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The Largest Stablebit Drivepool In The World!!


RFOneWatt

Question

Someone has to have it, right?

 

How about we start with the largest pool of the members that participate here?

 

I'm taking an uneducated guess that theoretically Drivepool should scale indefinitely (or to some insane limitation imposed by the O/S, hardware or something else) however we all know the real world is where it's at, yes?

 

I'm sure I'm nowhere near the largest but I've maxed out my Norco 4220, and then some.

 

It's NOW time to start building the successor! 

 

dp.6-2015.JPG

 

 

 

Would love to see what everybody else has going on!

 

~RF

 

 

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Well, as for the post having value, I would definitely say so. If anything, I think you've hit the nail on the head!

I think a lot of failures over time by some companies/users is choosing the wrong drive for the application at hand.  Drives are built differently.  For example putting 40 drives in one case/cabinet will be different then running one or two drives in a normal case.  Lots more vibration and movement.  This can also be even more of a factor for people who try and stuff lots of "home" drives in large cases then use suspend/power down features.  When the drives spin down/spin up they cause extra vibration that other drives in the running in the case won't like, especially when you have 5 to 10 drives spinning up at one time, etc...  Modern drive are much better with this type of thing, but can take it's toll over time.

 

 

This.  Being in the Windows Home Server community from pretty much day one, I've seen a LOT of people complain about poor performance when using entirely WD Green drives. Or power usage when using WD Blacks. Etc. 

Buying the right drive is MUCH MUCH more important than the brand, IMO.

 

And the vibration thing is a huge thing, considering it's a spinning ceramic (I believe) disk with a metal arm hovering above it.  It's delicate machinery.

And until recently, only enterprise grade drives support the vibration compensation tech. And I think that makes a world of difference for the drive's longevity. 

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Well, as for the post having value, I would definitely say so. If anything, I think you've hit the nail on the head!

 

This.  Being in the Windows Home Server community from pretty much day one, I've seen a LOT of people complain about poor performance when using entirely WD Green drives. Or power usage when using WD Blacks. Etc. 

Buying the right drive is MUCH MUCH more important than the brand, IMO.

 

And the vibration thing is a huge thing, considering it's a spinning ceramic (I believe) disk with a metal arm hovering above it.  It's delicate machinery.

And until recently, only enterprise grade drives support the vibration compensation tech. And I think that makes a world of difference for the drive's longevity. 

 

 

 

He absolutely hit the nail on the end and my professional experience mirrors his, specifically with Seagate Cheetah 15k's being the drive majority in most all my large data center experience in the last 10 years.

 

For the C64, I had the first hard drive ever available.  A 20 MEG Xetec Lt. Kernal...which contained a 20MB Seagate SCSI drive. That was 1985.  Fun Times...I was 11 years old and man did I have to beg for that.  It was a Christmas/Birthday present.

 

Here's one I think about quite frequently: Drive Orientation for longevity - horizontal or vertical

 

Physics tells me horizontal.. Drive manufacturers say "no matter."

 

I'll mount mine flat, thank you... just because it makes me feel better I suppose....

 

~RF

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He absolutely hit the nail on the end and my professional experience mirrors his, specifically with Seagate Cheetah 15k's being the drive majority in most all my large data center experience in the last 10 years.

 

For the C64, I had the first hard drive ever available.  A 20 MEG Xetec Lt. Kernal...which contained a 20MB Seagate SCSI drive. That was 1985.  Fun Times...I was 11 years old and man did I have to beg for that.  It was a Christmas/Birthday present.

 

Here's one I think about quite frequently: Drive Orientation for longevity - horizontal or vertical

 

Physics tells me horizontal.. Drive manufacturers say "no matter."

 

I'll mount mine flat, thank you... just because it makes me feel better I suppose....

 

~RF

Did that 20MB drive cost you ~$200-300? :) 

 

And I agree, all of my drives are horizontal.  Unless they're SSDs, and then there mounted in ... well, some pretty crazy ways. ... or not at all.

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Did that 20MB drive cost you ~$200-300? :)

 

And I agree, all of my drives are horizontal.  Unless they're SSDs, and then there mounted in ... well, some pretty crazy ways. ... or not at all.

