NAS updates and drive stuff

So, the first of my 16TB hard drives have arrived to be used in my new NAS, so I still need to get 3-5 more, depending on how I want to handle things; if I want to do g for RAID5, I’ll probably go with a total of 4 drives minimum to replicate my old (4 bay) NAS setup. If I want to do RAID6, I’d need a minimum of 4 drives, but would want to have 5, with both setups leaving me with 48TB of storage, which is 4 times that of my old NAS as it’s configured! I imagine that 48TB should be a decent chunk of data to be working with, although maxing out the bays and using RAID6 would give me 64GB, which does offer double redundancy! As for the cost of the drives, I got this first one (an X18 Exos drive) via an eBay offer of £193.50, which is a significant discount compared to the £215 normally asked for!

I figured I’d need up to a total of 6 months to get all the drives if I buy one a month, and try and get the best prices for the drives. I also have 2 1TB WD Blues (SN580 if I recall correctly) that will be acting as cache drives, with the option of adding 2 more later if I want, though maybe I should actually keep an eye out for 2TB SSDs for the future, as having 4x 2TB SSDs – sticking with the WD Blues unless I find a cheaper supported SSD – sounds like a better idea, as then I’d have 8TB of cache to match the 64TB. Of course, to facilitate that, I’d also need to have heatsinks for each drive too, as it’s required by the NAS to have that. I also need to update the firmware as it’s a later ADM version that supports the Blues.

As for the overall costs of everything… Well, that’s definitely significant! This is what I’ve paid so far:

• Asustor Lockerstor 6 Gen2 AS6706T: ~£850 (paid)
• 2x WD Blues/SN580: ~£103.98 (paid)
• 2x ELUTENG SSD heatsinks: ~£11.18 (paid)
• 1x Seagate Exos X18 16TB (): £193.50 (paid)
• Total Paid: £1158.66

And these are my current estimated prices, based on what I would pay to buy them right now, for the stuff I need:

• 2x ELUTENG SSD heatsinks: ~£21.98 (waiting for sale)
• 2x WD Blues (SN580): £113.96 (waiting for sale)
• 5x Seagate Exos X16/X18 16TB HDDs: ~£1250 (monitoring prices)
• Total: £1385.94

I will note that when I do purchase additional items from the above list, I will update the prices I paid accordingly as I’ll probably pay for a few things at a time when it comes to the cheaper items, but this is why I need to buy things over a number of months! I’ll probably deploy RAID6 on the NAS just so I can use it because even with 32TB, it’s still not going to be filled up with everything I’d want to put on it, so I can gradually expand it at the very least! I do also need to recover the data from my old NAS array to put on the new one, but I need to get a 12TB drive to access that data! I’m also going to need to find the 4x SATA to USB adapters and USB hub I bought, so I know where they are, as they need to be with my portable archival station PAS!

I do also have a pair of HDD docking stations with 2 bays that I plan to setup at my desk later; I actually bought one with a card reader to go with one of the two I got at auction that don’t have a card reader at the front, because it’ll save me on space. The idea with using those docking stations is to setup the old array within them, and hopefully (when I can find it again) I can use the third one for my new array if I ever need to do so. The card reader bit is especially important as it means I will constantly have a card reader available, because it saves space! One issue though is that Linux is needed to access the array, which is a major reason why my PAS will be using it as its main OS. I do also want to get a USB adapter that would let me connect a 1541 drive to it too, but I am also getting a non-USB X1541 cable to use with my Toshiba Satellite Pro 4200/4300 Series with a crap screen just in case the USB method doesn’t work for some reason at the time!

I forget if I ever mentioned why the screen is crap; it has a passive matrix rather than active matrix screen, which is a damn shame because it would otherwise have been a perfect retro gaming laptop, as it has decent specs otherwise, including a DOS-supported sound chip, an OPL3, which is extremely important for running DOS games! Additionally, it has an 8MB S3 Savage/IX card (if I recall correctly) which will be powerful enough for most, if not all DOS games, and at least some early Win9x games too. Additionally, it has both parallel and serial ports, which can be pretty essential for certain applications. It might fall a bit short with games like Unreal Tournament, but by that point, you’d be fine running an XP based machine with a more powerful GPU anyway!

