I've got a total of 5.9 TB of storage at home. (Don't worry I'm in a 12-step.) Here's how it's set up.
Backup Cluster (Seven Machines): Gentoo-2.6.13 md - across 5x250GB Mix of Athlon 2100XP - 2800XP all with 512MB of RAM Connected via two bonded cheapo GigE cards that ties into a third hand GigE switch I picked up on Ebay.
I do RAID 5 to ensure that I can recover from hardware failures.
My file system is ReiserFS just so in the event of a hard failure I'm not doing THAT much work to get back up.
I went through so much trouble as I store a LOT of data for a home user that must be highly availible and quickly accessible. Subversion, MythTV, squid, star charts (don't ask), WLAN traffic, etc..
My System is considered by some to be a ghetto Beowolf Cluster (it's not all identical hardware so some say it's not but I don't really care what my collective is called). I use a buffed up like a mofo P4 with 1 GB of RAMBUS as my gateway into the cluster. It's got 3 GigE NICs to interface to the outside world and the cluster.
My biggest challenge in setting it all up was load balancing as I had to do VLANs, not only for security but to keep who talks to who and how straight since all of my boxes plug into the same switch. Another concern I have to address is heat. Here in the Puget Sound, it's not a big deal really in the winter (no real need to turn on heat) but in summer I have to keep windows open and fans going, or my stuff turns off to prevent overheating.
As far as security goes I have a multi-layered approach as you might imagine. First is a consumer grade wireless AP with all the security features turned on, hanging off of it is a honeypot which gets more than it's fair share of attention. (It's been done hard and dry more times than Paris Hilton!). Then I have my pix,a dn my other box running an IDS.
Is all this needed for your setup... naw.... but there's freedom in knowing they're watching you.
To recap.
linux based raid rocks! If you're using the box for nothing else other than a file server then the overhead should be more than acceptable. Next use GigE for everything as it's cheap and fast, if you can swing it, bonding is even better as it'll allow you to reach almost fiber speeds.
In case you're wondering this setup costs me about 30/mo to run, considering power. Almost nothing in maint. Thank the Kobal Gods for Portage! The build was about 850 per box.
Another nifty thing about my set is scalability. Contrary to popular belief scale up and out AREN'T the same thing. Scale up means you go buy a bigger badder box to do the same job faster. Scaling out is when you get a bunch a little boxes to the same job, but just smaller pieces of it. Incidentally, the later is the Google approach. By scaling out into multiple machines you can add much more storage and if you do like me and try not to cram too much into one box, then you can shuttle data between them. While it's in use even if you know how to use QoS to make sure things keep moving.
Ok I'll give you that. Unless you can get into the right mind set there's some tracks in GitS that's hard to really get into. It's just that since Macross Plus I've been a rabid fan of Kanno Yoko.
I've got a 0-day for Palm OS you little prag so lick this spoon and bend over.
If you're running it and using gpg for crypto and such. Just set the date before 1999 and due to no sanity checking it'll unlock anything if the key was cached regardless of whether or not the timeframe for holding the key has expired.
I'm not THAT stupid. I do let my boss know what's happening and I usually deflect blame onto him. As far as the 100K+ guys go, I'm not refering to execs... I do believe they earn it (watching my CFO seemingly almost commit karoshi trying to get our last round of funding convinced me of that). It's devs who believe they walk on water and do things like create arrays so they don't need pointers (I know I know doesn't make any sense to me either but that's what HE ACTUALLY SAID). And I watch these guys get paid more in a year than me and my wife make combined. It is infuriating but I try not to let it get to me 'cause like my momma said, "What he eat don't make you full.".
As a so-called IT Lackey I take offense to this (as much as one can to an Anonymous Coward post anyway).
I tell VPs and CEOs "No" often, I had a Director ask me for an Thinkpad because he didn't like Dells, once again my answer was no.
My job, IMNSHO, is to keep my systems running, not fix yours after you break it doing a science experiement.
For example (yeah it's Windows but the principle applies):
You find Article blah blah in PC World, that says how to speed some app up with a few reg tweaks. You screw up. You reset Windows multiple times nuking the known good copy of the registry which you didn't bother to backup before making any changes. You then walk to my office and DEMAND that I make your system work again after you explain all of this to me. You then get really irate as I look at you as if you're George W trying to explain how changing the OSI model will keep up safe from terrorists. You then get really pissed as I hand you a system restore CD and about 20 CDs with various apps on them and explain that since YOU broke, doing something YOU shouldn't be doing, YOU get to fix it. I've already IM'ed your boss with the scenario and what I said before you make it to his office to complain and so your complaint falls on deaf ears and tells you to get started with the installs.
Now the interesting part is yeah I probably could fix it, I do have the toys, a few neat custom ones that can put most any crap registry back together, and fix perms at the same time but my attitude is that if you want to play sysadmin you get to handle what happens when an experiment goes wrong.
