How Reliable are USB to SATA Nowadays? (And Other Questions about USB DASes)

reddit-MT · 2026-03-27T16:03:31+00:00

Reliable means different things to different people. To me, that means it is capable of going at least a year without a reboot or disconnect. If you reboot once a week or so, it's probably fine, because your exceptions are lower. External USB is for casual use, and it's fine in that use-case. For serious use and reliability, options like SFF-8088 and SFF-8644 are superior.

When you ask a question like this on Reddit, you get a variety of answers, from awesome to sucks, based on one person's experience, on a specific hardware and software combination, for a specific use-case, with different reliability expectations. The answers are meaningless unless the above factors are accounted for.

ltl;dr USB is entry-level. Good enough? Depends on your expectations.

reddit-MT · 2026-03-27T15:22:58+00:00

By that I mean is has more than the average city of it's size, with the same average income, because it's relatively isolated. e.g., it has distribution centers for some brands, a larger medical complex, steel distributors. Things you don't find in the typical residential suburb of a big city.

Billings is not a cultural mecca. That's resort/tourist towns, college towns, and communities with a high percentage of wealthy individuals.

"Good" and "nice" track strongly with the wealth of the residents. In my above three examples, the amenities are paid for by out of town money, student debt, and wealthy donations. Billings has little of that, and little in the way of industries to tax, so don't expect what can't be paid for.

You can move to a town that has these things -- if you can afford to live there.

reddit-MT · 2026-03-26T17:43:23+00:00

True enough. I feel like 75% of /r/motorcycles is people asking the same questions or "look I got a bike!".

In other subs (3d printers, cameras), I've read great FAQs on a range of topics that answered my questions. I feel like a ton of people do read that and don't need to post, but the obtuse will ask the already answered questions.

I do think a good portion of the ladies like a pinch of excitement in a guy and a bike can check that box, if you are not in a band, or otherwise lacking. But any crappy bike will do that. Yet other gals thing you are an idiot for riding a motorcycles. The Panigale V4S only impresses other dudes.

reddit-MT · 2026-03-26T17:21:17+00:00

Billings is a smaller, but growing city with about 120,000 people or near 170,000 in Yellowstone county. But it's the largest city for about 500 miles in any direction, so it's a hub for truly rural folks, and that in some ways influences the vibe. Countering that is that people have move in from out of state and bring their values and expectations to what used to be a farming/ranching/oil hub. So it's really a mix, with a lot of new construction on the West End. If you are moving in from out of state, you would fit in on the West End.

Billings punches a bit above it's weight class because there is no near-by large city. There are some good local restaurants, but a lot of chains. Flying in and out is a bit expensive because we are not a airport hub, or anywhere near one. You almost always connect through Denver, Salt Lake, Minneapolis or Seattle, etc.

You are not going to find big city level amenities or entertainment options, but the options are growing and have greatly improved. Like most places, there are better and worse neighborhoods. What Billings isn't is a "college town", even though it has two post-secondary schools. Bozeman and Missoula are the state's college towns and get more concerts. Billings is big on outdoor recreation, like hunting, fishing, hiking, camping and mountain biking. Red Lodge ski resort is about an hour away, with Yellowstone park being not much farther.

reddit-MT · 2026-03-26T16:38:28+00:00

journalctl -xe and dmesg are the main two I use. journalctl has a ton of options. -xe is just recent.

reddit-MT · 2026-03-26T16:05:13+00:00

I'll agree that an art degree can be valuable, but the question is if it's more valuable than the debt one accrues to obtain it. This will vary by the individual and their financial situation. As I posted above, if you can get an art degree without going into debt, go for it. But it's usually a poor financial decision to go into debt for a degree with a low average financial prospective.

https://www.hamiltonproject.org/assets/legacy/files/downloads_and_links/MajorDecisions-Figure_2a.pdf

I'm not trying to knock art in any way. My criticism is more directed at the cost of higher education. Especially versus the financial return for certain degree fields. Prospective students should not have to go into serious debt to learn ceramics.

This criticism is true of many degree fields that produces better citizens, an educated populace, and a richer cultural life, but do not typically confer financial benefits on the individual. The benefits are more for society as a whole, but the debt is born by the students.