The best way I can compare it is that it’s basically a Toshiba Portegé 3440CT with parallel and serial ports (it has neither), and a sound chip that will work under DOS with no tweaks or extra software needed. Truth be told, I need to revisit the 3440CTs and the 3110CTs to see if you can enable the sound cards to work in DOS as they were aimed at Windows. All 3 of these model sets are capable of running Windows 98 SE and also XP, though as the 3110CTs have a Mobile Pentium II CPU, you’d probably be better off running XP on the other 2, as they use Pentium IIIs or Celerons based on that architecture. You do also have a single USB port on all of them as far as I know, if that’s useful at all. They also have dual PC Card slots as well, so adding a parallel or serial port to the Portegés isn’t a problem, though you are best off adding those to the top one to keep the bottom one clear for a card without a big thing sticking out the end!

Of course, with the parallel and serial cards, it’s one or the other and not both unless you manage to source a docking station, but at that point, you probably will have those ports (and maybe even a game and Ethernet port) anyway! I haven’t delved too much into the Portegés beyond compiling their specs into a spreadsheet along with other Toshiba models, but that’s been left incomplete for years at this point! That said though, if anyone wants to see the unfinished sheet, do let me know! I’ll probably get back to it eventually, but I also need to take a couple of days to work out what else I need to do to finish it off! Either way though, looping back to the Satellite Pro I have (I think it’s a 4210), it’ll never work for most games unless there’s slow movement, which rules out most action games, but anything turn-based or text based should be fine! It does also have built-in floppy and optical drives too, which makes it easier to rip those media types without needing anything extra, apart from more exotic formats.

But yeah, I still have a long way to go to meet some of my goals, especially as I need to find a decently priced 12TB HDD to transfer the data, be that an external, or an internal connected via a SATA adapter or even just using a purchased enclosure to keep it safe till I’m ready to move over the data, especially as I need to wipe the old array to reset and also fix it! This is by far my longest post to date, but it does go into detail about my plans regarding both my NAS boxes, and the associated hardware I need to achieve those plans. I’m doing this all entirely out of pocket, hence why it’ll be accomplished slowly, and with more emphasis on saving money, although even if I was getting supported by others – which I’m not really ready for at this point, hence why I don’t talk about anything like that – I’d be inclined to get the best prices for things anyway! I do need to shake up all of those platforms as I have presences on them in order to have provision for when I think that I’m ready to be at that point, plus it’s about reserving the handles, especially as it’s not just myself that I’m doing it for!

Anyway, that’s pretty much it for now. I will be updating the lists as and when I get more items, but I’ll probably be keeping an eye on any upcoming sales too, so I can save as much money as possible, especially due to the sheer amount of stuff (not just mentioned here) I have to purchase to get stuff moving along! I’m also probably going to be doing a short video of me installing the SSDs (with putting the heatsinks on) and HDD in the NAS, as well as also showing where to put the outside stick of RAM whilst I’m at it, but not the inside because that was a bastard to get in there! Hopefully, this year will be the time where everything can take off, because I have other plans including a Web server and game server, as well as also a home lab, but more on those later!

#2025 #computerHardware #computerRepairsUpgrades #ComputerStorage #Filming #FuturePlans #hardwareUpgrades #LBRYOdyseeVideoPlatform_ #NewsUpdates #rantsRaves #StormSWorkshop #StormSWorkshopSGU_ #StormkeeperSWorkshop #Toshiba3110CT #Toshiba3440CT #ToshibaLaptops #Update #Videos #Windows2kXPLaptops #Windows9xLaptops #YouTube

Pocket 8086 stuff

I managed to successfully test a null modem connection between my 2 Pocket 8086 laptops, which was cool, but have no idea how to fully use it between them, beyond a couple of multiplayer games, seeing as the spec is still pretty low! The Pocket 386s would open up being able to run more games and software for that sort of thing, but I do need to get a second Pocket 386 first.