No, I'm not BOFH. In fact I tend to cater to my user whims a little too much. "I want a hardened stage 1 gentoo install on this obscure sun workstation, but I need it quickly can you distcc it?"
It's just that over the years if it's one thing I've learned it's this: Know your role; excel at it to god-like levels, but never let someone else think they can do it.
You're a dev. Great. May the heavens bless you and yours with platinum buckets of Cristal. May spring nymphs sing your name in the morning mist. May weeping widows be soothed by your visage. But understand this.
It's not 1980 anymore.
It's not possible to be an expert in everything computer related. I don't care HOW good you are, and if you can with a shiny new TCPIP stack. It doesn't mean you can properly deploy it. Just because you can stitch together five different languages to send an email (actually aside from being pretty stupid that'd be sort of interesting to see) doesn't mean you can setup sendmail to actually make sure it went somewhere. Or the MX record in bind on the other end to make sure it got there.
My CEO is a CEO he doesn't have the training, the time, nor the inclination to do what I do.
My CFO is a CFO he doesn't have the training, the time, nor the inclination to do what I do.
I work really hard, I work at 2 in the morning, not because that's when I'm most creative, but simply beecause I have to. I respond to pages while driving to go boarding with my wife not for the $100k+ I make (yeah right!), but simply because I have to.
Uh, not to server as a lightening rod but nobody knew where the hell Redmond was until this cute little Albaquerque, NM outfit called Microsoft "borrowed" some nifty ideas and then this other company (that was big in Japan at least!) that moved from its warehouse office in Seattle called Nintendo moved there. How many people heard of Mountain View, CA before a few math and comp-sci geeks started company with the then laughable goal of organizing all human knowledge in existance?
Not to get off on a rant here... but let's go further back to no name places that weren't on most maps.
Kitty Hawk, NC - birthplace of flight
Los Alamos, New Mexico - first nuclear explosion
too tired to google more but you catch my drift...
Praise be to the poster! I think we have a winner. I think that the American society as a whole is one of the quick fix. Instant weight loss,instant food, and instant justice. If we look at it that way then the next thing they'll blame is TV... Er wait... Music.... Oh um... Movies.... Oh that's right blame everyone and thing except the person who did it! God bless America.
Slashdot Mirror
Any chance of parting with that script? I use a Perl script but it's easily tweaked..
I've got a total of 5.9 TB of storage at home. (Don't worry I'm in a 12-step.) Here's how it's set up.
Backup Cluster (Seven Machines):
Gentoo-2.6.13
md - across 5x250GB
Mix of Athlon 2100XP - 2800XP all with 512MB of RAM
Connected via two bonded cheapo GigE cards that ties into a third hand GigE switch I picked up on Ebay.
I do RAID 5 to ensure that I can recover from hardware failures.
My file system is ReiserFS just so in the event of a hard failure I'm not doing THAT much work to get back up.
I went through so much trouble as I store a LOT of data for a home user that must be highly availible and quickly accessible. Subversion, MythTV, squid, star charts (don't ask), WLAN traffic, etc..
My System is considered by some to be a ghetto Beowolf Cluster (it's not all identical hardware so some say it's not but I don't really care what my collective is called). I use a buffed up like a mofo P4 with 1 GB of RAMBUS as my gateway into the cluster. It's got 3 GigE NICs to interface to the outside world and the cluster.
My biggest challenge in setting it all up was load balancing as I had to do VLANs, not only for security but to keep who talks to who and how straight since all of my boxes plug into the same switch.
Another concern I have to address is heat. Here in the Puget Sound, it's not a big deal really in the winter (no real need to turn on heat) but in summer I have to keep windows open and fans going, or my stuff turns off to prevent overheating.
As far as security goes I have a multi-layered approach as you might imagine. First is a consumer grade wireless AP with all the security features turned on, hanging off of it is a honeypot which gets more than it's fair share of attention. (It's been done hard and dry more times than Paris Hilton!). Then I have my pix,a dn my other box running an IDS.
Is all this needed for your setup... naw.... but there's freedom in knowing they're watching you.
To recap.
linux based raid rocks! If you're using the box for nothing else other than a file server then the overhead should be more than acceptable. Next use GigE for everything as it's cheap and fast, if you can swing it, bonding is even better as it'll allow you to reach almost fiber speeds.
In case you're wondering this setup costs me about 30/mo to run, considering power. Almost nothing in maint. Thank the Kobal Gods for Portage! The build was about 850 per box.
Another nifty thing about my set is scalability. Contrary to popular belief scale up and out AREN'T the same thing. Scale up means you go buy a bigger badder box to do the same job faster. Scaling out is when you get a bunch a little boxes to the same job, but just smaller pieces of it. Incidentally, the later is the Google approach. By scaling out into multiple machines you can add much more storage and if you do like me and try not to cram too much into one box, then you can shuttle data between them. While it's in use even if you know how to use QoS to make sure things keep moving.
