Razor Blade

There are quite a few affordable Latitude model Dell laptops around the 2017-2019 years that support USB C charging and docking. Be mindful if you buy used to make sure Computrace is deactivated or disabled in the BIOS under the security tab.

7 minutes ago, Sekvanod said:

thx, do you maybe know how to set up auto torent download or is that not posible on freenas?

 

Currently you can use plugins for that. A few I just checked called "couch potato" and "Transmission"...

4 hours ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

*snip*

Spoiler

Thsi is one reason why I do not recommend RAID, etc. for most people. All a RAID, etc. provides is redundancy. All redundancy does is protect from drive failure (up to the fault tolerance) and allow a computer to keep chugging along when one or more drives (depending, again, on the fault tolerance) dies.

 

Most people do not absolutely need for a computer to keep running after one or more drives fail. It's a bit inconvenient but not the end of the world as long as one has a solid backup.

 

Redundancy will prevent data loss from drive failure (up to a point) but will not protect from other causes of data loss, such as user error (such as accidental deletion or formatting), PSU failure frying everyting in the computer, power surges that blow through any surge protection you may have, theft, fire, flood, wind damage (like a little ol' tornado or hurricane), viruses and other malware, etc. Only backups can protect you from that.

 

For data to be reasonably safe, it must exist in three places. For most people, this will be on the computer, on an onsite backup drive, and on an offsite backup drive. For a backup drive to be a true backup, it must be kept powered down and disconnected from the computer and stored away from the computer at all times except while updating the backup.

 

All good stuff to remember, I run a "RAID" on my server for the uptime and the benefits ZFS gives. But I also keep snapshots and backups too. I just don't want to have to restore a backup unless absolutely necessary (even more important when you live with your..um.."customers")... I was just thinking that since rebuilding arrays does puts stress on the other disks until finished and how freakishly long it takes to rebuild 6 disk arrays with 8-10TB disks, 20 might take up to a week depending how many resources your system is able to really devote, how much data, and how many disks there are in the array... Not to mention if those disks find their way into someone's poor little Synology box, I can't imagine how long you'd have to wait...

All I can think about is just how long it would take to rebuild an array of 20TB drives...and the chances that a second drive failing during the insanely long rebuild.

I think you were right to be skeptical. Though I don't know the specifics, I would be as bold as to state that your password was likely not a requirement for the completion of the requested repair.

Unless it is a shared account or some very rare case like data recovery, there is never a good reason to give someone your password.

So many people are too lax with security when it comes to someone helping them with a computer problem. I can't tell you how many people just tell me their password to a computer, phone, or other device. I always tell them the same thing and also encourage them to change their password once I get done repairing their device. How many do? Probably none...but I like to think I've done my due diligence I guess...

On 5/9/2019 at 5:42 AM, Faisal A said:

@asand1 @Crunchy Dragon would something like this be any ģood. It has dual sockets aswell. If I can't use the xeon what can I use ?

 

All I can say is be very careful with old server boards... There can be countless pitfalls trying to adapt them to run with consumer gear. Proprietary front panel connections, onboard PDUs, proprietary CPU coolers, only certain supported CPUs, and restrictive proprietary firmware to name a few things. Please know what you're buying and all the restrictions that might come with it... Nothing worse than dropping money on a piece of hardware you can't use.

25 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

Anybody able to help out our friend here?

 

 

30£ for a working X58 board? Asking for a Christmas miracle in May is a bit early isn't it?

As stated above, it's difficult to find X58 boards in your price range. You could go with a chinesium branded board at the 38-40 GBP mark off of Ebay... but searching for a used board might be your best bet at this point.

5 hours ago, Rocki said:

this drive with 5400RPM was good and fast?

Barracuda series was fast and better than other 7200 drives?

 

have deal for 4TB now.. only 65$

 

Good for Gaming and backups?

 

5400RPM drives are good for storage, good for power consumption, and good for longevity... not great for performance.

If you want to store game files on a drive, consider a standard desktop class 7200RPM drive.

