The Class E Network

    • Offizieller Beitrag

    I replied, from over place, but now I'm finding that the posts didn't take! I don't know what to make of that. Maybe the sign-in didn't work. In any case, I'm here for the day and back over there tomorrow (or maybe the next day).


    I've been thinking of buying a USB3 to sata adapter, but I don't have one now. At this point, I have no idea which chip sets certain types / models use.
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    On construction techniques, "old world" construction is better than what we have in the States. It certainly lasts longer. With above grade masonry (brick and block) the usable life of the outer shell is based on the life of the mortar which, if mixed properly, is at least 100 years.
    Stick built houses, even with brick exteriors, are fine but the usable life really boils down to how long the fasteners last (nails and other hardware). Long lasting fasteners is a matter of maintenance which specifically boils down to preventing water/moisture infiltration.


    In my case, before I did the siding, I installed continuous sheets of commercial Tyvek, sealing it at the corner seams and to the frames of the new windows. Tyvek is a one-way moisture barrier that allows moisture out, but is water proof going the other way. (It's odd to see it, but one can fill a glass with water and seal tyvek to the opening. One way, it drips water. The other way, it's water tight.) So, while siding repels water, if some water gets past the siding, the Tyvek wrap with run it off. Going the other way, if interior humidity is high, it passes through the barrier.


    A secondary effect, which is actually the primary reason to install it, is preventing air infiltration which gets the home owner the true value of the insulation. Since it started to turn cold in recent days, we're finding that the house is draft free (expected) and the new wood stove will have no trouble at all, heating the house. (With outside temps in the 30's overnight, the interior is 80 degrees, and that's running the stove as low as I can.)

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    Zitat von flmaxey

    At this point, I have no idea which chip sets certain types / models use.

    No I'm not sure either, have been trying to search the forum because I'm sure there was information about usb to sata and chipsets.
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    I take your point about house construction, I have been watching a few channels on you tube about people building their own home, all are US based. One I have been following the longest is a concrete walled huge garage built from polystyrene blocks into which concrete is poured to form the walls, the a timber construction is built on that. The walls and roof are SIP panels, but the amount of screws used is phenomenal.


    I know in the UK 'barn conversions' are popular, where an old barn has been converted to a home, but these are oak and the actual load bearing timbers are good.
    The last Hotel I managed was a 16th Century coaching inn, but prior to that it was a 'long house' probably built during 11th/12th century. I remember investing part of the loft space, one of the main load bearing timbers was a complete tree bark n all. Parts of the hotel timbers were carbon dated hence they were able to estimate construction.


    There is TV program on Channel 4 called Grand Designs it's films the process of self builds from start to finish, next week will be interesting, the guy set out to build the largest 'cob' house in the UK. Cob is a construction method using mud, in effect clay and straw....should be interesting to see how far he's got, I'll try and remember to watch it on my iPad and take some pictures, in fact you google Grand Designs Cob House there are some you tube videos and pictures.

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    Some of the longest lasting structures are, obviously, stone. But there's more to consider than a long lasting wall. (There's plenty of ruins still standing with "walls".) Along with keeping water from infiltrating walls, the "roof", and keeping it good shape (water tight), is one of the most important factors in keeping a structure habitable.


    I used medium grade asphalt shingles, for the roof, with an expensive synthetic underlayment. While I only need 30 years of life from the roof, using expensive underlayment gives me the insurance of a secondary roof. (The stuff I used is rated to provide a temporary roof if left uncovered, for over 6 months, with life left over for the underlayment function.) So, if a bit of water gets under the shingles, the underlayment will run it off into the gutters.


    The expensive underlayment and Tyvek under the siding are a kind of "backup". :)

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    Zitat von flmaxey

    I used medium grade asphalt shingles, for the roof,

    We only use asphalt for flat roof's and garden sheds, never seen it used on a house before in the UK. Most UK homes have tiled (which are concrete) or slate roofs.


