Video No. 2: How to: Create a RAID10 on a Mac Pro w/o spending 600 Euros on a RAID Card
Hi guys,
by doing a mistake and choosing 32kb instead of 256kb block size on Friday night, I’ve redone the operation this morning and made a video out of it.
Archive for December, 2009
Mac Pro Photo Tour
Hi guys,
here are the photos that I’ve taken yesterday night after unpacking the Mac Pro and adding the 4 HDDs + the 12GB of RAM into it.
I think this post speaks for itself. I must admit, that I was a bit in hurry to set it up, so I didn’t took care of “perfect” photos. The lightning was bad as we use enviroment-friendly lamps in the home office and I (yet) have no studio lights.
Quicktip: Export Apple Mail Rules
Hi guys,
so – today – FINALLY – my new Mac Pro arrived. I’ve VERY satisfied with that machine. I’ve just put in the 12GB of RAM and my 4x 1TB HDDs to create a RAID10 out of it. Voilá! Works like a charme.
Delivery Report: Memory and external enclosures
Hi guys,
today, I’ve received the additional parts for the Mac Pro:
3x 4GB Samsung ECC Registered DDR3-1066 Memory (what a name 
)
iMac order canceled, Mac Pro order placed
Hi guys,
no – I’m not totally nuts, but I’ve changed my mind (again). The reason to do so is based on A LOT of issues that the new iMac 27″ seems to have and it seems that not only the Core 2 CPUs machines are affected – I’ve read about a lot people that also received flickering displays with their new Core i7 27″ iMacs.
[Updated] Disarmament
Hey guys,
maybe it was really my fault by getting the wrong CPU and if the E5400 is not supported by the Intel S3000AHLX as it’s a 45nm CPU and the board just supports 60nm CPUs… STOP!
You know what I’ve learned from this lesson? That I’m no more interested in building systems on my own. Not now, when I still have a bit free time nor in future. That means for me: Do the next step and sell my stuff as long as it’s more or less modern and wanted on eBay or other marketplaces.
I will start dropping my 2nd DSL line in June (24 months contract with Arcor… eh! Vodafone). The deliver the slower of my 2 current DSL lines, so I will stick with the faster T-Com line (but will check if I can possibly switch to a business account, not to have to spend 2MBit/s of the bandwidth for a not-used IPTV (long story – I’ve blogged earlier about ).
Anyway – I need a fix IP for the mailserver – well, no there are ways with DynDNS, but I’ll prefer a fix one 
I will also drop a lot of my hardware. I will clean up with all the PCs laying around here. No – no HDDs for sale, as I will be able to use them later for backup reasons for example, but the Quad Core workstation will be sold in parts (means: Board (Asus P5Q Deluxe) + CPU (Intel Q9650) + RAM (4x 2GB Kingston DDR2-800), seperate both GeForce 8600GTS passive cards (MOLEX and one is PCIe powered (cable)). The cases will be sold as well (big and midi Chieftec MESH / silver black). I will post the links tomorrow to those offers on eBay if someone of you is interested. Of course, the Areca controller and the ECS Board with the AMD64EE + 2GB or RAM will be sold also! . Oh – there’s a DELL PowerEdge 1680 in the basement (1U / P3 1.4GHz / 2GB ECC Regged RAM / 36GB SCA 10k HDD) which will be sold, too.
What I will NOT sell is my loved sweet IPCop. A NetVista Pentium-M 266MHz with 256MB RAM and a current 2GB CF-Card. Oh – I will replace the CFCard today with a 120GB 2.5″ HDD that I don’t need anywhere else (IDE), so that I will able to run a nice proxy with ad-filter etc. on it.
Another challenge will be to get my Cisco 7960 IP-Phone to work with my just a few weeks ago bought FritzBoxFon WLAN 7170. I can receive and place calls already, bad the painpoint is, that noone hears me when I say something. Hope I can get this fixed, as I have no ISDN lines in the office since we moved downstairs to avoid get grilled like a chicken on the roast in the summer – so: Cisco 7960, cordless T-Com phone (works ok, but is not that g33ky, or maybe use the Fritz.mac Suite to place phone calls using my Jabra USB Headset. Well – anything will work for me.
This is more a resumé and a note for myself on what to do to do those things (no this is not a type – strange grammer ):
- use less power on the systems
- make everything compatible with the MacBook and the (hopefully 17th/18th Dec delivered) iMac 27″ Core i7
- make my life easier
- let me spend a lot less time and configuring stuff that does not work as wanted in the end
- use my time to create things and sell them to my customers on February
- be ready with nearly everything in February
- everything should be prepared so that I just have to add the Mac mini server in spring like a module, pop the ethernet cable and the FW800 of the Hydra(s) to the server and voilá: Everything will work.
