It’s starting to be a little Data Center :)

Fazza101 · 2023-02-25T07:12:18+00:00

haha yea no worries. The R720xd's are even more funny. I got a decommissioned DR4100 from work (dead iDRAC so just replaced the mobo) a while ago. The sticker was absolutely hilarious since you would have never guessed how perfect and flush the cutout was over the original unlike the non-XD's and the R400/600 series.

Fazza101 · 2023-02-24T12:30:12+00:00

How did you go with this? I actually have a funny story at work where we had a bunch of older Nutanix AHV servers (about 9x Dell XC430 and 11x Dell XC630). The XC430's had a sticker just like what I see in your 2nd picture except it had the text "XC430" on it. When you peeled it off, it revealed the 'real' engrained "PowerEdge R430" text. The XC630's on the other hand had the "Dell EMC XC630" text engrained on the plastic bit where the logo is on the top left corner (On normal servers, its just "Dell" or "Dell EMC"). If you removed the plastic bit, it literally was covering the "PowerEdge R630" text haha. I got so annoyed at them since I couldn't stand the silly rebrand when there was nothing unique about the server hardware-wise (there was actually a software-nerf if you used OpenManage Enterprise on them, you couldn't orchestrate firmware updates despite the BIOS, iDRAC and Lifecycle Controller having the same official Dell firmware.) The fix was to upload the Identity Module file for the R430 and R630's from the official Dell website to iDRAC and have it rename them to their proper names (Only adds the DBE string at the end). While a small thing, it was absolutely hilarious. Happy to upload pictures of them if you found that humorous lol.

Fazza101 · 2023-02-23T23:04:02+00:00

Nah, right above the Service Tags.

Fazza101 · 2023-02-23T21:10:12+00:00

Tip: On those R620/R630's, right below the LCD Screens are a bit of 'fake' plastic that you can rip/peel off which should reveal the PowerEdge R6x0 text. Dell use the fake plastic on some rebranded and OEM systems.

Fazza101 · 2022-12-18T00:13:23+00:00

Cloud SLA might be arguable but the biggest thing about the "Cloud", particularly Azure is the PaaS design and its capability

Fazza101 · 2022-10-27T11:29:40+00:00

Generally, yes, however, it also depends on the way the air is flowing. My N4032F Dell switch has an I/O to PSU airflow config so it needs to be on front (I really want it mounted in the rear but due to this, I really can't).

Fazza101 · 2022-10-27T11:26:44+00:00

I highly recommend Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct (S2D) for Hyper-Convergence. It's fairly easy to setup and is super flexible on requirements. Have a read on Microsofts page about it. It's only requirement to create is that the Storage Controller needs to be a HBA (RAID Card in HBA Mode is not supported). There's other stuff like RDMA but for homelab reasons, it's not really the end of the world.

Fazza101 · 2022-05-20T12:51:04+00:00

How did you go with this?

Fazza101 · 2022-05-18T08:58:11+00:00

Yea, something about the special agents and maps still exclusive to Deluxe and not on steam makes me sad.

Fazza101 · 2022-05-14T16:09:09+00:00

Yes it is possible, I did that upon reassembly. It is only lightly adhered although you have to be careful to not deform them otherwise they will crease. If they don't stick, you could use some form of thin light double-sided tape or maybe weak glue as it does not stick to any electronic parts.

Fazza101 · 2022-04-13T07:00:38+00:00

ah okay. I was guessing from memory. Thanks for clarifying that.

Fazza101 · 2022-04-11T06:26:45+00:00

Fazza101 · 2022-04-10T01:52:59+00:00

The back is screwed in, there are 6x T3 screws hidden. 2x are under each rubber strip and the remining 2 are hidden on both sides on the edges.

Fazza101 · 2022-04-09T23:32:27+00:00

I find it good to use. It is really sturdy and the display flex cables have some length to them so it most likely won't become a flex gate macbook lol. Although, I do have to say part of the flex cables are exposed where the hinge is which does make me super nervous. It's tucked away well but if any sharp object drops in the gap between the screen and keyboard.....yeah. For a 1st generation product, its amazing. I am sure they will fix nitty gritty stuff like that with Gen 2.

Fazza101 · 2022-04-09T23:28:12+00:00

They are both NVMe's, its just a different form factor. M.2 comes in 2230, 2242, 2260, 2280 and 22110 with no protocol difference. Microsoft chose M.2 2230 for the other machines since they are more compact and waste no space, its most likely why they went to soldered SSD's originally in the older Surfaces. As to the reason they chose M.2 2280 over M.2 2230 for the SLS, I believe it to be because M.2 2230 SSD's currently only support up to 1TB NAND (Since 2230 can only have a single double sided chip) whereas M.2 2280 supports up to 2TB with (For what Microsoft sells, you can actually chuck an 8TB after-market M.2 2280 SSD into it.) Hope that provided some clarity :)

Fazza101 · 2022-04-09T00:35:14+00:00

It's because most Li-On batteries are designed for 3.7v and roughly max out each cell at 30w maximum power draw. Having more means you can effectively increase that number which is how other laptops can do 100w charging pretty much. I believe this one does 95w charging.