    For instance our house uses peg tiles, but ours are a half peg tile made from clay;



    This was because these houses had to be in keeping with the Grade II listed buildings on the adjacent street, a modern equivalent are these which are concrete;



    Roof tiles in the UK are concrete but they can come in various shapes, sizes and form. These are fixed to roofing batons which in turn are fixed to the roof timbers, underneath those is a waterproof membrane.


    I've searched for Tyvek and it is used in the UK probably in much newer builds...technology moves forward so does everything else.

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    The rafter load must be enormous. But, as the angle steepens, more of the weight load is transferred to the outer walls. (Still, both factors, weight and a steep angle, would make it much harder for a single man to do the job.) The load bearing outer walls would almost have to be stone, brick or other, to support the weight.


    Setting aside the engineering considerations, what's the cost of materials, per square? (10x10') The cost alone might be beyond what a pauper in the colony's could afford. :)


    I'm not up on the wind ratings for a "leaved" roof, such as slate, terracotta, etc. (It's actually more about the "uplift" conditions created in high winds.) Asphalt shingles seal (glue) themselves down and with good underlayment, they do well in high winds. High wind speeds, from time to time, is part of the weather conditions we have to deal with over here.

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    Zitat von flmaxey

    Setting aside the engineering considerations, what's the cost of materials, per square? (10x10')

    I just knew you would ask the technical questions :) so here is a UK site for roofing supplies and here is a very good video explaining how one should construct a roof
    Personally any form of construction has to be based upon local weather conditions. So when you've worked out the cost you can post the comparison ;)

    • Offizieller Beitrag

    While this is an off topic thread, I suppose roofing materials are really off-topic.
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    I got a E-mail from a forum user regarding Windows 10. I was amazed to find M$ did away with homegroups, this user had his homegroup simply disappear, and he wanted it back!


    While I never used one (I just couldn't see the point of it over a tried and proven workgroup); M$ went to some lengths to encourage the use of homegroup's. Imagine the consternation of those who adopted homegroup's, to have them suddenly disappear!


    Of course, all I could offer was bad news:
    - Rollback updates to before ver1803
    - Rebuild all machines with an earlier version, and never update to 1803.


    Man,,, the gall of that company, to simply force an automated change on some many that were unsuspecting.
    Here? Windows 10 is still connected to the OMV-server. All is well. :thumbup:

    • Offizieller Beitrag
    Zitat von flmaxey

    While this is an off topic thread, I suppose roofing materials are really off-topic.

    I would agree to disagree, if you look through our ramblings they are a mixture of omv related stuff and personal, and looking at the thread we have managed to create 19 pages of those ramblings, I am a member of a number of forums most of which have an off topic or lounge to discuss such ramblings, that's what makes a forum. Look at the number of views that our ramblings get, we discuss all sorts, it's enjoyable makes a change from the normal run of the mill problems....but hey ho, onward and upward as they say.
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    Homegroups; I tried that once and only because I was having issues with a printer, even then I still had problems with trying to get the thing to work. I never really understood the purpose nor the relevance of using a Homegroup, but I can confirm it's not available in 1803. There is a guide here about the retirement of the HomeGroup, but the obvious reasoning in that article is the use of OneDrive, my wife's school is using google drive for that purpose. It negates file storage on the network server, there reducing the type of server to be used and what it's to be used for. But the cloud use allows for a personal area as well as a group area, the problem with MS they are 'forcing' users down the 'new tech' route instead of giving them the choice.
    It was the same when they ceased WHS they went down like a cold shower, users were more than willing to use it and sang it's praises, but MS pulled the plug anyway.
    They really should look at 2 markets, business use and home use with the emphasis on the home use as KISS, rather than a stick principle to force the home user into MS's way.

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    Zitat von geaves

    but hey ho, onward and upward as they say.

    Who says that? :) (Just kidding)


    Zitat von geaves

    It was the same when they ceased WHS they went down like a cold shower, users were more than willing to use it and sang it's praises, but MS pulled the plug anyway.

    I used WHS, but I wasn't really happy with it. Everything I wanted to do either cost a small fortune, as an commercial add-on, or it hemmed me in.


