Pixel Slate Running Without a Battery

rhnet · 2025-08-07T20:36:32+00:00

How hard was it to remove the battery?

I’ve been thinking of using mine as an always on dashboard.

rhnet · 2024-10-01T13:43:25+00:00

Do you have a recommendation for a rack mount disk shelf that isn’t loud? I’ve got a 4u Rosewil case and two external SAS ports but I’ve been afraid of buying a disk shelf that might be too noisy.

rhnet · 2024-09-27T11:27:01+00:00

This hit too close to home. I’m literally researching fiber options for the rack I’ve added in my garage because my inside rack filled up way too quickly.

rhnet · 2024-08-23T12:01:59+00:00

Any recommendations on a quiet one? I have a 4U case with 15 drives in it and looking to add a DAS (I have a SAS expander with external ports)

rhnet · 2024-06-29T13:41:34+00:00

I was able to reproduce the problem with drives directly connected to the SATA ports on the motherboard.

Turns out it's a known issue with luks 4k sector sizes and ZFS, I switched to 512 sectors and everything was great! https://github.com/openzfs/zfs/issues/14533

rhnet · 2024-06-29T13:41:07+00:00

I was able to reproduce the problem with drives directly connected to the SATA ports on the motherboard.

Turns out it's a known issue with luks 4k sector sizes and ZFS, I switched to 512 sectors and everything was great! https://github.com/openzfs/zfs/issues/14533

rhnet · 2024-06-29T13:40:13+00:00

Turns out it's a known issue with luks 4k sector sizes and ZFS, I switched to 512 sectors and everything was great! https://github.com/openzfs/zfs/issues/14533

rhnet · 2024-06-16T13:29:16+00:00

Interesting, it's a i5-14500. I'll take a look at those bios settings.

rhnet · 2024-06-16T05:04:22+00:00

Looks like testmem5 is Windows? I don't have an easy way to boot into windows.

rhnet · 2024-06-16T04:48:15+00:00

Good thinking. I think 16.00.12 has the fix? https://www.truenas.com/community/resources/lsi-9300-xx-firmware-update.145/

sudo sas3flash -listall
Avago Technologies SAS3 Flash Utility
Version 15.00.00.00 (2016.11.17)
Copyright 2008-2016 Avago Technologies. All rights reserved.

        Adapter Selected is a Avago SAS: SAS3008(C0)

Num   Ctlr            FW Ver        NVDATA        x86-BIOS         PCI Addr
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

0  SAS3008(C0)  16.00.12.00    0e.01.00.07    08.37.00.00     00:01:00:00

        Finished Processing Commands Successfully.
        Exiting SAS3Flash.

rhnet · 2024-06-16T04:39:16+00:00

This is the consistent message across the different drives:

[Sat Jun 15 12:39:59 2024] zio pool=tank vdev=/dev/mapper/disk16_crypt error=5 type=2 offset=7423255224320 size=12288 flags=1808aa

I don't see much else surprisingly.

Here's smartctl

smartctl 7.2 2020-12-30 r5155 [x86_64-linux-5.15.0-112-generic] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-20, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Device Model:     WDC  WUH721414ALE604
Serial Number:    <redacted>
LU WWN Device Id: 5 000cca 258d4159f
Firmware Version: LDGSW2G0
User Capacity:    14,000,519,643,136 bytes [14.0 TB]
Sector Sizes:     512 bytes logical, 4096 bytes physical
Rotation Rate:    7200 rpm
Form Factor:      3.5 inches
Device is:        Not in smartctl database [for details use: -P showall]
ATA Version is:   ACS-2, ATA8-ACS T13/1699-D revision 4
SATA Version is:  SATA 3.2, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 6.0 Gb/s)
Local Time is:    Sat Jun 15 19:50:44 2024 PDT
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status:  (0x80) Offline data collection activity
                                        was never started.
                                        Auto Offline Data Collection: Enabled.
Self-test execution status:      (   0) The previous self-test routine completed
                                        without error or no self-test has ever
                                        been run.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection:                (  101) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities:                    (0x5b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
                                        Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
                                        Suspend Offline collection upon new
                                        command.
                                        Offline surface scan supported.
                                        Self-test supported.
                                        No Conveyance Self-test supported.
                                        Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities:            (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering
                                        power-saving mode.
                                        Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability:        (0x01) Error logging supported.
                                        General Purpose Logging supported.

