On my first build, I decided to use a 256MB CompactFlash card as a hard drive and use the FreeNAS embedded install. Basically, that means that you have an image of the OS and a configuration stored on the card. It boots up from the card and then runs completely from RAM. There aren’t the constant rewrites to the card (like a hard drive) which will wear them out. However, what this also means is that you really can’t install anything else other than the base operating system, which meant this wasn’t going to work for me.

I found an old 60GB hard drive in one of my storage bins and reinstalled FreeNAS on it using a “full” install this time. I set up my drives as a RAID 5 which basically means that all of the drives are combined as one large drive. They need to be the same capacity, and you add their total storage up, and then subtract it by one of the drives. The space for that drive is used for redundancy in case one of them fails, so you won’t lose all of your data.

As I was copying data over to the “monster” I noticed that the FreeNAS server was rebooting randomly during periods of high disk usage. When the data finished copying, I began validating file integrity (checksum, cfv is a wonderful tool!) and realized that not only had I spent 2 days copying everything to the server, but many of the files were actually corrupt.

I immediately started reading and found some people reporting compatibility issues with the SATA card I’d purchased and FreeNAS. I had resigned to having to purchase a new card, when I ran across another forum post with a workaround. The trick is to format each disk using the controller bios utility and then soft format it using FreeNAS without erasing the MBR. Luckily with the troubles I was having, I hadn’t deleted anything from my original drives yet.

In all of my reading, I had also discovered that FreeNAS has native support for a file system called ZFS and can build its equivalent to a RAID5 which is known as a RAIDZ. A RAIDZ is basically the same as a RAID5 for me except one major difference: filesystem snapshots. ZFS snapshots allow to you take a picture in time of how your filesystem looks today, and roll it back if necessary or just retrieve certain files you’ve lost.

Are you wondering how this is any better than a Recycle/Trash bin? Well, imagine you’ve been working on an important document all week, and you were putting the finishing touches on it tonight. You don’t realize it, but somehow you accidentally delete pages 10-13, but 1-9 are fine as are 14-23. When you saved over your file, your original document is now gone normally, right? It wouldn’t be in the Recycle Bin because it wasn’t deleted. However, if you were taking snapshots, you can go back to last night’s snapshot, grab the saved file from yesterday and open it back up.  It’s really cool in a really nerdy kind of way.

Sorry, back to the server…

I had to reformat the drives and recopy the data over anyway, so I went ahead and switched it to a RAIDZ. I’ve set up cron tasks to take hourly, daily, and weekly automatic snapshots with help from this tutorial.

Some utilities I’ve found to be very useful to have on the server are unrar, cfv, and of course, SETI@Home.

On a side note, I’ve had one of those hard drives go bad already. Thankfully, FreeNAS has SMART monitoring and sends an email when a drive tests bad. I’d had it 33 days, so I couldn’t return it to Newegg. I had to send it back to Seagate, which I must say, their RMA process is pretty crappy compared to Western Digital. Seagate charges $20 for what WD offers for free. I’ll be purchasing Western Digital in the future simply because of this.

In October 2009, I purchased a 1.5TB hard drive. I realized recently that it was pretty much full, and I was having to move things over to a 500GB drive. I figured that it’s time to upgrade again, so I began looking into a standalone Network Attached Storage device.

Now, I mentioned that I do hoard some in real life, and one of those things is old PCs. In my closet, I had an old AMD Athlon XP 1900+ Processor and Asrock K7VM3 motherboard. It had 512MB of RAM still in it. I’m always looking for ways to reuse these old systems for various things, so I figured I could serve files from it. It had onboard video and lan, so all I really needed was to figure out what OS I wanted and a SATA card.

I did some searching on the internet and found two choices that really stood out, FreeNAS and Openfiler. To be short about it, I basically chose FreeNAS because I had never used FreeBSD before, and I wanted an excuse to learn a new OS.

I ordered my parts from Newegg as I usually do. My friend Brian gave me an old Thermaltake full tower case he had, so I ordered a 380W green power supply, SATA controller, and 4 2TB green hard drives. I went with the green drives and PSU because I wasn’t so concerned with performance as I was storage space. This way they will run slower and (hopefully) save power.

Part 2 coming soon…

Preview:

To my surprise, there is a nice command-line Python utility called youtube-dl. Since it’s Python, it will run on any platform: Windows, Mac, or Linux. There’s a guide on how to install, and various features… just run youtube-dl -h for more information.

Here’s the Rampage vs Rashad Weigh-In video:

So… they totaled the bug, so I bought it back. I’m thinking that was probably a mistake. Just looking at it I feel overwhelmed and depressed.