    But I do know why they dropped it. Since it was dirt simple to set up network shares, with simplified permissions assignment (that alone was a major bonus over windows server) value added resellers and IT service providers were setting up Windows home servers for small businesses at very low cost, often using non-server hardware. In essence, with numerous $100 WHS installs, Microsoft sales of the much more expensive standard "MS server" to small businesses dropped off. Their solution was to drop WHS and offer MS server "Essentials" which provides client backup and mimic's much of WHS' simplified approach. Currently MS server Essentials is priced around $500. ($100 to 500 is one heck of a jump.)


    Zitat von geaves

    I never really understood the purpose nor the relevance of using a Homegroup, but I can confirm it's not available in 1803.

    I didn't get it either. I think it used some type of encryption, notionally for better security, and it seemed to try to make set up easy, but I never had an issue with a peer-to-peer workgroup. For my use, a homegroup seemed pointless.


    Zitat von geaves

    There is a guide here about the retirement of the HomeGroup, but the obvious reasoning in that article is the use of OneDrive, my wife's school is using google drive for that purpose. It negates file storage on the network server, there reducing the type of server to be used and what it's to be used for. But the cloud use allows for a personal area as well as a group area, the problem with MS they are 'forcing' users down the 'new tech' route instead of giving them the choice.

    I completely get the OneDrive thing, and their attempts to push things into "The Cloud" (what a foolish term for the internet). It's about migrating, eventually, toward a subscription based service that comes with a monthly fee. What's being offered for free now, will come with a price tag for premium features later. Meanwhile, it's time to "maneuver the herd".


    I don't believe in "Cloud" services. There are too many players involved in something that's so complex, a single kink can have unexpected and, potentially, disastrous consequences. (An employee is disgruntled, there's a power outage, a contract expires, you get the idea.) If you don't own it, you don't control it, therefore your data is not really yours.

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    Thanks for that. I really need to get one of those do-hickies (usb to sata). I hope they have the same model with a 12V PS input for 3.5" drives.


    Windows 10,, much like homegroups,,, I still don't get it. Most of the actual tech is the same, to include a core component, NTFS, where improvements were promised several years ago. Win10 is another example of "Windows" dressing, the same old pig but with purple lip stick. If it wasn't for classic shell, which is a rescue from the maddening smart phone like desktop, I'd be a full Linux convert.


    - BTW: I have a post (above) stuck in queue. It should free up today. -

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    Yep that Startech does come with 2.5 and 3.5 adaptors complete with power supply, looks better than the one I purchased some time ago from Novatech.


    Anyway latest W10 arriving via one of the wife's colleague's, it's stuck on Diagnosing your PC after a cumulative update, so I get it late Thursday afternoon, switch it on and yes it's stuck!! So take the HD out connect to USB to SATA bridge, takes forever for the final partition to load...labelled Boot...this is where I found out that the drive has gone down the toilet. I finally get into the boot partition, get into users, select the user....this is not instant so I decide it's time for dinner...after dinner it's still deciding to open the users folder....that's 2 hours past. Stopped that and put the drive back into the machine and fired up Spinrite Level 4 immediately I can tell that the drive is sucking it's last breath, I've never seen Spinrite run so slow. So I've left it.


    Fast forward to Sat PM and Spinrite has finally finished, fortunately there are more recovered sectors than bad, and fortunately there is sufficient empty space on the partition. Back to the USB to Sata....file explorer will still not open the users folder after an hour!!


    So back to a Command Prompt, this fortunately gives me access to see the four main folder and their contents, this is going to require the use of Robocopy something I've never used so had to search and found what I needed to do.


    Create a root folder on my machine with the relevant sub folders, then <path to source> <path to destination> /MIR


    So this started Sat PM and did not finish until Tues AM, changing the patch statements after each folder completed, all the data was 34.8GB over 7000 files and the only place Robocopy failed was the last folder in the User/Pictures. Obviously there was something failing big time on the drives hardware.


