Maggie McFee – Whinging on the Internet since 1994

Speedy McWrite-a-lot

// May 24th, 2008 // Comments Off on Speedy McWrite-a-lot // Rambling

UPDATE: Yes. I am a well-compensated technology geek by day and get up to this sort of thing frequently. This is related to work and also useful for play, since my work and play are similar. This isn’t something I’m just up to in my kitchen, I assure you.

I am planning on doing some disk testing in July testing sustained transfer (read and write) specifically geared towards prosumer video capture/editing and file serving. My intentions are to take a standardized platform (a Mac Pro – for file serving use it will be easy to extrapolate from here) and keep it WWJAD (What Would Joe Average Do). This means keeping cost in mind as well as ease-of-use/installation.

The current de facto is something like this: take a Mac Pro, put three drives in the empty bays and make them into a software RAID0 set. Here below are my (current) intentions. I am happy to consider any additions or changes if others are interested in the results. Feel free to comment, e-mail or tweet me about this.

 
Three of each model drive will be placed in a Mac Pro (4 or 8 core w/ at least 4GB RAM) as a software RAID0 set (keeping the boot drive as is).

The two top performers will then also be tested in a four drive configuration with:

• Software RAID0 – Internal Mac Pro bays full (boot drive will be external Firewire).
• Hardware RAID0 using a HighPoint RocketRAID 2310 PCI-Express SATAII RAID Controller (HPTRRAID2310)

The drives currently in the running:

• Samsung Spinpoint F1 7200RPM 32MB (HD103UJ)
• Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 7200RPM 32MB (SEAST31000340AS)
  (Chosen over enterprise model as it is cheaper but specs are same)
• Hitachi 7K1000 7200RPM 32MB (HIT0A35155)
  (Chosen over enterprise model as it is cheaper but specs are same)
• Western Digital RE2-GP 5400/4700RPM 16MB (WDGWD10FYPS)
  (Chosen over cheaper model as is slightly faster and only slightly more
  expensive and, frankly, since many will chooose to buy it based on price.)

Also considered/considering:
HighPoint RocketRAID 3522 3G SATA External RAID controller with
Raidon 4-port eSATA enclosure, four drives at RAID0.

Western Digital RE2 Enterprise Class 16MB Cache 7200rpm
(Pro: Is faster than its 1TB brother.)
(Con: but it’s one WD model or the other. Need compelling argument for testing both.)

Western Digital 150GB 10,000RPM Raptor (SATA/150)
(Pro: People want to know if 10,000RPM makes difference.)
(Con: It’s SATA/150. Already know it’s not as fast as others, even at 10,000RPM)

Control:
The control set for comparison will be three very popular (read: cheap as hell) WD WDGWD5000AAKS 500GB drives.

Also, if someone wants to show up with a camera that does 1080p 4:4:4 or a Red, I will slap in a BlackMagic card and we’ll stress test the top two or three configurations.

Hair you bring to Vegas, stays in Vegas

// April 29th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // Rambling

Cabbed over to Brookline and had dinner with Ihnatko’s dinner club, or as we were known tonight The Jane Austen Book Club, and then caught the train home _just_ in time for the Red Sox game to let out. Fun as ever, even if there was a little black cloud floating just off stage (*hug*).

Got a better pic of the elusive Internet Pants and, as a bonus, their ability to carry a wad of DVDs. There are a couple of other shots of the night there as well.

Rich, Here’s my ReadyNAS backup setup as we discussed: (more…)

Tactical

// April 2nd, 2008 // Comments Off on Tactical // Rambling

This is funny as hell. Merlin is a comedic savant. (video below the cut)
(more…)

Things you really need to know about e-mail

// March 29th, 2008 // Comments Off on Things you really need to know about e-mail // Rambling

Preface: This message was originally addressed to users at the university where I work. As such, some of the content may be a little specific in areas, but not overly so. It turns out that this got passed around by a lot of people and I ended up hearing from people all over the place saying that someone had passed it on to them and that they’d gotten a lot from it. So I’m sharing it here on my blog, as well, with this in mind. If others read it and find it helpful, that’s great.
 But please keep in mind that this was written with only our customers in mind… OK? – Maggie

 

 This is a rather lengthy little essay, but one I hope you’ll all take the time to read.It pertains not just to our e-mail, but to e-mail as a whole.

Thanks,
Maggie

Things you really need to know about e-mail

* E-mail is insecure.
We try to provide as much security as is possible by encrypting the connection between you and our mail server at all times so that so called ‘man in the middle’ attacks on you are thwarted, but once the mail leaves our server, it’s out of our hands. Please keep this in mind if you find yourself needing to share confidential or classified information. Unless the information contained in the message is encrypted, there’s no way to say how secure it is once it leaves our mail server. There is likely someone on the other end (more…)

Oh FFS not again!?

// March 27th, 2008 // Comments Off on Oh FFS not again!? // Rambling

So, yeah. Another day, another blog. Times change. Gimme a break. I get antsy and things just… happen.

I have a couple of rants stored up that will probably spew forth soon enough, but for this first post I think it’s best to keep it light and fluffy. Like a pekingese fresh out of the dryer.

I just went back to work today after taking a 5 day weekend. It was luscious and needed and I enjoyed myself immensely, actually. On the weekend we bought mountain bikes (go team monkey!). Over a couple of days I got Harry the sommelier all set up to take the ‘Net by storm. Tuesday night I had dinner with Andy Ihnatko’s dinner club; met Rich from Bare Bones, Daniel Jalkut from Red Sweater, Dave Nanian from Shirt Pocket and Andy and Brendon from CallAndy. We discussed maggot cheese and other fine dining topics. All in all a relaxing break.Then right back into it.

After spending all day today catching up on e-mail, checking the ticket system and checking in with various charges, I was ready for another mini-vacation. Such is life. Soon, Internets, soon. Sarah’s brother is coming in for a few days week after next and then I think it’s time for us to plan a real vacation.

OK, Internets. I love you, but it’s late. You should get to bed too. All you do all night is play Youtube videos and serve porn. That has to tire you out.

Maggie

“Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.” – Groucho Marx