Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing - how to make a 57CFM PWM 3×5.25″ Intake
October 11th, 2009 by James HicksSo I’ve begun upgrading my current desktop, and one of the areas it’s become quite dated is it’s cooling systems.
The legendary Antec P180 PC case comes with three 120mm “tri-cool” fans which operate at about 20cfm (silent), 40cfm (slightly annoyingly noisy) and 60cfm (really irritatingly loud). Actually those flow figures are a little optimistic.
Scythe make some good products. Here is an 1,150rpm 37CFM completely silent (16dba - forget it you just cannot hear this thing) fan replacing an old “tri-cool” model.
They also make some boring products which need savage modification.
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Posted in Desktop Stuff | No Comments »
Faster Than Grep
February 26th, 2008 by James HicksYou know the guano is hitting the fan when your boss’s boss comes up to your desk and says: “What’s faster than grep?”
It was looking like a boring day. I got in late, almost 11 (B-A-D, I usually work 10:30-18:30), and by 11:30 had nailed all the daily maintenance stuff and was looking at a series of deadlocked and waiting-for-other-guys jobs. And a few epic jobs that couldn’t really be furthered today. Then the ops manager walked up to me…
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Posted in Systems Administration | 30 Comments »
Linux Server Survives Total RAID Failure
November 7th, 2007 by James HicksIt looks like a perfectly normal day, until I hear the screaming RAID failure alarm blaring out of the server room as I walk past. My pace picks up considerably…
“Hey, who’s screaming in the server room?” I shout as I get to our office area.
“Ah that’s Strawberry - Joan thinks its RAID controller died so she’s building a replacement from backups now.”
My brain begins to race. Joan thinks the RAID controller is dead? It’s dead. I’ve worked with Joan for over a year and I don’t bother questioning her diagnosis anymore - I can safely assume she’s correct. She’s rebuilding it from backups? Ok fine - I can’t make that go faster than the tape drive, leave her to it. How can I help her? Log in, see if I can retrieve anything.
Cos here’s the twist folks. A linux server can totally lose all access to its storage - and keep going. Today though, even I am in for some surprises.
del.icIo.us
Posted in Systems Administration | 7 Comments »
The Ultimate Systems Administrator (So you want to be a Systems Administrator? Part 4)
November 3rd, 2007 by James HicksThe Ultimate Systems Administrator doesn’t exist. There’s always someone better than you at something - or some aspect of it. But don’t ever let that stop you trying.
I wont let it stop me from trying to paint a portrait of this fictional server-ninja.
I’ll take the best traits from the best SA’s I’ve ever worked with, from myself if I have to, and where that falls short… I’ll put down what I wish we had - with the full benefit of hindsight. Strap in - we’re gonna do a little genetic engineering, a little personality engineering, a little training and a lot of building the ultimate career.
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Posted in Systems Administration | 7 Comments »
3Ware 24 Disk 600MB/sec RAID6: An affordable mini-SAN?
November 1st, 2007 by James HicksThe last time I worked with a 3Ware RAID controller it was 2004, and it was a 9000 series SATA. It lived up to its marketing hype - I personally benchmarked it exceeding 100MB/sec on RAID5 writes - an impressive result for the time. The largest controller available was a 12-port job, so the largest array you could build was an 11 disk RAID5 - if you wanted a hot spare. Still, the combined seek performance of 11 drives was significant.
3Ware have built on this performance. Their 9500 series card claimed approximately 500MB/sec RAID5 writes, and a 16 port model. Now, with their 9650SE series, 3Ware are claiming 600MB/sec RAID6 writes (800MB/sec reads) and 24 disks in an array.
What does this mean?
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Posted in Storage, Technology Choice | 3 Comments »
So you want to be a Systems Administrator? Part 3
October 29th, 2007 by James HicksPart 3 - Breaking Down the Door
So you’re faced with a paradox.
For a Systems Administrator, the most valuable thing on his or her resume is experience. People without experience simply cannot compete for a job against people who have it. This field is completely hands-on and practical - most of the skills and knowledge you use, you will learn on the job.
So how the hell do you break in?
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Posted in Systems Administration | 9 Comments »
So you want to be a Systems Administrator? Part 2
October 28th, 2007 by James HicksSo I got pretty well to the top of my field - without going overboard and becoming a super-specialist / cranky old 20 year veteran, before I got promoted out of the field a few weeks ago.
Before the memories fade too far I wanted to write down what led to my success - and mistakes I made that others could avoid - so that aspiring sysadmins could take advantage of my past few years work too. Especially aspiring sysadmins who have what it takes (See part 1 of this series to find out if you have what it takes) because in my new job, I need more of you guys around!
Part 2 - What course to do?
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Posted in Systems Administration | 9 Comments »
So you want to be a Systems Administrator? Part 1
October 27th, 2007 by James HicksWho am I?
So I’ve been a systems administrator in varying capacities for ten years. Things got really serious in 1999 when I became the main linux guy for an ISP, and went on from there into a small and medium business consulting/outsourced IT dept style business, on into a startup (yucky!), then to a large local government, then a large telco/ISP, and now a small/medium internet infrastructure company. I’ve worked on a range of operating systems in a number of different environments, but I ended up specialising heavily on Linux, obtaining an RHCE in 2004 and using it to leverage myself into big business.
Except as of a few weeks ago, I’m not a Systems Administrator anymore. I’ve been promoted to production support manager at my current workplace, and on reflection I better write down some of my knowledge and attitudes fast, before I forget it all. I’ve also been hiring them lately, so the quality of applicants - and the qualities I look for - have been on my mind.
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Posted in Systems Administration | 3 Comments »
New Site
October 27th, 2007 by James HicksI wrote three articles on my old blog about ‘So You Want To Be A Systems Administrator’ - and the flood of incoming hits brought my old webserver down - twice. An athlon 500 with 384meg of RAM is fine for this stuff right up until you get a few hundred hits in a few seconds. The poor baby ran into swap, then ran out of swap and locked up.
So I’ve decided to relaunch those articles at a new site - with professional hosting. I didn’t want to mess around with mediocrity and el-cheapo servers, so I went directly to pair.
To anyone who’s put out or feels spammed by my relaunching the three articles - I’m sorry; but there were literally hundreds of people who tried to read them and couldn’t because of my crap old server.
After years of random topics on my old blog, I also realised I was going to be posting a fair few purely tech-related articles, and I realised I needed a new site to keep the signal to noise ratio down for my readers. I’ll still continue to update the old site - but I’ll post my ramblings and personal news there. This site is for the geek stuff alone.
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Posted in Site News | No Comments »