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|
| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 547 responses total. |
keesan
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response 196 of 547:
| 
May 7 18:03 UTC 2003 |
How much did grex save overall by ordering from Leeron?
|
aruba
|
|
response 197 of 547:
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May 7 19:50 UTC 2003 |
We saved $136 over NewEgg's price, on the stuff we ordered before. We'll
lose a little bit of it on these disks, because NewEgg's price is lower.
But we'll have them a lot faster, and returning them if there's a problem
will be a lot easier.
|
aruba
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response 198 of 547:
|
May 8 23:39 UTC 2003 |
The two disks from NewEgg arrived today - I picked them up at the FedEx
office by the airport.
|
aruba
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response 199 of 547:
|
May 9 01:19 UTC 2003 |
BTW, if anyone wants to see the list of what's in the new machine, go to
/----------------------------------------------------\
| http://www.cyberspace.org/~invent/item.cgi?num=256 |
\----------------------------------------------------/
That shows the data for the case, and at the bottom is a list of
everything inside. You can click on those items for details about them.
|
aruba
|
|
response 200 of 547:
|
May 9 03:18 UTC 2003 |
Looks like our SCSI controller card has 68 pins while our disks need an
80-pin SCA connector. I wrote to Leeron to see if he can sell us some
adapters.
|
gull
|
|
response 201 of 547:
|
May 9 12:59 UTC 2003 |
If Leeron doesn't have one, try www.atozcables.com. That's where I got
mine last time I needed one. They have them for either $20 or $28 each,
depending on whether or not you need one with termination.
|
aruba
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response 202 of 547:
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May 9 14:29 UTC 2003 |
Thanks David. Leeron says he can order some adapters for us, for about
$10 each, but they will take 7-10 days. I understand the difference
between the cables now - the 80-pin cable (which our drive wants) includes
not only the data interface, but also power and SCSI ID setting. (The
SCSI ID is set by the adapter via software, instead of being a jumper
setting right on the drive.)
These Seagate drives come in two versions, one with an 80-pin connection
and one with a 68-pin connection (plus power connection and SCSI ID jumper
block). At the moment, I'm inclined to send back what we have and get the
68-pin version, so that our drives are compatible with our interface card.
Getting adapters for all the drives seems like a hack, and will make the
inside of the case more complicated than it needs to be. (Here's a
picture of an adapter; it's got a little circuit board:
http://www.mycableshop.com/popups/SCA806850.htm) Plus, we'd need two
types of cables.
Unless, that is, there's an important advantage to having 80-pin drives.
|
dang
|
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response 203 of 547:
|
May 9 15:55 UTC 2003 |
I'd vote for sending them back and getting the correct drives. I've
used the adaptors, and they're usually fairly shoddy (although they *do*
work). I have a free 68-pin SCSI drive that I can temprorarily donate
for testing/burn-in purposes, so that this doesn't waste any time for us.
|
aruba
|
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response 204 of 547:
|
May 9 18:01 UTC 2003 |
OK, I called NewEgg and got an RMA number to send back the 80-pin drive. It
was going to be a pain to re-order the right drive from them, so I called
Leeron and told him to send back the two he just got for us, and in their
place get us 3 with the correct connectors. This will cost us about $17
more per drive than going through NewEgg, but Leeron is a lot faster and
more accomodating. :)
|
scg
|
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response 205 of 547:
|
May 10 19:42 UTC 2003 |
The general rule with non-obvious changes and warranties is that you void the
warranty if you tell them you made the change.
|
aruba
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response 206 of 547:
|
May 10 23:25 UTC 2003 |
I turned off NextGrex last night because some big thunderstorms were
approaching Ann Arbor, and I don't have a UPS. It had been up for over 5
days, running the memory test, with no errors.
We'll put the IDE disk in tomorrow, and test the SCSI controller with a disk
of dang's.
|
gull
|
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response 207 of 547:
|
May 12 12:52 UTC 2003 |
Sounds like the right decision, disk-wise. SCA connectors seem to be
mostly made for plugging hotswappable drives into backplanes. Any other
use of them is kind of a hack.
|
scott
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|
response 208 of 547:
|
May 12 13:50 UTC 2003 |
Ditto. Much better to fix it now than to forever curse the adapters.
|
aruba
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response 209 of 547:
|
May 13 04:34 UTC 2003 |
I put the IDE disk in yesterday, and installed Windows 98 on it in order to
test out our hardware. (Don't panic, it's only temporary.) I had to hack
system.ini because Windows gets confused by how much memory we have, but now
everything seems fine. I installed a driver for the ethernet chip on our
motherboard, connected the computer to the LAN in my house, and created an
internet connection through the router in the basement, and voila, here I am
talking to OldGrex from NextGrex. Everything looks good.
|
polytarp
|
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response 210 of 547:
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May 13 04:46 UTC 2003 |
WE SHOUYLD HAVE OLDGRAX USEABLE EVEN AFTER NEWGREx, YOu're saying?
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janc
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response 211 of 547:
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May 13 13:22 UTC 2003 |
We, I guess. No parts from old grex will be used in newgrex. However, I
can't, off hand, think of any use for old grex, and don't think we have any
plans to keep it running.
|
other
|
|
response 212 of 547:
|
May 13 13:30 UTC 2003 |
And, before anyone asks, once the user partitions are successfully copied to
nextgrex, the disks will be destroyed to insure the privacy of Grex's users.
As far as I'm concerned, anyone willing to cart away the current machine after
the new machine takes over (with appropriate transition period) is welcome
to it. (Minus the user disks, of course.)
|
janc
|
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response 213 of 547:
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May 13 13:40 UTC 2003 |
I can't imagine why we'd destroy the disks, and I can't imagine Marcus
and STeve agreeing that we don't need the old Grex anymore.
|
gelinas
|
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response 214 of 547:
|
May 13 13:48 UTC 2003 |
Sufficiently sophisticated disk-recovery tools can do some amazing things.
The only way to ensure these tools don't work is physical destruction of the
disks. I can see an argument that nothing on grex should be that sensitive,
but we aren't talking about *my* data on grex. As long as we retain physical
possession, there is no need to destroy the disks.
|
cross
|
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response 215 of 547:
|
May 13 14:13 UTC 2003 |
I can't imagine anyone being that interested in grex's user disks,
despite what some folks think. I'd say scrub them and give them
away.
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scott
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response 216 of 547:
|
May 13 14:39 UTC 2003 |
I can't imagine there being any real value in the old Grex hardware.
|
keesan
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response 217 of 547:
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May 13 15:26 UTC 2003 |
What is it that is supposed to be kept private, the passwords?
|
scott
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response 218 of 547:
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May 13 16:00 UTC 2003 |
Files in home directory, email, staff conference.
|
drew
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response 219 of 547:
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May 13 18:24 UTC 2003 |
If you can get good enough random numbers, it might suffice to do a
dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/sdx.
|
hal9
|
|
response 220 of 547:
|
May 13 20:25 UTC 2003 |
`shred' (a GNU coreutils software) announces that it can prevent
recovery of erased data by writing sucessively several different
bit patterns over the files. More details on the paper "Secure
Deletion of Data from Magnetic and Solid-State Memory", by Peter
Gutmann. (http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/secure_del.html).
The only drawback is that, since it overwrits the disk several times,
it is extremely slow. But, after the transition, I don't think time
will be a problem for oldgrex.
Also note that nothing is 100% effective, of course. Physical destruction
is the only guaranteed way of safeguarding the disk contents. shred's
info page goes to the extreme of telling that the /only/ 100% way is
melting the disk on *-acid.
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