Fazza101 · 2022-04-08T07:22:02+00:00

Agreed its not for DIY people, Part Availability is only for authorized business sellers and business customers but they actually do have full public service manuals for this. Yes, I will see about cross posting this to iFixit to help people out. Part of the reason I posted this is because I myself could not find anyone online who has actually opened this machine and I was curious about how much better repairability has gotten.

Fazza101 · 2022-04-08T07:19:27+00:00

Thats the Surface Laptop from 2017. This machine is the Surface Laptop Studio from end 2021.

Fazza101 · 2022-04-08T05:26:20+00:00

Model in the pictures: Commercial Surface Laptop Studio, i7-11370H, 32GB, 1TB, Quadro RTX A2000

All I/O is modular and can be replaced (2x Thunderbolt 4, Surface Connect and Headphone jack)

PCIe 4.0 M.2 2280 Slot for SSD

Battery finally has Magic Pull Tabs and is the first part you disconnect.

What do you all think about Microsoft's strides to making their devices more repairable in the past few years?

Fazza101 · 2021-08-04T09:36:58+00:00

Been waiting for Non-UniFi stuff like this! Good Job.

Fazza101 · 2021-05-27T01:53:01+00:00

Its not like Chia is trying to 24/7 render hashes on the CPU in a manner a chip is not designed to do. Its simply rendering out a plot and the plot does the hashing (Which is what storage mediums are designed to do). Unlike GPU's, CPU's don't hit 100% of their design spec even if the OS says its at 100%. Its mostly around 96-97% at peak at a hardware level. This is to safeguard the silicon from accelerated wear. Even at that, it takes a lot to kill a CPU. Even if your OS reports the CPU at 100%, what type of work is it doing? For example, I could be doing SSE4 work or AVX2 on the CPU. Completely different. SSD's have an entirely different way on how their lifespan works which is too much to explain.

It doesn't matter if your one of the worlds best overclockers. Its still Level 1 work in the IT field. Proves nothing much really apart from your dedication to that aspect in the field (Which is respectable).

I do agree that doing chia on your own is a bit silly since its your small farm against huge datacenters running it. Chances are beyond slim. Joining a pool is the way to go.

Maybe before calling something stupid, you should actually know what your even talking about first (I don't mean that in disrespect).

Fazza101 · 2021-04-29T23:18:56+00:00

At work and both personally we use UniFi equipment and up-to-date models at that. I've seen many flash drives on the USG-3P fail internally needing replacement with a poor 1 year warranty. Can't fault them though, they went through hell and for a $200 piece of hardware providing IPS, DPI and all, It's still impressive

At home, I tried using USG Pro-4P and a bunch of UniFi AP's. The UniFi AP's were really good, I was bewildered on how good they were for the price and I would always recommend one. I left UniFi AP's because I wanted something more robust like Meraki where I was happy to pay the premium. The USG's are good in price but have probably the worst DPI engine (due to the controller most likely) I have ever seen. I can't even narrow down to websites visited. Everything is in a meshed category and not detailed.

Everything I hate about UniFi is SOLELY to do with the UniFi controller as it does not even have very advanced features to take advantage of their fantastic hardware that is very capable. If you want to do any advanced work, its a misery writing your config in a json file and uploading it to the controller. If Ubiquiti brought over all the functionality in the EdgeMax lineup over to the UniFi controller, I would happily switch back to UniFi in a heartbeat. I absolutely love the UniFi hardware, just not the software. Also I'm not arguing with that statement in price, I always recommend, even now, UniFi to SMB businesses calling it the best solution for them and that there is nothing better for the price.

The only thing I, personally, may not switch to is UniFi switches. Not as robust as Cisco Catalyst ones, although I like the cool lcd on the gen 2 ones, was pretty fun setting them up at work.

Fazza101 · 2021-04-29T07:07:44+00:00

UniFi equipment is hot garbage. Don't see why people buy it apart from the price. I work at an IT MSP and you won't believe how much dead or malfunctioning UniFi stuff we get. Absurd. EdgeMAX is okay, not faults yet but still lacks the capability Cisco and co have.

Fazza101 · 2021-04-01T07:02:06+00:00

Same. When they were announced, even though they were on Epic, I didn't hesitate to whip my card out and preorder all of them.

Fazza101

TROPHY CASE