mrow

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Everything posted by mrow

  1. They may have less driver issues these days in Linux but Realtek NICs are by no means a good chip compared to something from Intel or even Atheros. Even at my work, which is a Windows environment, we had so many issues with Realtek ethernet and wireless that we stopped buying hardware from any vendors that use their chips unless they offer a version of that hardware with either Intel or Broadcom.
  2. Just an FYI, you should be able to get more for these disks if you sell them on eBay.
  3. I can't seem to find any threads where anyone has tested either the i210 or i217. I would throw the free version of unraid on a thumb drive and boot it up and try. Don't know what you could use that AMD board for. Might be decent as a router running pfSense.
  4. With the USB 3.0 interfaces on most externals you can preclear disks at full speed now. I run any externals I'm going to strip from the enclosure through 4 preclear cycles while still in the enclosure. If it can handle 5 days straight of reads and writes while in those hot, tightly packed enclosures with no airflow then you can pretty much count on the disk not having any issues going forward.
  5. I totally agree. I decided a while ago I won't add more than 10 disks while we still only have a single parity disk. 4TB, and now 5TBs, is a shitload of data to lose if two disks fail. If my storage needs ever outpace how much can be stored on a 10 disk array of the largest size disks I'll just use my currently unused second license and setup a second array.
  6. There's no question, the Intel system is the one to use. That AMD CPU is effectively an Atom equivalent. At idle that Haswell based Pentium will be very power efficient and will leave you headroom in case you ever want to use something like Plex.
  7. This is a your mileage may vary scenario. I've tried to RMA two WD drives and one Seagate drive that were removed from external enclosures and in all three cases I've been successful. In one situation I RMA'd a bare 3TB WD Green drive ripped from an enclosure and received a 4TB external drive back that had a Hitachi drive in it. But on the other hand I've read plenty of cases of people not having any luck RMA bare drives from externals. If it were me and I needed a drive and a really good deal like this came along is buy it and roll the dice.
  8. According to page 90 of the user manual it does support VT-d, which is what you need for the hardware passthrough. It looks like you'll have to go in to the UEFI settings and enable the feature.
  9. You mention you want hardware passthrough. Do you know that the motherboard you chose supports it? It'll cost you a little more but I think you're better off going for a real server motherboard from Supermicro and some ECC RAM. If your friend is going to buy your whole current setup, just sell him the RAM too so the new RAM isn't completely out of pocket and the Supermicro boards are around the same price or cheaper. This board is actually $20 cheaper and adds support for IPMI.
  10. Awesome app. I love the UI design. Have you thought about making an iOS version? Thanks! I considered it, but there's already an IPMI app for iOS. Yeah, I have it but it's not very good looking. We need one from someone with your eye for UI design.
  11. Awesome app. I love the UI design. Have you thought about making an iOS version?
  12. mrow

    upgrading CPU

    You should have told your family they have to chip in for the upgrade since they're the reason you need it.
  13. This belongs in the Good Deals forum section.
  14. Any DisplayPort output should be able to drive a Thunderbolt Display. The Thunderbolt cable is just a DisplayPort video signal and data on the same cable. But a DisplayPort to mini DidplayPort adapter should have no issue driving video to that monitor. On a side note, is a shame that more companies didn't adopt the Mini DisplayPort port size as the standard DisplayPort port. Apple developed the mini connector but they released the specs and licensing completely royalty free. Being able to have your video output port be smaller than a USB port is really nice.
  15. That little thing would be perfect for OpenELEC or even a full Ubuntu/XBMC install. The Celeron they use in it is better than the one in the NUC too. I am going to pick one up and dual boot with OpenELEC and SteamOS if possible. That'll should last me until Nvidia decides to release a Shield Console then I will move to that. Sent from my LG-VS980 using Tapatalk Do you have a link to more info on this shield console? When I google it all I get is stuff about the handheld device.
  16. That little thing would be perfect for OpenELEC or even a full Ubuntu/XBMC install. The Celeron they use in it is better than the one in the NUC too.
  17. Another loyal Chrome Battery customer here. I've also bought about 10 or so and they've been great. Been buying them from Amazon because they're free shipping. They may be free shipping on eBay though too, never checked.
  18. If you want the system to be able to control the fan speed based on temperature you're going to have to hook them up to the motherboard. If you did get the Noctua fans they should come with some pig tails that let you choose between three different speeds depending on the pigtail you use, but they will only run at that speed the whole time.
  19. mrow

    Intel vs AMD

    Without a shadow if a doubt, Intel is going to offer not just better energy efficiency but also better performance per dollar.
  20. You can get the barebones Celeron NUC for $145 bucks on Newegg. All you need to buy is a $20 SO-DIMM of RAM and a USB stick for it to boot OpenELEC or the Plex version of OpenELEC. So for $170-$175 you could have a fully capable set up. If you go the eBay route for can find the Celeron NUC for even cheaper, and often times brand new. I see some of them going for $125 new on eBay. After looking at options more, I think this would be the best option for me. Do you have a remote that you would recommend? Also, i'll need to find some good tutorials on Plex with unRAID (v5.0) If you want a hardware remote I can't help you with recommendations, sorry. I use an app on my phone called HippoRemote to control XBMC and/or Plex.
  21. I don't think you need to spend the extra money for a quad core CPU. To move up to a quad core CPU you're looking at an extra $130 bucks and for things like on the fly video transcoding Plex this CPU is plenty powerful enough.
  22. CPU: Pentium G3220 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116950 Motherboard: BIOSTAR Hi-Fi B85S3+ - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138384 RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaw 4GB - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231427 Total is $177.97. That's not including the 15% off the RAM with the promo code listed in the link that is good until Sunday night. Performance comparison wise, this should be over three times faster than your old setup and also use a good amount less electricity.
  23. mrow

    upgrading CPU

    You seem to be grasping for reasons why Intel's low power capabities are based on ARM technology and I'm not really sure why. There is zero evidence I've ever seen to back this up. The foundation of the Core architecture was developed by an Intel team in Israel that had previously worked on memory controllers. As garycase said the foundation of the Core chips are based on forked Pentium III technology, which were much more power efficient than the Pentium 4 NetBurst architecture which was pretty power hungry from the very beginning. If it were as simple as getting an ARM license and using that technology to incorporate to create low power chips why didn't IBM do it to create low power chips so they didn't lose Apple business for PowerPC chips in the Mac product line? Intel did very little with their ARM division and that's why they spun it off. I'm sure there are some ideas Intel was able to gather from their former StrongARM division but to insinuate that the reason Intel chips are now much more low powered is because of ARM is a seems pretty far fetched. And why wouldn't Intel continue to hold an ARM license? They're dirt cheap.
  24. Intel based is going to be the best band got your buck. Give us an idea of how much you want to spend and we can come up with something more specific.
  25. mrow

    upgrading CPU

    I'm guessing that this came about when Intel bought into the technology of a small British company - Acorn Risc Machines (ARM) - an offshoot of Acorn Computers, originally based in Cambridge. I was using, and programming, ARM processors in 1988, when I bought an Acorn Archimedes to replace my home-brew CPM-80 kit, hence avoiding the IBM PC/Microsoft world and 16-bit hardware. ARM CPUs, which power most phones and tablets, are a completely different architecture and not compatible with x86. Intel sold its ARM line, XScale, to Marvell in 2006. So really Intel's power efficiency has nothing to do with ARM technology. ARM's power efficiency is what caused Intel to invest a lot more R&D in to making their own chips more power efficient though so as to be more competitive.