This is one thing that older computers can still do over modern computers in most cases, as unless you buy a serial card, you can’t really do that thing on a newer system, and I should note for the record that you can get PCI Express serial cards if they’re needed, because I’ve a dual serial port card using that sort of connection! Coincidentally, that’s partly why I have pairs of older computers with serial and parallel ports, so I can play with null modem connections, and other devices that require the ports, especially as there are some unusual/rare things out there that need them!

That’s actually why I would need to have a dedicated laptop to pick up the slack in that regard, as USB to parallel/serial cables don’t work with every bit of old software, plus I’d want to have specific software for that hardware! Of course, I do have a laptop that is useless for gaming (the screen doesn’t work well with fast movement) that can run Windows XP, and has the relevant ports, though it is a bit on the hefty side!

I will post a few photos later on to show things in action, after my CF cards arrive, as I want to set them all up, though perhaps I’ll do a shortish video of the process instead… Either way, it’ll be next month before I can get any stuff like that done!

#2024 #AtGeekedUp #BookPocket808xLaptops #CompactFlashCards #computerHardware #computers #Filming #laptops #LegacyPCHardware #LegacyPCSoftware #NewsUpdates #PCPlatform_ #retroHardware #retroLaptops #RetroPC #retroPcHardware #StormSWorkshop #StormSWorkshopSGU_ #StormkeeperAtGeekedUp #StormkeeperSWorkshop #Update

The Rebinding of IsaacStorm and Other Updates

Anyone who gets the reference in the title gets 10 Internet Points!

Okay folks, so here’s the deal… I’ve decided to restart my Isaac save for Let’s Plays because it’s been so long since I’ve done a recording that I feel like a fresh start is the way forward! The old videos will of course be left on my channel, but I will be starting a brand new iteration of the series, although I should be able to reach my current status with relative ease, or at least that’s the plan anyway! The plan, for now, is to upload the first video of the restarted series today (Sunday) and work from there. I’m probably going to omit the words for the time being although I may go back and add them in the future, but I’m going to essentially just refer to their episode number from now on and will update my templates accordingly.

The stream save will remain intact though as I’ve little reason to restart that one too, but I’m hoping to reach ‘Golden God’ before the end of the year at least! Now that I’ve a larger upload limit on LBRY/Odysee, I no longer need to worry about missing videos on that channel, so I can upload to there more consistently without a time limit, so it changes the way I work doing IsaacStorm, meaning that the more I think about it, the more it makes sense to do a restart! I’ve learned a lot from recording both Afterbirth+ and also Repentance, so I should also feel more confident in playing, now that I’ve ironed out a lot of kinks with my setup; there are likely some more than just the ones I identified, but I’m hoping a fresh save will help with some of those as well, although I’ll need to be aware of anything else that comes up, such as my chair degassing and lowering my sitting height, which is playing havoc with my posture and making my shoulder sore!

In any case, this should hopefully lead to better things and help me get into a routine; if you want to see the Geeked Up Network events calendar, which covers my video dates (and will also cover my streams, and other GUN-related videos and streams), that’s available here. Note that I’ve switched over to 23:00 for the IsaacStorm videos (the 23:05 end time is the default time block the schedule is set for when a new time is selected, it doesn’t actually mean anything!) so I’m better able to schedule timings…. hopefully I can keep tho this schedule after a few weeks of rough starts! Anyway, besides the restart and an official schedule, I’ve also started adopting wireless for my gamepad, mouse (or rather will soon), and headset, because dealing with wires sucks and causes issues! I do have my wired headset inserted as a backup, and both of them (as well as the mixer) are connected to a push-button toggle USB hub connected to my new KVM switch, which itself is essentially a hub, at least until my workstation mini PC gets added to the mix!