 

It was 799.95, with controller.

 

I still have no idea how I convinced the parents.

 

I've been known to get creative with my drive mounting...  this is the almost end result w/ my 4220 box.  

 

Ended up with four of those WL 600's across the top, double sided tape.  ;)

 

~RF

post-1545-0-27136600-1435459016_thumb.jpg

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He absolutely hit the nail on the end and my professional experience mirrors his, specifically with Seagate Cheetah 15k's being the drive majority in most all my large data center experience in the last 10 years.

 

For the C64, I had the first hard drive ever available.  A 20 MEG Xetec Lt. Kernal...which contained a 20MB Seagate SCSI drive. That was 1985.  Fun Times...I was 11 years old and man did I have to beg for that.  It was a Christmas/Birthday present.

 

Here's one I think about quite frequently: Drive Orientation for longevity - horizontal or vertical

 

Physics tells me horizontal.. Drive manufacturers say "no matter."

 

I'll mount mine flat, thank you... just because it makes me feel better I suppose....

 

~RF

I know you said for the C64.  My very first hard drive was the 5.25 full height ST-506 5MB HDD.

5MB of storage at the time of 1980 was a HUGE amount of space and cost $1,500 back in 1980.  That would be close to 5K in today's money.

 

The ST-506 was an MFM drive which was pre IDE/SCSI and was manufactured by Shugert Associates (later became Seagate). I also had the next gen drive that came out late in 1981 which was another MFM drive but was 10MB and was the ST-412 (type 1).  After these drives they moved to RLL encoding which packed 50% more in the same space.

 

By 1982/83 I had around 160 MB of storage which was close to unheard of back in those days for the BBS I ran. 

 

Guess I'm dating myself,

Carlo

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I know you said for the C64.  My very first hard drive was the 5.25 full height ST-506 5MB HDD.

5MB of storage at the time of 1980 was a HUGE amount of space and cost $1,500 back in 1980.  That would be close to 5K in today's money.

 

The ST-506 was an MFM drive which was pre IDE/SCSI and was manufactured by Shugert Associates (later became Seagate). I also had the next gen drive that came out late in 1981 which was another MFM drive but was 10MB and was the ST-412 (type 1).  After these drives they moved to RLL encoding which packed 50% more in the same space.

 

By 1982/83 I had around 160 MB of storage which was close to unheard of back in those days for the BBS I ran. 

 

Guess I'm dating myself,

Carlo

 

 

160 megs in 82/83??  That is insane for an individual at that time.

 

I'm guessing it was the biggest Public Domain repository in the country.   ;)

 

-T

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There was a magazine called Boardwatch that featured my system a few times.  In that same time frame I had around 30 phone/modem lines.  Couple years later I had 255 lines.  Eventually replacing many modems with ISDN, then replacing many of them with X.25 over the years.

 

Eventually, added IP connectivity and allowing "dial-in" via IP.  This was back before even Trumpet Winsock (for those who remember those days).  IP was used for telnet, FTP and gopher back in the early days.  Was mostly all academic use back in those days.  Of course storage grew as the years went by.

 

Man just thinking back, brings lot of old memories long forgotten!

 

Carlo

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There was a magazine called Boardwatch that featured my system a few times.  In that same time frame I had around 30 phone/modem lines.  Couple years later I had 255 lines.  Eventually replacing many modems with ISDN, then replacing many of them with X.25 over the years.

 

Eventually, added IP connectivity and allowing "dial-in" via IP.  This was back before even Trumpet Winsock (for those who remember those days).  IP was used for telnet, FTP and gopher back in the early days.  Was mostly all academic use back in those days.  Of course storage grew as the years went by.

 

Man just thinking back, brings lot of old memories long forgotten!

 

Carlo

 

I'm sure I've seen your system and may even know you - I was a Boardwatch subscriber and ran one of the largest BBS' in the country.  I'm surely going to recognize the name of your BBS. 

 

My story sounds similar to yours...

 

in a nutshell: started out running a Multi-Node system on an Amiga. Once we hit 16 lines we couldn't get any more multi-port hardware so I switched to Major BBS.  Maxed out at 88 POTS lines before switching over to multiple T1's and into the ISP category.   (I've left out some bits as you know.. haha)

 

Major BBS?  Wildcat?  

