While I was scanning this in on Adele (my iMac) I thought: let's reconfigure Frost (the Debian build machine, backup server, iTunes server and fileserver), so I did a final backup to a FW external HD and inserted a Debian net-install CD. Which failed to install.
A bit confused I tried an older Debian release, which got slightly farther, but it still failed with a write error. So in the end I booted a recent Ubuntu installer, apt-getted the smart utilities and got a report on the disk. The disk claimed it was healthy. However it used 100% of its replacement sectors and gave read errors all over the place. Oh and a write error on sector several sectors.
Lessons learned:
- Ask for smart support in the Debian installer
- Install the smart daemon on the next server
Not having Frost means that I am not able to do any Debian uploads :-(. Not that I'm not buzzy: I've got 3000 pictures to name, tag and date... (and in some case reimport because iPhoto things that they are raw pictures instead of the 48 bit tiff images that they are)
6 comments:
First of all, have you considered just replacing the bad disk?
Second, how strongly do you object to building one yourself from newegg parts? Do you care that much about a system warranty, versus Intel's motherboard warranty, the disk warranty, the (lifetime) memory warranty, etc?
Well a new PATA disk 500GB is about 150€, a new SATA disk is 90€. Adding in the adapter, the extra expenses etc for an older computer it rapidly becomes not useful anymore.
Not to mention that I've grown tired of the 'jet lifting up with maximum afterburn' level noise it makes.
I've been investigating assembling it yourself shops, but I forgot to mention two things:
1 I'm unlucky with buying stuff, if I buy something it will break before the warranty runs out. Unless I get on-site support, then it will just behave normally.
2 Putting a CPU on a motherboard is too much stress for someone with my bad physical skills. I already broke a motherboard by installing a piece of memory.
Did you check Lenovo A61?
Maybe you'd want to try ZaReason - are you in California? They build barebone laptops from scratch, so I'm sure that they'd be glad to build you a server, which is far easier to assemble.
As for the parts: try the Gigabyte G33M-S2H mainboard if it has enough PCI slots for your need - it comes with VGA and DVI (and even HDMI), which is rare amongst these Intel boards.
cheers,
wjl (Wolfgang Lonien)
For a custom server i can suggest supermicro (http://www.supermicro.com). For example the company ahead-it (http://www.ahead-it.be) sells these and if you want support to help you build/host/maintain it you can have a look at Openminds (http://www.openminds.be)
note: i am not affiliated with any of these, just aware of these companies that sell/support it.
Hi Peter. For hardware I sell pure Intel server systems. My hardware partner buys ready-built systems, customizes it if necessary, and can offeron site support on top of the base warranty.
It's not the big A brand like HP or Dell, but it's certainly not the built-it-your-self white brand.
Also Intel gets more popular recently, as hosters seem to agree it's good quality.
If you're interested, drop me a message (www.ginsys.be/contact) with the specs you need.
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