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Ebay seems to have a lot of inexpensive Infiniband controllers. Looks like there are quite a few PCIe 10GbE adapters for under $40, but I can't tell what if any transceiver is being sold with them. We'd probably be talking about $30 per meter of cable but that's still substantially cheaper than...

Here's a handy site that will generate unattend.xml for your Windows 7/8/8.1 or Server 2008r2+ mass installs.

It's pretty straightforward. You can build a Windows machine the way you normally would, let updates happen, install apps to taste and then run sysprep from C:\windows\system32\sysprep\. After it runs, shut down, boot in to your drive imaging software (TrueImage or WinPE/ImageX or whatever) and...

Kill-A-Watt says that machine is using 584W continuous and draws 730W at peak.

I usually run adwcleaner FIRST because it's a five-minute scan on even shitty hardware. While it's running, I install/update the other crap I want. I actually have a script that pulls down the latest version of the MVPS hosts file, puts ABP in its common location in Firefox and runs the...

It's even better when you have a sysprep image that includes apps and a full set of slipstreamed drivers and updates. It's super easy to set up, too.

New Zealanders clearly have a better sense of humor about their national symbols than other, lesser countries. I am only surprised that the article didn't show off any designs featuring hobbits. Also I love that Firefox's spell checker knows that hobbits is a word but it still underlines USB...

Rufus definitely works a lot faster than the Windows 7 ISO to USB tool for making bootable Windows flash drives. I haven't tried using it for Linux yet, but since it doesn't depend on .NET 2.0, which isn't part of a default Windows 8/10 install, it's still a pretty handy tool.

Yeah, I can see the appeal. Have you set them up yet?

Do those machines not get addresses at all (i.e. APIPA 169.254.whatever addresses) or are they being given something incompatible with your network? They work elsewhere, but just for giggles you might also want to do a full reset of IE settings just in case somebody has configured a proxy server...

Good to know I'm not the only one with customers who occasionally make compelling arguments for justifiable homicide.

I had a seagull commit suicide against the front of my car this morning. It flew straight in to my front end. On the plus side, I got to spend 45 minutes of my work day today hosing off my car.

I ordered a Kill-a-watt and a 1200W Seasonic PSU. I'm to see about borrowing an IR thermometer as well. This machine is in a 13U rack inside a walk-in closet (I slide over the top of the rack when I need to mess with it). It's oriented so that the front of the PC is toward the back of the...

I don't generally open up power supplies. They normally have five or seven year warranties and I don't mind swapping them given the unit cost, though the urgency of getting a new one installed means that whatever comes back will get used elsewhere rather than back in my torture chamber. I do buy...

I can't even find a pirate with an ISO of it, but I did find Dell, HP and IBM OEM versions of 2003r2.

The UPS in question is a Tripplite SmartOnline 3000 and it is definitely an online UPS. I bought it new in early 2011 and I've replaced batteries in it twice since I got it. I do run the monitor application but I really only pay attention to alerts. As far as other appliances, the only one I...

I think I can discount static, particularly at this time of year. Summer heat is a real problem because of my HVAC situation, but my equipment rack has been in that room for years now prior to having these problems and it's not that warm yet.

The machine is off pending a replacement PSU and so is the UPS. It's a Tripp-Lite that I've had for five or six years and I don't think it's that smart. The electrical load in my apartment in general and in that room in particular is definitely lower now than it was a couple years ago, though.

It's sitting on a 3000VA UPS as it is. I replaced the batteries for it in March of 2014 and I do test it periodically.

When I do the math on my big file server, it should have a continuous draw of just under 600W. I've gone through three Gold-rated 850W PSUs (PCP&C, Corsair HX, Seasonic - all rated for 50C operation) in the last eight months, the latest just this morning. The PSUs all fail in the same way: some...

FWIW, I have SBS 4.5, SBS2000, SBS2003r2, SBS 2008, SBS 2011 and Essentials 2012. I even have product keys for most of them, but guess which one I'm missing?

Actually, Microsoft just recently started making Windows 7 ISOs publicly available. It's not ENTIRELY out of the question.

Pirated keys, yes (e.g. the infamous TPCRY key that was used on the first pirated copies of 7). But a lot of machines that are just in "Windows failed genuine validation" state do still get updates. As far as I can tell, machines in that state can continue to operate normally. They just get an...

When I get a new drive, I run an extended diagnostic test before I put it in service. I'm mostly concerned about shipping damage or the possibility of preexisting bad sectors. The tests take maybe half a day and have saved me from putting DOA drives in arrays a few times.