 

~RF

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CompuNet was my system.  It was my own custom stuff until version 2 of MajorBBS came out in 86. I ran and programmed for Galacticomm's MajorBBS (then Worldgroup).  I knew Tim Stryker pretty well up until he committed suicide.

I contributed a lot of foundation code and what later became Phar Lap protected mode which extended memory for the DOS systems allowing us to run more ISV modules.  I was also one of the "hubs" many people used for linked teleconferences among the many, many interactive games (had just about all of them).

 

Worldgroup more or less went down the tubes after Christine (Tim's wife) sold everything to Yannick Tessier (previously ISV) & Peter Berg.  HTTP and the web came on pretty strong and WG just never adapted properly and the rest is history!  At that point I was most operating as an ISP and started using more and more of Vircom's tools and then various other tools for proper Email, FTP, web hosting, etc...

 

Sound like a similar walk down histories past?

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CompuNet was my system.  It was my own custom stuff until version 2 of MajorBBS came out in 86. I ran and programmed for Galacticomm's MajorBBS (then Worldgroup).  I knew Tim Stryker pretty well up until he committed suicide.

I contributed a lot of foundation code and what later became Phar Lap protected mode which extended memory for the DOS systems allowing us to run more ISV modules.  I was also one of the "hubs" many people used for linked teleconferences among the many, many interactive games (had just about all of them).

 

Worldgroup more or less went down the tubes after Christine (Tim's wife) sold everything to Yannick Tessier (previously ISV) & Peter Berg.  HTTP and the web came on pretty strong and WG just never adapted properly and the rest is history!  At that point I was most operating as an ISP and started using more and more of Vircom's tools and then various other tools for proper Email, FTP, web hosting, etc...

 

Sound like a similar walk down histories past?

 

 

 

 

Haha.. Yes, I'd say so. Fancy meeting you here. I ran (I)ndustry BBS out of Detroit, MI.  We won the Boardwatch top 10 a few times IIRC,for what that's worth.

 

Take a look at the last comment in this post: Vircom

 

I was wondering if the younger folk actually believed what those GODS over @ Vircom made possible with what they had to work with.   :P

 

I "upgraded" to Worldgroup.......for about a month, I think.

 

Those were amazing times.

 

~RF

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I ran a C=64 BBS too, but just on 3 1541 drives. I don't remember what BBS software I was running, but on my 300 baud modem using Punter download protocol, you could bump it up to about 450 baud.

After that, I moved to the Atari ST world. I don't recall what the first BBS software I ran was, but after not too long I switched over to Ratsoft BBS. I was also a Fido BBS, connected to Foundation BBS in Azle, TX, and I was an Atari ST only Fido-like BBS hub. I ran the BBS on three Seagate ST-225 MFM drives connected to an Adaptec 4000 SCSI-MFM adapter, all jammed into a used PC case. I considered moving to the ST-231 RLL drives, but in my PC I had some issues with them, even on the good Western Digital 1:1 interleave controllers. Those three drives sounded like a jet plane sitting on the tarmac in my computer room. The 225s also had terrible stiction problems, if I had to shut them down it wasn't uncommon for me to have to drop the drives on the desk a few times to get them to spin up. 

 

I tried all sorts of different "non-compatible" modems back in those days, Compucom, Zoom, etc., but finally went the USR route on the Sysop deal. Started with a 9600 baud HST only, then progressively upgraded to the dual standard, and increased speeds through firmware updates up to as fast as they would ever go. 

 

Yes, they were amazing times.

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All of us who used to run BBS systems were basically pack rats who liked to have full collections of software and media from the times.  We could have just access this info from other BBSs but wanted it on our own systems.

 

Not to different really than today.  We could watch video on Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc.. but we STILL prefer to be in control and manage our own collections.

 

Guess we haven't changed much.  We're still media pack rats!!!

 

We've went from measuring storage in KB to MB, then GB and now in TB of data.

