Hello again. Its been a while since I posted on my Blog. Nothing really new has been happening lately. Tomorrow I should be getting a new set of H&R race springs from ECSTuning to try to balance my car out just a bit. Now let’s see when I actually get them installed.

I have been busy since I bought myself an XBox 360 about a month ago. I love it so much already. Never got around to setting netflix back up again so I can use the application on the 360 to stream movies. If your ever online give me a shout out. My gamertag is “ihavenoideax2″.

Nothing unusual. So, I finally got around to building and setting up my new ITX Linux server. I got the board last Monday and started the setup that night.

Step 1:

First problem I ran into was the board mounting into my server case. It turns out that since it uses laptop memory and the 2nd card slot is on the underside of the board, it does not want to mount fully to the cases actual mounts. At first I did not think of this and just drilled all four screws down. This caused a small problem when I went to start it up for the first time. Nothing, that was all I got at first. thinking I plugged in a cable the wrong way or like my PCI riser card isn’t compatible. No, turns out that it was the screws holding down the front of the board to the case. This means that it is not actually fully mounted and only attached by two screws. But anyway, I got everything mounted and connected and up an running.

Step 2:

Here is the fun part. So when I try to get Ubuntu 8.04.2 Server installed, I ran into a few problems. First off, I could not get partman to build my RAID array right. How I wanted it was to setup two RAID arrays using mdadm (Linux software RAID) with one array as 10GB for the OS and programs and the rest of the of the drive as another RAID array. So I setup partitions on each disc with two 10GB bootable Linux Auto RAID type and something like 290GB for the 2nd RAID for the data storage but as soon as I went into the option to setup the actual RAID devices, it ended up taking the whole drive over for itself and destroyed everything I setup. For a whole day I worked on that and lucky for me, I ended up just doing it manually. What is nice about the Ubuntu setup is that you still have a root console during the setup. This saved my ass during this setup.

What I had to do was hit Ctrl + Alt + F2 to get into the console. From there I ran fdisk -l to list all the available drives and partitions so I can manually add them. I won’t get into the specifics of everything I did with fdisk but I will tell you that I ended up with four total partitions. Than next was the actual RAID building. The next command I ran was:

mdadm --create /dev/md0 --level=1 --raid-devices=2 /dev/sda1 /dev/sdb1

This built my RAID 1 array for my root drive. Now that this was done, all I needed to do was go back into partman in the setup and, what do you know, the device /dev/md0 appeared and the correct size. All I did than was partition that as a root device and went on with the setup. The rest of the install went exactly as planed. So at least that is all setup now.

Step 3:

Now was the really fun part. My Drobo. I got a Firewire 800 card for the server to utilize the speeds of Firewire over USB. Well it seems that was a lost cause. It didn’t want to read anything over 2TB which I had my Drobo setup with a LUN size of 8TB because of expansion. I ran dmesg to find an error with, well I don’t remember exactly the error but I’ll have to try it later and post it on here. After fighting with that for a few hours, I ended up switching to USB. Started the format and I never thought formatting an 8TB volume would take so long but what did I know? After that, I started copying all 1.2TB of data back from my other external drive to the Drobo. Let that run overnight and though the next day since it is 1.2TB of data. After the copy was finally finished, it started giving me read errors. I unmounted it and tried to remount, <code>Wrong fs type</code> error came up. Crap, I hosed my file system and let’s just say I am lucky I did not format the other external.

At this point I was getting frustrated. Looking all over the internet doesn’t give much info on using a Drobo under Linux with ext3. I don’t remember what site or I would give him credit but he said something about it only being able to support a 2TB LUN size. Not exactly what I wanted to do but at this point after 3 days of formatting and partitioning, I said “why not. If it is going to work, Ill have to deal”. So that is exactly what I did. It turns out that was the trick. For some stupid reason, the Drobo does not want to let ext3 format over 2TB. What sucks about the 2TB LUNs is that now it shows up as two 2TB drives, since I have 3.1TB worth of drives in it right now. I know its not working because of after I copped everything back to the Drobo, all the data is still readable. Now if only I could work up the courage to erase all the data off the 1.5TB backup external and place that in the Drobo. 4.5TB, here I come.

Step 4:

All I did after that huge fiasco with the data on the external drives and such, was install all my programs and setup them up. I have VMWare Server 2 installed running my VPN server, APCUPSD for my UPS, Samba for windows shares, hddtemp to monitor the temperatures of my hard drives (internal), smartmontools to monitor smart, and drobo-util to manage my Drobo. All of these programs are free which is why I mainly use Linux.

So thats my short but sweet story about my new server setup. Soon, if I ever remember to do it, is take pictures and add redo my ITX server info page located at My Server Page.

