 /dev/sda1 /dev/sdb1 /dev/sdc1 /dev/sde1 /dev/sdf1
- resize2fs /dev/md0 (theoretically)
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Computer Upgrades
I placed an order on Newegg yesterday for two more 750GB hard drives for my fileserver. I'm very excited because they arrive tomorrow! Newegg is fast! I'm thinking of making a trip up to Microcenter at some point in the next couple of days to get a new north bridge fan. I figure as long as my machine is going to be off while I add new hard drives and the like, I might as well get rid of the one loud fan that's in the box. I still need to figure out exactly how to expand a linux raid5 array, but that should be fun. Also cool: my hard drives were each part of a combo deal, so I get two free USB drives - one is 2GB and the other is 4GB. Perhaps I'll actually use one sometime.
I also did some research for my next primary machine while I was shopping. I've picked out a likely case and memory, but beyond that I ran into some troubles. There wasn't any clear best choice on processor/motherboard/graphics combinations. In the end, I decided that since I won't be buying a new machine until at least June, that I'll postpone any research until then, too.
The only lasting decision I made was to name my new computer Nora. In fact, this will be the first computer I will have named. I chose the name when it immediately popped into my head when Newegg asked me what I should name the wish list of parts I'd created. So, I'm not sure what the significance is yet, but Nora has some potential to be special.
I also did some research for my next primary machine while I was shopping. I've picked out a likely case and memory, but beyond that I ran into some troubles. There wasn't any clear best choice on processor/motherboard/graphics combinations. In the end, I decided that since I won't be buying a new machine until at least June, that I'll postpone any research until then, too.
The only lasting decision I made was to name my new computer Nora. In fact, this will be the first computer I will have named. I chose the name when it immediately popped into my head when Newegg asked me what I should name the wish list of parts I'd created. So, I'm not sure what the significance is yet, but Nora has some potential to be special.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Dining Room Set
I went to Nebraska Furniture Mart with my mother and my little brother, Jake. I decided to take advantage of their 30 months of 0% interest financing and fill up my dining room, finally. We walked the floor for about an hour with a sales lady before setting in on 4 sets. They weren't all next to each other, so it was a long process of taking a mental picture of one and then running over to compare it to another. I'm sure that sales lady loved us.
I found pictures of things online!
My table and china hutch thing!
My sidebar/buffet/server! (The chair shown in this picture is like mine - the wooden back.)
It's exciting, most definitely. And surprisingly expensive. I had priced tables before, but I hadn't counted on having to buy two extra chairs for when the leaf is in (always for a lazy bum like myself), a sidebar/buffet/server, and a china hutch thing. I understand that it's necessary to fill the room with something, and that these things probably have an actual purpose, but I hadn't considered them until my style consultant (my mother) said I needed them.
I found pictures of things online!
My table and china hutch thing!
My sidebar/buffet/server! (The chair shown in this picture is like mine - the wooden back.)
It's exciting, most definitely. And surprisingly expensive. I had priced tables before, but I hadn't counted on having to buy two extra chairs for when the leaf is in (always for a lazy bum like myself), a sidebar/buffet/server, and a china hutch thing. I understand that it's necessary to fill the room with something, and that these things probably have an actual purpose, but I hadn't considered them until my style consultant (my mother) said I needed them.
Monday, April 16, 2007
File server fixed!
I'm almost positive that my file server is fixed! I am very excited. I can now fill up the remaining 600GB (of 2048GB).
What was the problem, you ask? Well, it would appear that the voltage applied to the DIMM sockets was set at 1.9V instead of 2.1V. I'm not sure if I should blame the RAM's SPD data, or the BIOS for ignoring said data. I'm betting it's bad data on the RAM, because the Corsair Memory website listed both 1.9 and 2.1 as the tested voltage in two different places. They appear to be confused.
Either way, manually setting the DIMM voltage to 2.1 allowed memtest86 to run for a full 24 hours, which is hasn't been able to do for a long time. It's time to plug my hard drives back in, boot up, and transfer some very large files!
What was the problem, you ask? Well, it would appear that the voltage applied to the DIMM sockets was set at 1.9V instead of 2.1V. I'm not sure if I should blame the RAM's SPD data, or the BIOS for ignoring said data. I'm betting it's bad data on the RAM, because the Corsair Memory website listed both 1.9 and 2.1 as the tested voltage in two different places. They appear to be confused.