Part of the reason for the KVM switch and also the hub is to save money on electricity, as I’m going to be using my mini PC for all “admin work”, such as dealing with emails, documents, research, watching videos/streams, and anything else it can take over from the main PC because times are going to get tough, and any way to reduce money spent on electricity is a good idea methinks! With regards to my main PC (Zeus), I’m moving the mainboard (with CPU & Cooler/m.2 SSD/RAM) and the BD-ROM/DVD-RW from Raiden to it, because a 0.5 incremental update now makes more sense to apply to Zeus, whilst I source around a 10th Gen intel or AMD equivalent (for Windows 11)! Raiden will still have its case, and also 2 HDDs (4TB/6TB – or maybe 6TB/8TB if I win the 8TB Skyhawk I’m bidding on!), a 1TB SATA (secondary) SSD, the power supply, and a BD-ROM drive assigned to it, though I need a new m.2 drive, mainboard, CPU, RAM, a cooler, and a BD-RW drive, as well as a new GPU, although the Quadro T600 (which is a cut-down GTX 1650, as I’ve put the 1050 Ti back into Zeus) may be used as a temporary GPU to get the ball rolling!

I’m gradually improving my setup over time (as well as sourcing new bits) via a site called i-bidder, which auctions off customer returns and the like, and I’ve already got some good stuff from there, such as 2 Logitech wireless keyboards (one will be used with my Multimedia Pi/Armiga), a Competition Pro Extra joystick (for a future project – bidding on a second one too for a pair of joysticks, but I’ll explain more later), 3 internet radio devices, a 240GB SATA SSD (useful for Haiku laptop), an SD card case, a toolless 2.5in USB drive enclosure, a 2TB HDD (for Summanus), another Xbox 360 wireless controller (I try to have pairs of things for consistency), which works with my first pad’s dongle and saves me a USB port! Also, a few WiFi 6 Mini PCI-E wireless cards (which means I can upgrade the wireless card in my laptops/mini-PCs!), some Panasonic Eneloop Pro batteries (for my Psions, as they have – as far as I know – 1.5v like non-rechargeable batteries rather than 1.2v!), a few PS4 games and a 3DS game (FFVIII HD Remake, Far Cry 4, Battlezone PSVR, and Mario Kart 7), 2x USB external DVD drives and an external USB floppy drive (for thin client projects), an 8GB DDR4 SO-DIMM (always useful), 3 internet radio devices (for listening to IR streams – eventually Stormhaven Radio – in my bedroom and kitchen), a USB handbrake (going to use with ETS2), various USB drives (that I’m also bidding on), a 64GB CompactFlash card, 2x emulation/Famiclone consoles, and MS Flight Sim (the new one), and also – which I forgot I wanted – a Thrustmaster T1600 FCS joystick, which will be great for flight sims, and also a wireless headset for my PS4!

There are other bits too I’m currently bidding on and haven’t mentioned, but they are summed up as more USB drives/enclosures, some cables, some m.2 SSDs, that 8TB SkyHawk, various laptop bags, a case for my new phone, and also a cool computer/electronic cleaning kit which includes cleaning disks for 3.5in and 5.25in floppy drives, which is cool! The added benefit is that I’ll also know what I need to keep equipment clean! I plan to bid on other stuff in the future as it’s a cheaper way to get things I need to build PCs or use in projects, and because the warranties are already gone in most cases, I don’t need to worry about voiding them when I open them up! I also have been on i-bidder’s sister site, The-Saleroom, and have secured myself a boxed Commodore+4, a boxed C64 breadbin, a mostly boxed Commodore VIC-20 – NOT a C64 (from EasyLive Auction), a boxed Intellivision with a few boxed games, and a boxed Philips Videopac G7000 (Magnavox 2 in the USA) with a bunch of games! I have no idea if the Intellivision or G7000 work yet, because I haven’t been able to test them, due to needing RF output, but the +4 needs a replacement plug, and the C64 powers on to a black screen. I also bought an Atari 520 STe (upgraded to 1MB RAM) from eBay, but as the board seems to have issues, I bought a replacement that I’m waiting to install in it!

