Rebuilding Our Most DISGUSTING Server

[jakkuh_t]

 

[Murasaki]

Another one bites the dust (?)

[Fisolino]

I really wanna know what this Air Blower is called or anything that is close to it because I think the conventional compressed cans just cannot do the job over a long period of times not to mention the efficiency. (I also know other use cases for the Air Blower)

[Windows7ge]

I remember that. That was the first initial Storinator they were sent from 45drives back when they just started their more proper bulk storage. I think they called it their "Vault".

[TenSob_]

Is it just me, or does this video look way sharper and less vibrant than ususal?

Did they switch their RED cameras for BMD URSA ones for the main channel?

The extra resolution must be great for the editors, but I really prefer the older look.

[Bitter]

Compressed air will take care of like 90-95% of that dust sitting there.

I mean look how nasty this thing was, worse than that server and ALL I did was blast it with 90 PSI shop air from a blow gun taking care to keep fans stationary when blowing to not spin off blades or back-feed electricity in the fan controllers.

[Nystemy]

The "we can't vacuum it, we have to blow" is technically not correct.(at 5:27 in the video)
What creates static is moving dry air.

If the air gets "sucked" to a low pressure region from a high pressure region.
Or "blown" from a high pressure region to a low pressure one doesn't matter.
If the air is too dry to suck, then it is too dry to blow.

Sucking is though generally "easier". Since humidifying air can be done with as little as a spray bottle if one has a bit of patience. (Though, it is generally better to have a proper air humidifier.)
One can also get air humidifiers for compressed air systems, but most air compressors have air de-humidifiers, literally making the static problem worse even in an otherwise humid environment.. (unless one's compressed air gun has an intake that mixes in some of the ambient air, but then the ambient still needs to be fairly humid, like above 50% relative humidity.)

There is also other downsides of cleaning dust with compressed air, some dust can be conductive and compressed air can force it in underneath chip packages and create hard to find problems. This can be especially problematic around BGA packaged devices. (Not to mention that the dust can catch fire if one is unlucky, it is fairly "nice" kindling.)

Just my humble regards working in electronics manufacturing.
_{(Though, where I work we do use compressed air to clean boards. But we clean it from water, not dust (we use water/solvents to clean the boards from flux residue from soldering), in a room with controlled ambient humidity, and with an air gun that mixes in a fair portion of ambient air. Ie, a very controlled ESD-"free" environment.)}

[Lurick]

1 hour ago, Fisolino said:

I really wanna know what this Air Blower is called or anything that is close to it because I think the conventional compressed cans just cannot do the job over a long period of times not to mention the efficiency. (I also know other use cases for the Air Blower)

DataVac is the most common one I know of.

[Bitter]

4 minutes ago, Nystemy said:

The "we can't vacuum it, we have to blow" is technically not correct.(at 5:27 in the video)
What creates static is moving dry air.

If the air gets "sucked" to a low pressure region from a high pressure region.
Or "blown" from a high pressure region to a low pressure one doesn't matter.
If the air is too dry to suck, then it is too dry to blow.

Sucking is though generally "easier". Since humidifying air can be done with as little as a spray bottle if one has a bit of patience. (Though, it is generally better to have a proper air humidifier.)
One can also get air humidifiers for compressed air systems, but most air compressors have air de-humidifiers, literally making the static problem worse even in an otherwise humid environment.. (unless one's compressed air gun has an intake that mixes in some of the ambient air, but then the ambient still needs to be fairly humid, like above 50% relative humidity.)

There is also other downsides of cleaning dust with compressed air, some dust can be conductive and compressed air can force it in underneath chip packages and create hard to find problems. This can be especially problematic around BGA packaged devices. (Not to mention that the dust can catch fire if one is unlucky, it is fairly "nice" kindling.)

Just my humble regards working in electronics manufacturing.
_{(Though, where I work we do use compressed air to clean boards. But we clean it from water, not dust (we use water/solvents to clean the boards from flux residue from soldering), in a room with controlled ambient humidity, and with an air gun that mixes in a fair portion of ambient air. Ie, a very controlled ESD-"free" environment.)}

In an air compressor without any intake air dehumidifying typically you get some moisture formed by the temperature drop of the compressed air exiting the nozzle, depending on ambient humidity of course. Blowing from a compressed air tank would, in my opinion, be less likely to cause harm. You could further mitigate this by connecting the chassis to the blow gun or vacuum tube to eliminate the voltage potential between them (or just hold the case while you hold the blow/suck device).

[Nystemy]

17 minutes ago, Bitter said:

In an air compressor without any intake air dehumidifying typically you get some moisture formed by the temperature drop of the compressed air exiting the nozzle, depending on ambient humidity of course. Blowing from a compressed air tank would, in my opinion, be less likely to cause harm. You could further mitigate this by connecting the chassis to the blow gun or vacuum tube to eliminate the voltage potential between them (or just hold the case while you hold the blow/suck device).

Yes, air compressors do work if used correctly.
But I have seen far too many people misunderstand the actual mechanics behind electrostatic buildup from moving air.

If the air humidity is above 70%, then it generally doesn't matter what one uses. _{(as long as it isn't a dehumidified, non air mixed compressed air gun being used, those are ESD guns for all I care...)}
Though, the general advantage of sucking is that it has a lesser risk of trapping dust underneath components and therefor have a lower risk of failure. Even if this is fairly rare.

Now, the "compressed air" source they used is frankly just a vacuum cleaner in reverse, and didn't seem to have any dehumidifier. Then it shouldn't be a major problem. And it surely lacks the power of a 5+ bar air gun. So trapping dust should also be fairly hard.