On 5/7/2019 at 9:42 AM, Gershy13 said:

Yeah i think i decided against using freenas, i was considering OMV or unraid, and now i might check out xpenology, i hadnt really considered it before... Thoughts on OMV?

I tend to be biased toward Debian distros because that is what I'm...err...most?...familiar with...however I haven't heard a whole lot going on at OMV... for example, the last announcement thread on their forum was way back in September 2018... not saying it's bad or anything, just that if you're wanting an OS with constant updates and the latest features, might want to look around a bit more...

I'd say give Unraid a shot. If it's worth the money, hopefully you can decide in the 30 day trial. If not, I've heard that Xpenology is good too (just keep in mind it is essentially a hacked version of the synology OS)

Uh oh... I'm going to have a lot of VMs that are going to be very unhappy... most only have a 32GB...err..."hard drive"

Being a FreeNAS user myself, for this use case I would have to concur that Unraid (or even Xpenology) might be a better option for what you're wanting to do. As stated above, it seems you're looking more for a hybrid array rather than a more traditional RAID setup. ZFS is incredible but comes at a cost. Expanding a ZFS array you would need to do in clusters of hard drives instead of just adding onesie twosies.

I don't carry a personal backpack but for the backpack I carry for work just has a laptop and charger, pens, paper, business cards, and all the interface cables I need.

It's been a while since I've messed with OMV... I believe if you're using the mdadm filesystem you can add disks and "grow" an array right from the web UI under the RAID management tab.

21 minutes ago, SHG_Marsh said:

I tried the browser thing but apparently it didn't work. Also I tried dragging the files but not all of the file would move. Some of my video files are garbage now

What do you mean your videos files are garbage? Are they corrupt? Might not be a bad idea to run crystaldiskinfo or manufacturer software to look at your SSD's S.M.A.R.T info.

For many use cases, a VPN should be sufficient to protect your browsing privacy...are you...not welcome on the network you're trying to join or something?

Ordering a pair of X5680s for a YDJK3 motherboard

FreeNAS doesn't use the IronWolf Health feature of the drive (which is IMO one of the most attractive features of IronWolf and is only available on 4TB models and above source:https://www.seagate.com/internal-hard-drives/hdd/ironwolf/) so really any drive that is meant to be in an array would work with FreeNAS...it doesn't have to be IronWolf.

Beginner distros of linux... well the Debian variety would be pretty good start since there are instructions and tutorials literally everywhere for anything you can imagine... Ubuntu MATE (as stated above) is a great distro since it is so popular. Another one would be Linux Mint with the Cinnamon desktop (as long as the computer can handle it) since it has a feel kind of similar to windows.

I started an elderly neighbor on Linux mint after having a lot of problems with adware, malware, and Windows updates breaking everything... He picked up mint cinnamon surprisingly fast! I did a few housekeeping things for "behind the scenes" management like installing ad blockers, adding update commands to run with a cron job, and locking down the account by creating a separate admin account. Recently I moved him over to a more minimal distro after he got used to mint. I couldn't help myself...I upgraded his laptop to 8GB of RAM and an SSD... To see his complete amazement with the sub 30 second cold boot to desktop time on an older laptop made it worth every penny to me.

So the only feature are green LEDs and it burns the logo in bread? What about overclocking it?

I just like the G and B...can I buy it without the R? Because R seems to always indicates a problem for me...

There are many...many...many videos on YouTube about repairing game boy cartridges. Here are just a couple for convenience.

Pick up a can of deoxIT (just the red and black can will work) using the spray and a toothbrush, it should help clean that corrosion off.

4 hours ago, Vulkan HeStan said:

ltt actually did a video on this

Farm animals can carry disease (such as E. coli). If you're around them a lot you likely would fare way better then someone who lives a sterilized indoor HEPA filtered life. But all you can do now is to monitor for symptoms.

7 hours ago, Velcade said:

These posts worry me.  Do people in the IT space really say they can do things and then just search forums until someone else tells them how to do it?

 

I wonder if my IT dept operates the same...

IMO the tech that researches and asks how to do something he doesn't know how to do is way better than a tech who's pride greatly exceeds his competence.