So as you can tell, I have been quite the busy bee. I have not had the time to post in quite awhile. Currently, Biggs, Ialacci and I have been trying to get a small bidness running. (Ialacci calls Business Bidness for no real reason. I think it is more that he can not spell it.) Anyway, it’s been that, school, work, and just random other adventures in my life holding me back from posting on this site. So here is my almost month old update post.

Thursday, me and Ialacci went to check out a “Virtual Office” off Motor Pkwy and the east bound service road off the LIE. When we first walked into the building, I swear that we both almost, well, I think you get the idea. The whole place was completely new; it was only built like 4 months ago. If you look on google maps, its still under construction. But hey, most places close by are like that. If you look at Island 16 off Nicoles Rd and exit 62 off the LIE, half of the movie theater is under construction and the other half is done. That place has been there for quite a while now. Like a good 6 years or so. Well anyway, this place we found is completely amazing. It comes with everything we would ever need plus the whole building is completely biometric. I can go on for hours about the features and amazingness of the place but I have much more to talk about.

I am still using Windows 7, build 7057, on my laptop and boy, is it amazing. I have to admit, I hate Windows and this is the first Microsoft product that I actually like, a lot! It has a quality feel to everything it does and it runs much faster than Vista ever will. There are still a bunch of bugs that need to get worked out and driver support is still not up to par but what do you expect to a beta product. I think I will actually buy a license for this when it gets released.

I am again working on a new server. In the past 3 weeks, I actually already have rebuilt my server. Right now it has a E6600 Core 2 Duo with 8GB DDR1066. I thought it was complete overkill and using to much power for what it is doing. So I went Newegging. I bought a Jetway ITX socket AM2 board with a AMD Athlon x2 4050e 2.1GHz and 4GB DDR800 Ram. I figure that I will only be using about 60-70 watts average. I am mostly doing this to save space and make my mom happy with the power bill. I got all the parts except the board so I really can’t do anything about it right this second. The one thing I am doing is changing my Drobo from HFS+ to ext3 so I can use it on my server instead of having it on my iMac. I figure that it would be better since it will always be shared over the network and I don’t need to worry about my iMac having to be running. As an added bonus, I also bought 2 more 1.5TB drives for the Drobo for a total of 4.5TB. I mean I do actually need it. Right now I am currently using over a TB and I still have about 200GB more to move on to it. Ill give you updates on how that is going when I get to it.

My mom is selling the family camper. It is sort of sad to see it go. I did not really spend much time in it since we are always busy doing something. One person is doing that when this person is off and vice versa. My mom needs the money so I do understand it but it is still the point. My mom just a few days before said that she would like to take it to Massachusetts for a weekend or so. I am all up for it since I like driving around with the car and such but hey, its not my disission.

Also, I got my new sneakers for my Bora. I don’t know if I have already posted a picture of it on here yet but I might as well do that now. I have had them on it for a few months already.

Also, I was wondering if anyone could help me figure out why my blog page is unhappy near the bottom of the page. If you look, the background is all not right and the sheets overlap and underlap. If you can, it would be great.

Check out my new toy.

Yea, that’s right, it’s a 1984 Apple IIe with DuoDisk and 9 Inch B&W composite monitor.

I love my simple gym class for me to just to get my credit. It is a bowling/badminton class for my second credit.

In other news my RAID array with the three 120Gib drive in RAID 1 begain to beleave that it was using only two of the drives in RAID 1. This means I lost all the data on it, which was both mine and Krasses torrent server. This sucks bad because that was my only backup (hence the RAID set.

To try to get my mind off of this disaster, I sent to Apps with the friends and such. Ill give you updates on the file rebuild.

I finally set something new up for my computer network. Recently, I thought about the idea of trying out VMWare Server 2 since it is free and all and it’s easy to run. How it works is that you have to have a machine with either Windows or Linux in either X86 or X86_64. All you do is run the installer and after you configure it, you log into the web interface to control everything vmware wise. It works amazing and it is easy to figure out. If you want to try it, sign up and download from here “VMWare Server”.