More a brainstorming session this time, but I love to share my thoughts with you guys and can’t await to get feedback from you
If you ask: What’s with a Debian Server – well, I will work more live on my server in the datacenter which currently runs Ubuntu Server 6.06.3 LTS. Maybe I will virtualize a Debian session on the iMac or the Mac mini server. Debian is very lightweight as VM
Ciao
Dennis
PS. Meanwhile I’ve put all my larger HDDs into 2 packages and brought them safely to the attic… here are 2 more pics.
[Update]
Using the todays offer from eBay to put in my stuff at a much lower price than regular, I’ve put all my stuff into eBay. Maybe someone of you is interested in one of the parts
Here are the links:
- MSI GeForce 8600GTS Passive
- MSI GeForce 8600GTS Passive
- Areca 1220 PCIe x8 8 Port RAID5/6 Controller
- ECS Board + AMD64EE CPU Bundle
- ASUS P5Q Deluxe + Intel Quad Core CPU Bundle
- Corsair 750W Power supply
- 8G Kingston Memory
- Chieftec MESH Series Big Tower silver/black
- Chieftec MESH Series Midi Tower silver/black
Just in case…
Ciao
Dennis
Serverboard? Arrived – as DOA :(
Hi guys,
good evening.
Today, I received the earlier described serverboard, the Intel S3000AHLX – and it was DOA (Dead On Arrival). I’ve tried to get it work with the new delivered E5400 CPU and with my Q9650. No success. Even my older “non ECC” (which should also work in this board) DDR2-533 memory did not worked. So – after 4h’s of trying without ANY sign on the screen, I gave up. It must be the board that was DOA. I was a bit surprised that the packaging of the board was opened when I’ve pulled it out of the delivery box. Now I know why – as it seems.
Everything was sent back – in anger, I admit. So – no server for me – no PC based anymore. I’m really annoyed of all this, but I’m looking forward for the Mac mini server in spring next year. Maybe I’m just too old to put my hands into hardware and try to get them run 
I’m just disappointed about the shop – sending stuff that was already opened and broken.
Ciao
Dennis
PS. No – I’ve currently no idea how to store my data in the moment. Maybe better get a Hydra soon?
Fileserver with ECC RAM
Hi guys,
last time I’ve told you about my plans to get a Mac mini Server later. My plan was to use a “Hydra” device with Firewire 800 and connect this to the Mac mini Server to provide storage to the network.
The idea was nice, but I had one painpoint. Don’t get me wrong, I think that the Mac mini Server is a great thing for communication services like eMail, calendars, addresses, wikis and more. I still plan to get one of them in spring.
But regarding a fileserver, I now have new plans. Look – I have this Areca RAID controller which works fine (when I “just” use 6 of the 8 ports), and it runs great using Debian as filesystem. iSCSI will work great to backup my MacBook and the new iMac (which will hopefully arrive end of overnext week (17/18th or December)).
I already have a low power CPU, board and RAM here, but this ECS board makes me more headache than a nice “great to have my data save”. I had trouble with the memory all the times. Have the board off power for a few days? Be sure to have to remove and replace the RAM modules! No – that’s not a system that I’ll trust.
With the help of a friend, we’ve collected 3 parts to upgrade my fileserver to a save, low power and performant server.
Part 1:
This is the Intel S3000AHLX Server Entry mainboard. It supports ECC RAM (!) and comes with LSI Onboard RAID Controller as well as with 2 Intel GBit onboard NICs. Sexy! 
Part 2:
The Intel E5400 DualCore CPU joins the party. It’s 45nm Low Power (65W max.) CPU which is more performant than my current AMD64EE CPU. It’s clocked at 2.7GHz and has a “Wolfdale” Core.
Part 3:
2x 2GB ECC RAM completes the setup. It’s Kingston memory – Memory that I trust most (and Hynix, which I’ve ordered for the iMac already, but that’s another story).
I will put those new components together with my Areca RAID Controller (1220 PCIe x8) into the bigger Chieftec MESH tower case and attach 6x 1TB and put them into RAID5 or maybe RAID6 (not sure yet).
As mentioned before, I will use Debian Lenny as OS which gives me the option to use AFP, Samba and iSCSI as storage connection options. Also, I’m happy to use LAMP for Development things. The intranet will run on the Mac mini Server, I’m sure – maybe combined with the newer fileserver.
That’s it for today. Now, I’ll turn back to get into Billings 3, a great accounting software for the Mac, that I will possibly buy and use for my company. It’s still 2 months until my launch, but I want to be prepared
Ciao
Dennis