Remember that 802.11 loses about half its bandwidth to protocol overhead. 300Mbit for a point to point link is probably just enough to ensure actual 100Mbit operation. With regard to running a router appliance as a VM, it actually works great if you have the resources to throw at it. It's one...

On one of my home machines, I have an Untangle VM with a couple dedicated NICs for traffic control. It's essentially line speed for my cable modem and it wasn't hard at all to set up.

Apparently, Windows 10 will be made available through Windows Update for Windows 7 rather than the Windows Store. Testers are supposed to stream updates all the way into the release version.

I had a number of servers hang on a .NET update last night as well. They were all Server 2003 machines and they all required a hard reset. This crap never happens to my Centos machines. :evil::evil::evil::evil::evil:

As an interesting alternative to Adblock Plus, uBlock really does seem to be substantially more efficient for RAM utilization, sometimes by as much as 30%. Its installation procedure also includes the ability to select all of the additional lists I mentioned without any extra navigation. I'm...

DFT normally runs a single test and progresses sequentially through each drive that has been selected for testing. DFT actually works on all brands of spinning drives and definitely does see externally-attached disks. It also doesn't have a stupid "I can only show one screen full of drives at a...

Well, I know what I'm getting for my office full of Microsoft Office Master / 50 Shades of Grey fans.

dd, what if anything are you using for an antenna/aerial for your installations? Do you just have clear line of sight in all cases?

Clocker's problem is a poorly configured proxy server on his work machine. He doesn't have any way to control it, so there's no way for us to fix it. Your daughter's laptop on the other hand might be benefiting from the general graphics reprioritization in Windows 8, which is where that whole...

That looks like a WISP-class device rather than a point to point bridge which I think is all I need. I suppose I'll have to email someone at Ubiquiti.

One of my customers pays for me to have Uptimerobot. I frequently know about outages before they do but holy crap can it be annoying if someone is having a bad ISP day.

The NAS drives mostly seem to be fine in my experience. Your current drive will probably even survive well enough to do a normal disk imaging with TrueImage/ImageX/HDDclone as long as you tell them to ignore errors beforehand. Usually, a drive that's entered a failing state on reallocated...

So I'd be looking at getting a dish, a PoE injector if I want to run it outdoors and probably a Rocket M5 AC Lite on each end? That seems completely reasonable.

Well that makes rather more sense now, doesn't it? Though the article I read still makes me want to shank someone.

I have a classroom site that is presently served by the world's slowest DSL. On a very good day (as in, I saw it one time while the telco people were on premises), it speedtests as high as 384kbps but is normally in the 128 - 192kbps range. I have two other sites within three and a half miles...

Just to the general Storageforum.net site. I said that we as a community held him in highest regard, particularly for his contributions to support and technical topics and for his work with the Folding At Home project. I mostly thought it was important to say that we all lost something.

I sent a letter to the address I was given for Mark's brother on Monday expressing our collective condolences.

I'd like to say that there will be a disc-based upgrade but I suspect that it will be complicated. Microsoft will probably force upgrades through the Windows Store as it did from 8 to 8.1.

I suspect the bigger problem for some people is having to wear another pair of glasses in the first place.

I went to a real-deal IMAX at Chicago's Navy Pier for one of the screenings. For those there isn't a non-3D option. I'd very much like for 3D to die but I think theaters like the justification for increased ticket prices.

Do you still have control of the old server? You could probably throw a host redirect (HTTP error 301) and force it to the new IP. Otherwise you don't have any control over what his client is doing.

Even if he's running through a VPN, Windows (since Vista) has been smart enough to direct traffic not destined for the VPN end point through your normal internet connection. It's probably a poorly configured proxy server, though I have no idea what kind of blecherous configuration would have a...

In a move that probably doesn't surprise anyone, the new build of Windows 10 says specifically says that Windows Media Center will no longer be supported. I can't think of a Windows-based DVR alternative off the top of my head. Both SageTV and BeyondTV have also dropped support.

Update: Having seen it in every permutation of IMAX, 3D and not: Stick with not. The 3D actively makes the movie harder to follow.

Today was Avengersmas and so I went and I saw it. And I'll see it again tomorrow and also Saturday because I can't ever get all my friends in the same place at the same time. A tiny, special classical music nerd moment: the Kyrie from Arvo Part's Berliner Messe is the plaintive, gorgeous choral...