I bought a 1989 BMW 325i Convertible as my daily driver. It’s in pretty good shape. I’ve fixed a few little things on it so far and it’s performing its task well. The weather for the past couple of weeks has been perfect for driving with the top down.

I’m also working on fixing up the truck. Ken and I redid the ignition system this weekend. He showed me how to take apart the distributor and we put in the points elimination kit. We also installed a new ignition coil, and he showed me how to correct the engine timing. Today I replaced the distributor cap, plugs, and wires, and washed and waxed it. From what I could tell, the ignition coil was ancient, and the timing was a little off. Once we adjusted that, the engine sounded a whole lot better and the little bit I did drive it around the neighborhood seemed to have more power than before. I will drive it more tomorrow after work and see how it does. I’m crossing my fingers…!

Anyway, back to work in the morning… no more fun for me.

Jenny couldn’t come with us to WV since she had to work. I called her on Saturday morning on her way to work to wish her a happy birthday, and during the conversation she told me she thought the heater was broken. Immediately I could feel my stomach knotting up… thinking I was going to have a huge repair cost. Then she explained that it was the heater in the car, and that it was the knob to adjust the strength (1,2,3,4,etc.) of the fan. I told her not to worry about it, and that I’d look at it when I got home. It’s a 10 year old car. It’s not the first switch to break, and I wasn’t that worried about it. We hung up and I started getting ready to leave the house.

Jenny calls me back approximately 10 minutes later, “There’s smoke pouring out the dashboard.” I told her to get out of the car and dial 911. She called me back 10 minutes after that, “I can see flames now.” The fire department was on their way, and got there shortly after that. They extinguished the fire.

Since I was in WV, she went ahead and contacted GEICO who sent a tow truck out. They towed it to the house, and Jennifer (our neighbor) came and picked up Jenny. GEICO initially told Jenny that since it was on fire, they were probably going to total it. They did get her a rental car which she was able to pick up on Monday morning. On that paperwork also, they said the car was totaled. Jenny went ahead and emptied out the car, took the license plates off and everything before I got home. They told her that if I wanted to keep the supercharger, I could, I just needed to put the stock parts back on.

I then began weighing my options… do I want to buy the car back and take on the project of fixing it? What kind of fire damage, water damage, etc. might be back there? I don’t know what they were going to offer me for the car, but I honestly didn’t want it. I’d rather have my car fixed.

Anyway, I talked to the adjuster on Friday, and explained the damage. He drove out to the house to inspect the car, and agreed with me that it probably wasn’t totaled. However, without being able to remove the dash and inspect the damage, it was impossible to tell. They went ahead and towed it to a repair shop last night to inspect it further.

I’m crossing my fingers….

Fire Damage (9 photos)
23 January 2010, Clover, SC
Bug Fire Damage

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I remember in high school hoping I wouldn’t wake up the next morning, and all of the times I thought about suicide. I honestly didn’t think I’d make it to 25. I told quite a few people that. And I really don’t know why… it’s just difficult to cope with things, I guess. I get overwhelmed too easily, lose control, break down, close up, disappear.

It sucked to come back to work from vacation. It sucked working on my birthday, and it sucked turning 30.

Anyway, I have to wake up early. Happy 30th Birthday to me….

Things I need to do:

• Finish wiring up the radio in the truck
• Get a new phone, drop the iPhone and it’s $30 data plan
• Cancel Sirius
• Cancel HD channels on DirecTV
• Shop around for car and homeowners insurance
• Order and change O2 sensor in the Beetle – Trouble code wasn’t O2 sensor. It was misfires in 3 cylinders. Ordered a new ignition coil, plugs and wires instead. If those don’t fix it, I’ll change the O2 sensors.
• Fix windshield wiper fluid in Beetle — doesn’t spray on driver’s side
• Wire up new Bose speaker
• Hook up the under-counter radio in the Kitchen

Jenny did get a new job a couple of weeks ago doing home care. She’s really enjoying it, but working 6 days a week. I guess it’s time I actually get the truck fixed to where I feel comfortable driving it more since having only one car kind of sucks.

We went to WV for Christmas. We drove up on Thursday night, and left late last night since Jenny had to work this morning. She got the opportunity to put on a bite suit and take bites from the K9 dogs. As of last night, she had a nice bruise starting on her arm. I think her camera is still in the car, so I’ll post pictures tonight when she gets home.

Six Pictures - 2009.12.26 (6 photos)
26 December 2009
Six random pictures

Albumul poate fi vazut doar online.