Ok I'll give you that. Unless you can get into the right mind set there's some tracks in GitS that's hard to really get into. It's just that since Macross Plus I've been a rabid fan of Kanno Yoko.
You are aware the Kanno Yoko did the music for BOTH series right?
I've got a 0-day for Palm OS you little prag so lick this spoon and bend over.
If you're running it and using gpg for crypto and such. Just set the date before 1999 and due to no sanity checking it'll unlock anything if the key was cached regardless of whether or not the timeframe for holding the key has expired.
Not really as sexy as a NOP sled but still...
I'm not THAT stupid. I do let my boss know what's happening and I usually deflect blame onto him. As far as the 100K+ guys go, I'm not refering to execs... I do believe they earn it (watching my CFO seemingly almost commit karoshi trying to get our last round of funding convinced me of that). It's devs who believe they walk on water and do things like create arrays so they don't need pointers (I know I know doesn't make any sense to me either but that's what HE ACTUALLY SAID). And I watch these guys get paid more in a year than me and my wife make combined. It is infuriating but I try not to let it get to me 'cause like my momma said, "What he eat don't make you full.".
Hell no!
As a so-called IT Lackey I take offense to this (as much as one can to an Anonymous Coward post anyway).
I tell VPs and CEOs "No" often, I had a Director ask me for an Thinkpad because he didn't like Dells, once again my answer was no.
My job, IMNSHO, is to keep my systems running, not fix yours after you break it doing a science experiement.
For example (yeah it's Windows but the principle applies):
You find Article blah blah in PC World, that says how to speed some app up with a few reg tweaks. You screw up. You reset Windows multiple times nuking the known good copy of the registry which you didn't bother to backup before making any changes. You then walk to my office and DEMAND that I make your system work again after you explain all of this to me. You then get really irate as I look at you as if you're George W trying to explain how changing the OSI model will keep up safe from terrorists. You then get really pissed as I hand you a system restore CD and about 20 CDs with various apps on them and explain that since YOU broke, doing something YOU shouldn't be doing, YOU get to fix it. I've already IM'ed your boss with the scenario and what I said before you make it to his office to complain and so your complaint falls on deaf ears and tells you to get started with the installs.
Now the interesting part is yeah I probably could fix it, I do have the toys, a few neat custom ones that can put most any crap registry back together, and fix perms at the same time but my attitude is that if you want to play sysadmin you get to handle what happens when an experiment goes wrong.
No, I'm not BOFH. In fact I tend to cater to my user whims a little too much. "I want a hardened stage 1 gentoo install on this obscure sun workstation, but I need it quickly can you distcc it?"
It's just that over the years if it's one thing I've learned it's this: Know your role; excel at it to god-like levels, but never let someone else think they can do it.
You're a dev. Great. May the heavens bless you and yours with platinum buckets of Cristal. May spring nymphs sing your name in the morning mist. May weeping widows be soothed by your visage. But understand this.
It's not 1980 anymore.
It's not possible to be an expert in everything computer related. I don't care HOW good you are, and if you can with a shiny new TCPIP stack. It doesn't mean you can properly deploy it. Just because you can stitch together five different languages to send an email (actually aside from being pretty stupid that'd be sort of interesting to see) doesn't mean you can setup sendmail to actually make sure it went somewhere. Or the MX record in bind on the other end to make sure it got there.
My CEO is a CEO he doesn't have the training, the time, nor the inclination to do what I do.
My CFO is a CFO he doesn't have the training, the time, nor the inclination to do what I do.
I work really hard, I work at 2 in the morning, not because that's when I'm most creative, but simply beecause I have to. I respond to pages while driving to go boarding with my wife not for the $100k+ I make (yeah right!), but simply because I have to.
It's my job.
Uh, not to server as a lightening rod but nobody knew where the hell Redmond was until this cute little Albaquerque, NM outfit called Microsoft "borrowed" some nifty ideas and then this other company (that was big in Japan at least!) that moved from its warehouse office in Seattle called Nintendo moved there. How many people heard of Mountain View, CA before a few math and comp-sci geeks started company with the then laughable goal of organizing all human knowledge in existance?
Not to get off on a rant here... but let's go further back to no name places that weren't on most maps.
Kitty Hawk, NC - birthplace of flight
Los Alamos, New Mexico - first nuclear explosion
too tired to google more but you catch my drift...
Praise be to the poster! I think we have a winner. I think that the American society as a whole is one of the quick fix. Instant weight loss,instant food, and instant justice. If we look at it that way then the next thing they'll blame is TV... Er wait... Music.... Oh um... Movies.... Oh that's right blame everyone and thing except the person who did it! God bless America.