My main argument were though that if one can't suck due to low humidity, then one can't blow either.

[Darwing]

2 hours ago, jakkuh_t said:

 

Anyone know the song they used for the slow mo montage?

[GodAtum]

This is not a professional solution. You need to co-locate your server to a proper remote datacentre, or use AWS S3.

[Guest]

This made COL (cough out loud).

[Lurick]

41 minutes ago, GodAtum said:

This is not a professional solution. You need to co-locate your server to a proper remote datacentre, or use AWS S3.

Did you not watch the video where they said that's exactly where this server is going? Or is several hundred kilometers away not remote enough?

 

Also, the purpose of this server is more than storage so their elastic server would be better but leveraging S3 would cost somewhere around $12,000 a month.

[Nystemy]

1 hour ago, Lurick said:

Did you not watch the video where they said that's exactly where this server is going? Or is several hundred kilometers away not remote enough?

 

Also, the purpose of this server is more than storage so their elastic server would be better but leveraging S3 would cost somewhere around $12,000 a month.

Depending on the need, being in the same country/continent isn't really all that remote.

• A severe fault on the power grid could take out equipment for quite some distance, though, most grids have many protection devices to ensure this is extremely unlikely to happen.
• Some earthquakes have historically effected areas larger than 300 km in radius. And Vancouver isn't all that far away from a major fault. (this is though also exceedingly rare...)
• One could also hypothetically consider the risk of a random comet crashing down out of the blue, like the Chelyabinsk meteor did in Russia a couple of years back. Though, if such were to actually hit the ground, then there is a risk that LMG as a whole might not really exist much after it...
• Or if Canada just decides to suddenly be a jerk and make their business illegal/nonviable due to some new law or another. (Likely not targeting LMG specifically, but rather a change in policy or other area that LMG is a part of.)

Just to list a few reasons for why a few hundred km isn't all that far at times.
Though, for the needs of LMG, it is most likely sufficient for the job. And at least they placed the backup further in land, and not just up a bit along the coast. (ocean waves from particularly strong earth quakes can effect coastal regions almost world wide at times, also rare, but it happens.)

And yes, AWS is an expensive silver bullet as far as IT infrastructure goes, nor are they the only company one can go to for such services as well.

[Levent]

y'all really need to put a curtain or something over that door windows. I saw 3 different weird reactions in this video alone when people realised you were filming.

[bambinone]

Can we get some specs on this eldritch horror? CPU, mobo, HBAs, and chassis? Thanks in advance! 

[AndyPro720]

11 hours ago, jakkuh_t said:

 

Great Video!

Although, why not use the built in file history in Windows? It has the same if not better functionality and a great UI to go through the files.
You can mount the backup as a network drive.

[nemes]

Any chance of posting the rsnapshot config you guys are using?

[Jakllp]

On 2/21/2021 at 7:25 PM, Fisolino said:

I really wanna know what this Air Blower is called or anything that is close to it because I think the conventional compressed cans just cannot do the job over a long period of times not to mention the efficiency. (I also know other use cases for the Air Blower)

When they hold it into the camera it says "DataVac Electric Duster"

[rithemut]

Can somebody from the LTT team (probably Jake) explain why they used XFS for this server ? That doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

 

XFS is a file system made for high performance, not reliable storage. Why not just use ZFS ? You guys mentioned multiple times that it is only gigabit and is not meant to be high performant (obviously) then why use XFS ? You had another TrueNAS tab open in your browser, so you know it exists.

[Healadin]

Hello,

in the video they mentioned, that all drives are spinning and they will config it later. It is my only problem with Unraid (using it as NAS with openVPN server), that I cannot get it to sleep or some "powersaving mode". It takes like 70W all the time, but I am just usually watching like 2 movies a week from it remotely and thats it. I think that Dynamix S3 Sleep addon doesnt put it to sleep coz of dockers running (openvpn-as, duckdns), but I would like to lower actual power consumption, but be able to remotely connect to it wherever I want (I have 6 6tb iroon wolfs and 120 gb cache ssd in there, with athlon 3000G). Anyone has any suggestions what to try?

[rithemut]

5 hours ago, Healadin said:

Hello,

in the video they mentioned, that all drives are spinning and they will config it later. It is my only problem with Unraid (using it as NAS with openVPN server), that I cannot get it to sleep or some "powersaving mode". It takes like 70W all the time, but I am just usually watching like 2 movies a week from it remotely and thats it. I think that Dynamix S3 Sleep addon doesnt put it to sleep coz of dockers running (openvpn-as, duckdns), but I would like to lower actual power consumption, but be able to remotely connect to it wherever I want (I have 6 6tb iroon wolfs and 120 gb cache ssd in there, with athlon 3000G). Anyone has any suggestions what to try?

Sorry, wish I could help u. I know how to do it in TrueNAS but I have no experience with Unraid. Maybe try to create a topic in the appropriate forum ?

[Healadin]

21 minutes ago, fatraaij said:

Sorry, wish I could help u. I know how to do it in TrueNAS but I have no experience with Unraid. Maybe try to create a topic in the appropriate forum ?

Ye, I guess I should ask it there... Came to my mind, when I heard Jake say "We left the turbo write on" at 15:46

 

Anyway, looked at setting and found something like "Disk spin down delay" and it was set to never, so that might be an issue.

[rithemut]

5 minutes ago, Healadin said:

Ye, I guess I should ask it there... Came to my mind, when I heard Jake say "We left the turbo write on" at 15:46

 

Anyway, looked at setting and found something like "Disk spin down delay" and it was set to never, so that might be an issue.

I have no clue what a "Turbo write" is supposed to mean xD But I don't think it has anything to do with powering down the HDD's.