    The new drive arrived Wednesday lunchtime, by dinner it was back running with all the software reinstalled and the files copied. Whilst I was pleased that the data was recovered it's the first time it has taken so long due the drive running on it's last legs, I even tried a reinstall of W10....it came back when I selected the partition....this drive is failing....no sh!t Sherlock :)


    This has to be longest I have ever spent sorting someone else's hardware....but at least I know how to use Robocopy now :thumbup:
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    Classic Shell?? Obviously that's a piece of oneupmanship :) never heard of that.

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    Zitat von geaves

    Finally got the SS mesh fitted to the dock and inside the door as an extra dust filter


    Where's the pic? I want to see if it's real home brew, maybe with some card board and "duck" tape. (You know, I saw a commercial with a little girl, turning a roll of duct tape over and really looking at it. She said; "Why would anyone want to tape a duck"? Funny )


    The Ethernet interface on the EX470 started acting up again. I could see the interface light flashing rapidly, as if it was on the end of an Ethernet broadcast storm. (Connected to a good switch.) And it was doing the massively delayed ping thing again.


    I've read on this forum and in other places that the ethernet interface (a sis191) on this box is generally not compatible with Linux. It worked, at first, so I ignored it thinking new kernels took care of the compatibility problem. Apparently not. I ordered one of those USB 2 to Ethernet dongles for it. (A $1.28 special out of China.) It will take it a couple weeks to a month to get here. Until then, I've set it to reboot at midnight daily. If it gets stuck, a reboot frees it up. It's curious that nothing is in the logs.


    I'll test the dongle with it (for at least a couple months) and if that fixes it great. Otherwise, I'm looking for something els.
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    I bought a Dell Perc H200 and two of those mini SCSI cable thingies for 4 sas/sata ports. I'll have to flash it but... (8 ports!) I have a server case so I'm giving thought to building something if the EX470 has to be scraped. Any mobo (literally), with the Perc card and other parts that I have, would be better than the EX470 but, sadly, it would also spin the meter faster.


    Along those lines, I'd prefer server grade hardware throughout and I was looking at one of these before. -> Older Intel Server
    I think you said your retired one of these before. It uses RDIMM's, cheap on the auction sites, and getting a 2nd Xeon for it is like 5 to $10. (The passmark for the 2 CPU's would be a bit north of 8000 - which is way more than I'd need.) I could set up ESXI, on it and virtualize with the CPU power and RAM available for this box.)


    What do you think? If you have experience with it, I'd appreciate hearing your thoughts.

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    Zitat von flmaxey

    Where's the pic?


    That's the new drive bay with the mesh rather than the plastic screen supplied, there is a piece sandwiched between the outer and inner door panels, that's a bit harder to get a picture, might not be as effective as foam or a fibre filter, but this at least will keep some of the dust away whilst still maintaining air flow.
    I spent about £24 on the bay, esata cable and mesh so more than happy.
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    Shame about the EX740, hopefully the dongle will resolve it. Regarding that Intel server, the one I have retired must be very close to 10 years old, the school used it as the main DC for nearly 5 years, then I recommissioned as additional backup at school and it was retired when 2 hdd's failed...so I brought it home and I've had it for almost 3 years. Very reliable and quiet, the only difference I can see is the cover over the cpu to the case fan, mine had a cpu fan and a case fan, the drive bays are Ok, a bit tight but the slimmer 3.5 drives are ideal.
    The thing with being Intel the m'board manual is still available on line, the only downside to mine was the DDR2 ram with a max of 8GB, but mine also had a bios option to enable virtualisation.