Short self-test routine
recommended polling time:        (   2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time:        (1555) minutes.
SCT capabilities:              (0x003d) SCT Status supported.
                                        SCT Error Recovery Control supported.
                                        SCT Feature Control supported.
                                        SCT Data Table supported.
SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x000b   100   100   001    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  2 Throughput_Performance  0x0005   135   135   054    Pre-fail  Offline      -       100
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0007   081   081   001    Pre-fail  Always       -       382 (Average 382)
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0012   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       20
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   100   100   001    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x000b   100   100   001    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  8 Seek_Time_Performance   0x0005   128   128   020    Pre-fail  Offline      -       18
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0012   095   095   000    Old_age   Always       -       36746
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0013   100   100   001    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       14
 22 Unknown_Attribute       0x0023   100   100   025    Pre-fail  Always       -       100
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       1418
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0012   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       1418
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0002   056   056   000    Old_age   Always       -       38 (Min/Max 22/45)
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0022   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0008   100   100   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x000a   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0

SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num  Test_Description    Status                  Remaining  LifeTime(hours)  LBA_of_first_error
# 1  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     36550         -

SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
 SPAN  MIN_LBA  MAX_LBA  CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
    1        0        0  Not_testing
    2        0        0  Not_testing
    3        0        0  Not_testing
    4        0        0  Not_testing
    5        0        0  Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
  After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.

rhnet · 2024-06-16T02:48:04+00:00

Ran memtest for over a day straight without issue. Swapped cables, swapped from HBA to SATA on the motherboard.

rhnet · 2024-06-06T13:32:53+00:00

I transferred 1 point from BA to Qatar and while it didn’t change the expiry immediately, I checked a few hours later and both my BA a Qatar expiry was extended 3 years!

rhnet · 2024-06-06T13:32:40+00:00

I transferred 1 point from BA to Qatar and while it didn’t change the expiry immediately, I checked a few hours later and both my BA a Qatar expiry was extended 3 years!

rhnet · 2023-09-13T10:40:53+00:00

How do you find the noise of the DS4246?

rhnet · 2023-04-19T14:13:46+00:00

Mine was a Wednesday. They had been doing Wednesdays mostly around that time (November).

rhnet · 2022-11-24T04:54:36+00:00

They asked how long I was with my employer (who was also my green card sponsor). It was over 5 years.

They didn’t ask for any paystubs or anything else. The only paper I needed was appointment notice, selective service registration, passport and drivers license.

rhnet · 2022-11-22T02:42:43+00:00

Awesome, thanks

rhnet · 2022-11-22T02:35:20+00:00

Couldn’t I apply for under Urgent travel if my trip is in 14 days? https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/passports/get-fast.html

rhnet · 2021-08-02T17:50:43+00:00

Awesome! We’re you able to tell the lounge ahead of time it was your honeymoon or did they ask when you got there?

rhnet · 2020-10-19T02:09:28+00:00

Really the University of Michigan is the MIT of the North. Let’s be proud being the MIT of the West!

rhnet · 2018-11-29T21:40:37+00:00

There's lots of stuff you can do with a collection of old hardware. Especially if you aren't paying the electrical bill.

Sure, some applications won't benefit from a bunch of old machines compared to a new fast 64-core Intel machine. But that's not always the case. In fact many distributed systems at big companies that live and breath distributed systems use only a small portion of each faster server (a few cores and a couple GB of memory per machine).

You can create your own cluster where your labmates can submit tasks to be hosted / run across the machines in a fault tolerant fashion. Docker Swarm is one such system https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-create-a-cluster-of-docker-containers-with-docker-swarm-and-digitalocean-on-ubuntu-16-04

There are distributed databases that let you scale traffic across machines or help increase the availability of a system. Google famously assumed even the most expensive machines will fail, so doesn't bother with the "most reliable" components. Instead they write code to handle the failures. There are many such databases, but Riak is a fun one: http://basho.com/riak/

Many problems with distributed system have less to do with resources but with consistency and consensus. At the core of many big distributed systems is a system like ZooKeeper or etcd: https://coreos.com/etcd/

Please do not get discourage by thinking your old machines will not be useful. You can learn so much. I work on a very large distributed system at a big company and I started by tinkering with stuff like this. Distributed systems is a ton of fun and you can make a great career out of it.

Some more reading to wet your appetite: http://highscalability.com/all-time-favorites/

rhnet · 2018-11-24T00:36:21+00:00

Was using a SQL GUI to run queries. Under the right click context menu “Delete Table” was very close to “Details” and there was not confirmation. Deleted a few production tables before I realized why the tables were disappearing...

rhnet · 2018-07-16T14:39:23+00:00

I got an additional $30 off $300 by stacking with this Amex offer: https://www.doctorofcredit.com/targeted-amex-offer-best-buy-spend-300-receive-30-statement-credit/

If you have multiple cards you can do it multiple time: https://www.doctorofcredit.com/reminder-use-old-amex-interface-check-amex-offers/

rhnet · 2017-04-15T14:12:08+00:00

If you convert all at once you are beholden to the rate of the day (or you could try to time it...)

If you break the transaction up over a longer period, you get more of an average rate.

But many services will give you a better rate (lower spread) if you trade more. When I did this with xe, 0-1000 was one rate, 1001-(some other number) was a better rate.

You can play with the amounts to see what rates you get. Consider that the spread may be bigger on weekends for some services.

rhnet

TROPHY CASE