Either way, manually setting the DIMM voltage to 2.1 allowed memtest86 to run for a full 24 hours, which is hasn't been able to do for a long time. It's time to plug my hard drives back in, boot up, and transfer some very large files!
Monday, March 19, 2007
File Server Aggravation
I left my server up over the weekend. It was booted into Windows. It was frozen this morning. This is quite annoying, but does have one positive piece. Basically, it is unlikely to be software-related at this point. Since the computer freezes when using either or both sticks of RAM, I'm betting it's not the RAM. The chances of both sticks having slight errors at the same time seems small. I'm going to swap out a different PCI express graphics card and see if that helps things. If it doesn't, I'll be pretty much out of ideas, and almost certainly out of cheaply tested ideas.
I'm house-sitting for my parents, though, so I won't have a whole lot of opportunity to test things, anyway. Damned inconvenient, really.
I'm house-sitting for my parents, though, so I won't have a whole lot of opportunity to test things, anyway. Damned inconvenient, really.
Friday, March 9, 2007
Linux, Ubuntu, and My File Server
My file server has been ill recently. It's been freezing. It has other problems, too, like a loud northbridge fan, but these seem minor in comparison to failing to function at all.
Well, after having it freeze on the login screen, without the screen saver on, I noticed some screen corruption. This says to me that it's graphics related. It's hard to tell if it's drivers or hardware, or a combination. I'm not a fan of manufacturers overclocking their boards by default. Instability is the result. One explanation for the suddenness of the increase in freezing frequency is miscellaneous updates to Ubuntu. Or, perhaps my GPU is just gradually melting and becoming less stable. The problem here is that when booting in Windows, things remained unfrozen for three days before I tried Ubuntu again.
Either way, I figured a good way to test the graphics card problem would be to run in command line mode for awhile, and see if things freeze. Getting Ubuntu to run in command line mode isn't terribly easy, though. Most linux distros have runlevel 2 mapped to command line mode. Ubuntu has levels 2-5 all mapped to the same standard experience. So, I had to do an "apt-get install rcconf" and "sudo rcconf" and then find a site that talked about what each service does.
It makes me feel inadequate and a bit sad that I'm such a linux newbie. I think I'd be embarrassed if I ever had to have conversations about linux with a real techie. Luckily, at work, I have the excuse "I work on .NET, which is Windows only. So, I need an answer for Windows. Oh, I have a linux file server at home, though." I am simply ashamed.
Also, I've had this damn thing for many months, now, and I still haven't even installed apache. I meant to have this thing functioning as an FTP server, website, and collaboration tool for family software projects. I need to get on this, and soon. Once I buy a house, anyway.
Well, after having it freeze on the login screen, without the screen saver on, I noticed some screen corruption. This says to me that it's graphics related. It's hard to tell if it's drivers or hardware, or a combination. I'm not a fan of manufacturers overclocking their boards by default. Instability is the result. One explanation for the suddenness of the increase in freezing frequency is miscellaneous updates to Ubuntu. Or, perhaps my GPU is just gradually melting and becoming less stable. The problem here is that when booting in Windows, things remained unfrozen for three days before I tried Ubuntu again.
Either way, I figured a good way to test the graphics card problem would be to run in command line mode for awhile, and see if things freeze. Getting Ubuntu to run in command line mode isn't terribly easy, though. Most linux distros have runlevel 2 mapped to command line mode. Ubuntu has levels 2-5 all mapped to the same standard experience. So, I had to do an "apt-get install rcconf" and "sudo rcconf" and then find a site that talked about what each service does.
It makes me feel inadequate and a bit sad that I'm such a linux newbie. I think I'd be embarrassed if I ever had to have conversations about linux with a real techie. Luckily, at work, I have the excuse "I work on .NET, which is Windows only. So, I need an answer for Windows. Oh, I have a linux file server at home, though." I am simply ashamed.
Also, I've had this damn thing for many months, now, and I still haven't even installed apache. I meant to have this thing functioning as an FTP server, website, and collaboration tool for family software projects. I need to get on this, and soon. Once I buy a house, anyway.
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