    For me this N54L is more than enough for my needs.
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    Forget to slip this in, wife brings home a laptop from school, there is a bank of 16, for whatever reason their IT support have not recommissioned them after a new server install...no one seems to know why....."Can you have a look and see if it works" I'm sure she thinks I'm Harry Potter :)
    Anyway they are a rebadged laptop, probably Clevo, I've got a W10 32 Bit install DVD so away we go....no way, doesn't boot to DVD can't access bios PASSWORD :cursing: that's just typical of the company that supplied them...quick search and I find either a jumper short or a possible password....password, and we're in :thumbup:


    Boot from DVD and install W10 no problem, all H'ware drivers installed...Intel i3, 4GB Ram, 2 x USB 3, 1 x USB 2, HDMI, Card Reader, VGA out...it's happy as Larry...just waiting for the poo the hit the fan because the head is currently off sick.
    Added to that the school has a laptop in the hall for assemblies etc, the IT company can't get that to 'stay connected to the network'

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    That mod looks really good. No glue or tape marks - definitely not the work of a colonist... It looks factory!
    (Are you sure you did that? :) )


    Along the lines of those extra drives, I read that BTRFS doesn't play well with virtualization so it's good thing that you went with EXT4. As it seems (and I suspected) BTRFS still has a l-o-n-g way to go. (Look at what " StephanIT Professional" had to say in a fairly recent post on this page.) I sincerely hope OMV does not go the BTRFS route in OMV5. BTRFS is not ready and, as I look at Stephan's Pro's and Con's, I suspect it will be years before it is.


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    Zitat von geaves

    Forget to slip this in, wife brings home a laptop from school, there is a bank of 16, for whatever reason their IT support have not recommissioned them after a new server install...no one seems to know why.....


    /---/ just waiting for the poo the hit the fan because the head is currently off sick. /---/


    Added to that the school has a laptop in the hall for assemblies etc, the IT company can't get that to 'stay connected to the network'


    Regarding the School:


    You know, comprehensive IT services are just not that hard and with the wireless appliances available of late, it's relatively easy to come up with campus level networking designs and solutions that are robust. I mean, really...


    (Back in the day) A friend of mine tried to get me to join him (when we were on a trip to the UAE) in setting up a business for networking, wireless, and IT services for businesses in the UAE. While work was never been about the money, provided that me and mine are comfortable of course, there was (is) a ton of money to be made if one is merely "competent". Value added, with some tech bells and whistles? That means the service contract would be renewed every year. If not, there would be plenty of other takers because service in this field is, generally, "iffy" at best.


    Lately, since we're usually talking about an office suite and web browsers (not high end games), even slower performing hardware will do a decent job with Win7 to Win10. Unless one BS'es the customer into buying new hardware, no doubt with a reseller mark up, the older stuff would work fine and there might even be a few coins in reconfiguring it to work in the new topology.





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    Zitat von flmaxey

    Unless one BS'es the customer into buying new hardware, no doubt with a reseller mark up, the older stuff would work fine and there might even be a few coins in reconfiguring it to work in the new topology.

    That's exactly how the system works, before their current IT company got the contract the school has to tender for quotes, because I know three of the school governors I was contacted to give an opinion....well needless to say two companies I wouldn't touch but the other two were from the company they are now using. I replied back to the governors (who are supposed to approve any large spending) with two sheets of A4 questions, each quote lacked detail from every angle...the worst was the USB drives used for rotational offsite removal they were quoting twice what you would pay on Amazon!! Somehow it went through, but the governing body is 12 and I think they took their lead from elsewhere.


    Anyway needless to say things have not been going well.
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    Zitat von flmaxey

    That mod looks really good. No glue or tape marks - definitely not the work of a colonist

    Not bad even for me :D and that mesh just cuts with a decent pair of kitchen scissors...I needed a new pair anyway ;) perhaps I could drop a hint to Santa.

    • Offizieller Beitrag

    I bought the Intel server. I'm calling it a "hobby" expense. While a bit dated, it will become my second server that has actual server grade hardware. With the gross quantity of ECC RDIMMS out there, for older platforms, I can put a ton of memory in it for peanuts. Also, a second Xeon is around $5 to $10 USD. The result of two CPU's will be a Passmark of 8000+. (The same as my fastest client. :) )


    Those spec's, with lots of RAM, will let me run ESXi and virtualize with ease. Maybe Proxmox? As I may be shut-in with snow this winter, along with updating the User Guide, I'll have something to do.

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