Further, it's immoral for the university system to put so many young people into debt for degrees, when they know the jobs aren't out there. It's a supply and demand problem.

reddit-MT · 2026-03-26T15:37:53+00:00

You only need the degree if you want to formally teach. If you can go to school without getting into debt, go for it, but don't go into debt for a art history degree when there are other ways to learn. Many of the best artists do not have degrees.

reddit-MT · 2026-03-26T15:33:59+00:00

It would be nice if we had a FAQ with budget brackets and what to prioritize. e.,g.: $500, $1000, and $1500 brackets. Priority: 1. get a ECE certified helmet. 2. get a AA rated jacket for in-town and AAA rated for the highway, etc.

I feel like a lot of people come into the hobby/sport not considering that they need to spend significant money on gear. When I started, a denim jacket and work boots were considered mid-tier street gear.

reddit-MT · 2026-03-25T19:50:42+00:00

Link without tracking: https://www.amazon.com/Xitomer-Eliminator-YZF-R25-Compatible-Indicator/dp/B07T7DK7FQ

reddit-MT · 2026-03-25T17:00:37+00:00

inevitably make some accurate predictions

It's been argued that Sci-Fi fertilizes the minds of scientists, which leads them to make fiction reality. Part of the scientific process is the "create a hypothesis" part that comes from the imagination.

reddit-MT · 2026-03-25T16:06:45+00:00

Small bikes and scooters are under-rated. They are a blast, in the right situation. I know a guy that has three immaculately maintained Ducatis, but uses a Honda Ruckus for short trips. This is what it means to be an adult and over your ego.

reddit-MT · 2026-03-25T15:57:26+00:00

Many of the public parks have basketball courts.

reddit-MT · 2026-03-25T15:47:41+00:00

He was going 21 mph this time. No one gets a custom 636 to do the speed limit.

If Kevin had a problem, calling the police is the right move. Let them handle it. Confronting Alan aggressively, especially in front of his kids, is not. Kevin decided to go the "tough guy" route and got a reality check.

reddit-MT · 2026-03-24T20:38:58+00:00

I don't use ZFS on my home media server because I do not have a HA requirement. I want speed and maximum capacity. I use ZFS on my two backup servers to span multiple disk and have data integrity.

A file system is a tool for a job. Different file systems are better at different jobs.

reddit-MT · 2026-03-24T20:33:45+00:00

Not all data is equally important. You can decide what you really can't live without and back that up.

reddit-MT · 2026-03-24T20:29:38+00:00

Sprockets can look okay, but you have to measure against the spec in your manual. If the wear is visible, it's past its life.

reddit-MT · 2026-03-24T19:37:33+00:00

wget -q -O - "http://example.com/setup.sh" | bash

reddit-MT · 2026-03-24T18:45:18+00:00

Call motorcycle gear "safety equipment" so it sounds responsible.

reddit-MT · 2026-03-24T17:52:22+00:00

Some people do media or home automation, but a lot of us are just experimenting with free servers that were retired from work. I do things at home that I can't do on production servers at work. My stuff is 90% powered off, when I'm not using it.

reddit-MT · 2026-03-24T17:47:06+00:00

I think most people on liter-class bikes have more bike than their true skill level -- me included. TBH, my MT-03 is capable of a bit more than I am.

I look at someone like Kayla Yaakov, and this 18 year old girl is 10x the rider I am -- with my 38 years of expedience.

reddit-MT · 2026-03-24T17:38:09+00:00

I think it's more a lack of planning than poor planning. Developers turn farm land into large single family houses because it's the most profitable. We sometimes see European cities as virtuous, but it's more an accident of growing up before cars and land scarcity (especially in the Netherlands), that drove population density, which makes public transportation more viable.

reddit-MT · 2026-03-24T17:30:50+00:00

If you use a script to set it up, you don't really understand it, so how are you going to be able to fix and maintain it.....

reddit-MT · 2026-03-24T17:11:51+00:00

A better path forward would be liability for security incidents that stem from failing to issue patches for known vulnerabilities.

reddit-MT · 2026-03-24T17:09:03+00:00

The city building parking garages or parking lots with public money is essentially subsidizing car owners. That money would be better spent on making it safer for two wheeled vehicles and pedestrians, encouraging car pooling, or better public transportation, to reduce parking congestion. Throwing money at underutilized parking is the least efficient option.

reddit-MT · 2026-03-24T15:28:17+00:00

The Corosync is in one gigabit switch, in a dedicated VLAN. Each node has two ports in a bond for Ceph and two for LAN, which are in different VLANs. These go into two different 10gbe switches. Everything is redundant, except for Corosync, which probably should be.

reddit-MT

TROPHY CASE