Az Geek Talk

ruh roh!



The hard drive has been good to me. It's in a RAID0 array (yes, I have multiple back-ups!). Didn't do so well during a brown-out like the other HDDs.

 

Seems I have a collection going...

 

You need a Drobo.

I know a guy with one for sell

 

Well, there's about 19TB of storage there. Each stack is 6TB in RAID0 (minus the single 1TB). 2 stacks are backups, and one will be attached to a laptop as a file server. Think I'm about to retire the desktop they're sitting on. Not the most cost effective way, but going for smallest/self-powered footprint.

 

Alright peeps, what modem and router do I get for the new place? Just need a simple setup to get everything up and running.

 

Motorola Surfboard and ASUS!


Surfboard 6141 or newer, ~$50

ASUS AC-1900 (RT-AC68U) or bigger, ~$70

 

$67
https://www.amazon.com/ARRIS-SURFbo...oard+modem&dpPl=1&dpID=51EW17YldLL&ref=plSrch

$90 + -10 off with coupon so $80

$172 NETGEAR Nighthawk Smart Wi-Fi Router, R6700 - AC1750 Wireless Speed Up to 1750 Mbps | Up to 1500 Sq Ft Coverage & 25 Devices | 4 x 1G Ethernet and 1 x 3.0 USB Ports | Armor Security

https://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-R670...36_SY340_QL65&keywords=nighthawk+router&psc=1

 

I always loved Asus Routers. I've been using them for years and years and years and I've had great success with every one of them.

 

The Asus setup and interface is just awesome, plus a Free DNS to get back home and VPN via home is outstanding.

 

So I planned on using one of my older laptops as a file server. It has an Intel N3530, which doesn't support AES-NI. Both the storage and network traffic are encrypted. Looks like I might have to change my plans.

 

I have an older 4 bay Drobo for sale. Would work great as your file server.

 

Looking for something that can do more than just hold files.

 

You can install apps and do so much more. Take a look at it. I will give you a great price.

It is the 4-bay, USB and Firewire. 16TB was the limit last time I checked, but firmware updates may have increased that.

Only thing I found it wasn't good enough for, was as a Plex server. But I didn't do a ton with it.

 

Alright everyone, I need some help. Here is the situation. Wife has about 500 music CDs that she is not ready to part with. I am looking to rip them into FLAC format and keeping them on a NAS or cloud storage depending on the total size. What the wife wants is to be able to play the music from either the NAS or cloud.

I'm looking for ideas on how to accomplish this.. Trying to not have to use a media server/player. It's gotta be something simple that the wife and kids can operate without me playing tech support.

Ideas?

 

You can upload them to Google Play Music. At least they used to allow that but it's been a long time since I used it.

Then you could use that app to stream them however I don't know if it plays nicely with Flac format. Might have to rip into mp3 for streaming.

 

Much needed dusting with an air compressor.

 

It's been a while since I've built a gaming PC, it's absolutely crazy how many different choices there are these days. I'm leaning towards an AMD Ryzen 7 2700X and a Nvidia 1080 for a video card. Still need to figure out a mobo to use, waaaay too many options..

 

I've heard people complaining about BIOS issues with Ryzen. Might want to look into it. I was hoping it was AMD's comeback.

 

I have the Ryzen 5 1600x on a MSI B350M Motherboard, yes there are some Bios issues for some people, but not everyone. I was among them. One issue is the compatibility with the Nvidia drivers. I believe this has been fixed, or there is a work around. One of the issues is that the power supply needs to be Haswell compatible or you have to disable the CPU sleep function in the bios. Some Motherboards' onboard graphics won't work with Rayzen at all. Mainly Linux OS is effected by this. I will say that mine is fast.

I was able to change a few settings and everything is working perfectly now.

I used https://pcpartpicker.com to help build my latest server. Shows who has the best price for what you pick. However, it doesn't show combo deals that newegg has for some things.

 

Because they want you to use Radeon