So for my server, I built a system from my old AMD 64 machine and installed Ubuntu 8.04.1 x64 on it. The hardware I used for this project was:

• Board: BioStar T-Force SLI
• CPU: AMD Athlon 64 +3500
• Memory: 2 Gig DDR400
• Hard Drives:
  1. Seagate 20Gib IDE – OS
  2. Seagate 120Gib SATA – RAID Drive 1
  3. Seagate 120Gib SATA – RAID Drive 2
  4. Hitachi 250Gib SATA – Extra Storage (Not used yet)
  5. Hitachi 500Gib SATA – Soon to be RAID array with another 500Gib
• Case: Antec Sonata 1st Rev with 380w PSU
• Network:
  1. No name brand PCI Realtek 8169 Gigabit card
  2. Zonet Realtek 8169 Gigabit card (File server)
• Video: EVGA MX4000 PCI card

I have the two RAID drives in RAID 1 using MDADM and it works perfect. The 250Gib drive is empty but it is there just in case I need more storage. Also, I am in the process of setting up another RAID 1 array that will hold my servers files on it using two 500Gib drives from my new Drobo box (I’ll explain in a bit). What that means is that I am going to be moving my main ITX server into a virtual machine to run on my VMware server but using it exactly as it is setup right now so I won’t have to start all over again setting it up. On the plus side I get to use my ITX server as a small machine for my living room. Mostly so there is a computer for my mom to use to work on school work in the living room instead of her desk which is quite small. Another plus is the fact I will be gaining more space on the server since it will have the new RAID array.

Next up I have a new file storage device called a Drobo. They call it a storage robot that essentially is a non-RAID RAID array. They have their own system called BeyondRAID which is RAID like but not true RAID. How it works is place any size drives you have in it. From them it will completely build a new drive from all the drives. No need to match size and brand, it just builds it into an array. When you run out of space on it, you just pop a drive out and install a new one. It will automaticly set-up the drive and rebuild the array. So far I love it, even though it is quite on the expensive side hovering around $450. As of yesterday (1/25/09) it now has 2x 1.5tb and 2x 500gib drives totalling 2.3tb and it is fully backed up.

Now car news. I am still modifying my car. Now it now has a BORA and euro 1.8T emblems, German plate with replica registration sticker, and it will soon have black euro VW emblems. Also I ordered and received the matching German “HN F1744″ plate for when I finally have the money to get a genuine VW BORA trunk lid with the wide plate opening. For now it is going to be chillin on my desk waiting for the day to be mounted.

Well that’s it for now. Finally I get to post this post. Hope your happy and if you have any questions on how to do any of this or about something else, just sign up and post a comment.

I was talking to Krass yesterday and it seems we have a new project for me involving two 2×26 LCD screens to plug into my router. The point for that is for displaying cpu, memory, in traffic and out traffic. It should be nice. Ill give you updates when I start the project.

For now I am off to my aunts house for a “Brunch”. Since when does that sound interesting? Atleast after I get to hang out with the normal crew. You know, Diana, Krass, and Biggs (call him biggles. It really pisses him off)

Later

Today I was helping my friend Andrew out with returning his new XBox back to best buy, only because it came with the wrong DVD-ROM drive than can’t be flashed, and to get a new one. I was bored and needed to get out today so I said “Why not? Something to do that I am not choking on dust.” When at Best Buy, he ended up forgetting his receipt in his moms car. She said she is at Pathmark. The only one I knew about was the one on rt 27 (Sunrise Hwy) in Sun Vet Mall. Well here is the fun part. While I was pulling into the main entrance, right when I hit the stop sign, the car stalled for no real reason. I try to start it again and all it does is turn over and over. He gets out and pushes me into a spot. Nothing.

At first I thought it was my fuel pump so his mom drove me to my local Advanced Auto to talk with them to try to figure this all out. The guy said it must be my fuel pump that is doing that. Well after what just happened, it is definitely not the fuel pump. Later tonight, Biggs picked me up to try to figure out the problem. Some how while testing out the fuel pump and fuel check value, he got completely drenched in gas. He pulled the wrong line. In the end, it is still sitting in the parking lot all sad and it makes me sad. I hope tomorrow its all fixed and before 11:40 for school. If not I am forced to drive my grandpas Yankees machine around.

Wish me luck.

I finally put the hard drive with Vista installed back into my laptop only to reformat it. I reinstalled Vista again but went from x86 to x64. I switched over to x64 because so far I have had good luck with x64 Windows XP and Windows 7 and the fact that Lenovo has full x64 drivers for my T61. Lucky for me, I have full legit copies of Vista Business x86 and x64 retail as provided by my friend Andrew.

In my NOS class (boring easy stuff), I see a lot of people now showing up with the new mini laptops. I found it quite strange why someone would want something so small. Now that I was just looking at the new Acer one, I like it. It seems like something good to have around since it is nice and small and is quite fast. The new Intel Atom seems to hold up to the Core 2. The only downside is that it doesn’t come with a CD/DVD Rom so it’s much harder to setup an OS. So that’s my 2cents for now. If I actually come across some money soon (na, likely to never happen), I will think about getting one.

Also, I found out that this X-Mas I am getting a Blackberry. I’m very excited about that. It’s going to be a Curve 8310 in red which I have no idea why I want it in that color. It will make it much nicer to post on this very blog, just to keep you guys happy.