I also want to upgrade the RAM on the board to 4MB so I can do more with it! I also won an Atari 800 XL with 1050 drive; the drive was why I wanted it, but it turned out to have a lot of interesting stuff, but again it’s not been tested yet, though I’ll do that soon as it has an RCA/composite cable! I did also pick up some WW2 strategy board games, which also contained a boxed copy of the Red Baron Mission Editor, which will go nicely with my boxed copy of Red Baron! I also picked up a ZX Spectrum printer with 4 rolls of thermal paper and also a cassette deck, which will feature in videos, I’m sure! I also picked up a pair of Atari 2600 wireless joysticks which are boxed, because I figured I just have to try them out, because they have those telescopic ariels, and it’s just awesome to see some retro wireless stuff! I also rescued a ZX Spectrum 128K from an undisclosable location, along with a bunch of old PC RAM, a couple of 486 motherboards (which advances my 486 build project a lot), as well as a bunch of video/sound/interface cards, one of which being an OPL3 Sound Blaster Vibra 16, and also a video card supported by my Kasan 3DMax, as well as a currently unidentifiable video card, though all of them need thorough cleaning!

There is also an Apple IIcx with keyboard and monitor at the property, which I intend to pick up because it’s the right era of Mac (68k) for me to be interested! There is also a lot of audio gear and other electronics/computer stuff there too, and I’ll be photographing it when I go there tomorrow, but I hope to be able to facilitate visits there in the future in conjunction with the guy who introduced me to the place, so if anyone is interested in the stuff I post up down the line, contact me (StormkeeperGU) on Twitter, Mastodon, etc.! But yeah, I’m going to stop here for now, as I need to get ready for Ep #0 of the IsaacStorm reset (I’ll record the reset and the first new run), and also update my templates accordingly. I know it’s a big post, but I had a lot to share! Actually… one more thing! I also have an 800/50 Meg connection now, so hopefully, that will result in faster uploads and better streaming-related stuff, once I have a system that can do 1080p @60 FPS!

One thing I also forgot to mention was that for a few days in April, I got to visit the lovely city of Norwich, home of the inimitable Nostalgia Nerd, and the legend (and thoroughly nice) Ashens! I got to see some folks I didn’t see in a couple of years – it was lovely to see you all again! – and also got to do a tiny bit of thrifting in Norwich City Centre, and also the nicest sausage roll I’ve ever had, as well as a vegetarian (Moroccan?) roll that I also liked but not as much as the sausage one! I plan to do a day trip (maybe longer) to Norwich in the future so I can take more photos for Diggerventures, as well as doing a proper thrifting session, and seeing a couple of friends I’ve yet to meet IRL, if they’re available of course!

In any case, I’ll try to start doing fortnightly or monthly updates at some point, so things are more easily digestible in the future, but for now, that’s it, so I’ll say goodbye for now, and I’ll see you all later on!

PS: If you guessed Steven Wilson – The Raven That Refused to Sing, then you have won your Internet Points!

#AtGeekedUp #Atari8Bit #AtariComputers #AtariST #auctions #boardGames #boxedComputers #boxedConsoles #boxedRetro #Commodore4 #Commodore64 #CommodoreComputers #CommodoreVIC20 #computerGames #computerHardware #gaming #iBidder #IsaacStormRepentanceLPSubSeries_ #NewsUpdates #PCGaming #PlayedUpWithStormkeeper #retroBenchmarking #RetroComputing #retroGameConsoles #retroGaming #retroHardware #RetroLaptopProject #retroLaptops #RetroPC #retroPcGaming #retroPcHardware #RetroRepair #SGUPickups #SGUPickupsThrifts #SinclairComputers #StormSWorkshop #StormSWorkshopSGU_ #StormkeeperAtGeekedUp #TheBindingOfIsaacRepentanceGame_ #TheSaleroom #YouTube #TagsIsaacStormLPSeries_