Won't be long before we'll be talking PB of data.  Many of us already have 10%-15% of a PB already. :)

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Now that I think about it every single Sysop that I still keep in touch with (Here and in Europe) are doing IT to this day. Literally every one.

 

I like to think we were a bit more hardcore back then, to be doing what we were doing. The technology really had to be sought out, it wasn't in your face like it is today. Especially when it came to telecommunications.
 
Heck....The FBI took me to jail on my 15th birthday simple because the internet didn't exist. Bastards.

 

I ran a C=64 BBS too, but just on 3 1541 drives. I don't remember what BBS software I was running, but on my 300 baud modem using Punter download protocol, you could bump it up to about 

 

There were quite a few different pieces of BBS software for the 64 but very few were any good IMO...

 

The elite boards usually ran a flavor of Ivory BBS or Color 64. Most of the family oriented boards ran C-Net (or Image BBS as it was later known.)

 

I loved C-Net and Image BBS so much that I broke that mold by running a scene BBS on C-Net and not caring what people thought simply because I had more archive space than anybody else and people were going to call regardless. 

 

...and they did.

 

Damn I was a bad ass at 13. ;)

 

~RF

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I never did get into the BBS world at the time. Simply did not have the money to make it work or pay the phonebills (i.e., my parents did not). My first HDD was actually (1988?) a 20MB ST-506 in a A590 HDD and memory expansion kit which was connected to my (well, my brothers' but he did not do anything with it) A-1000. It also had a SCSI controller but those 42MB Quantum HDDs were simply way out of budget. I seem to remember that at the time there were both MFM as RLL HDDs but it's all a bit gray in my memory (sortof like the Samsung EVO-drives I guess). Good times but had I had some funds at the time, it would have been me who did google, facebook and youtube.

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I like to hear the BBS stuff. I hosted a C=64/Amiga user group BBS in the Fort Knox area for a few years, off a Amiga 2000 tower system, my personal computer was a home built 3000T [i had only the motherboard, I had to hack it into a generic case].  We ran Cnet BBS software. It was the wild west, I had callers from all over the world. The mainstreaming of the internet killed all that. Nice reading about your past stuff, man my wife hated me buying all that gear.

 

I left my last job about a year ago, was there 6 years administering and maintaining [as part of a team] EMC SANs in two plants connected by private dark fiber, 15 miles apart, we had two server rooms with about 400 servers of various ages, G1 to current. Saw ten year old HDD still chugging along, turn the server off, turn it back on and the drive is dead. We cancelled maintenance on the EMC stuff, so we had to go in 24/7 if a drive failed. I would guess we had one drive fail a month on average. 15K drives.

 

Anyway, I wouldn't blame any particular brand, it really didn't seem to matter.

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My wife didn't really care about me buying gear but more the time I would spent playing around with it. That may be why I left IT and went into finance. Oh, and the "millenium-bug", that was a real reason for me to want to get out of where I was, fun as it was.

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That stuff was a lot of money for me back then. I had a couple of grand in my Atari ST, then there was the cost of the hard drives and Adaptec 4000 (close to a grand total), my first USR modem set me back $699 because I didn't order it on the sysop deal, and so on... and back then our household income was just over $18,000 per year. And that was for the system that ran the BBS, never mind the other equipment in the room. :)

 

But like I said, look where it got me. I'm paid well, I work for a large, stable company, and I walk from my bedroom to my office to go to work - no commute, no dressing up, nada.

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My wife didn't like me buying all that gear either. But the experience I gained in all my tinkering is what led to the IT job I have now. :)

 

 

My wife didn't really care about me buying gear but more the time I would spent playing around with it. That may be why I left IT and went into finance. Oh, and the "millenium-bug", that was a real reason for me to want to get out of where I was, fun as it was.

 

 

 

 

My wife isn't a fan of the money and time I spend on my server. But man, if the server is down... I sure do hear about it! ;)

 

 

 

But like I said, look where it got me. I'm paid well, I work for a large, stable company, and I walk from my bedroom to my office to go to work - no commute, no dressing up, nada.

I need to set up a dedicated office space that isn't in my bedroom.... but then again, the wife doesn't mind the white noise (she actually can't stand it if the room is completely quiet and dark). 

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