aaaaaaaaaaaagh! Disk array corrupt.

[mdmint]

Some may and some may not care about data redundancy in a Sage Server. For me it's not an option, WAF factor. We record some shows the entire season and then watch later. Been doing it for years previously with multiple VCRs. If I relied on a HD storage scenario without redundanay I'd be dead meat. I've worked in corporate data centers for almost two decades and HD failures are the most common hardware failure. (and I'm talking SCSI here not just IDE). So if I didn't build my Sage Server with redundant HD capability I'm be entirely foolish and just asking Murphy to step in - storage HD failing at the end of the recording season and all lost and WAF way ticked off.

BTW, IRRC RAID5 is not faster than RAID1 for writes do to parity calculations. RAID5 is a compromise between cost and speed and yes the most common in corporate implementation. Often small mirrored set for OS and Apps with RAID5(s) for data. However, when speed is of utmost importance combined with redundancy RAID10 (striped mirrors) is the speed leader for both reads and writes (and yes cost looser) benefiting from the speed of multiple spindle simutaneous reads and or writes without parity write calculation slow down and.

Beyond that with the low cost of HDs it only makes sense (to me) to run our other simple home PCs atleast mirrored. (The only one that isn't is my laptop.) Why spend hours reinstalling and configuring when an HD fails if you don't have to. And all HDs will fail, it's a when not if. Keeps peace in the family keeping PCs up and running.

[sleonard]

Ok, the merits of the various RAID implementations aside I shall continue the saga. I got the array back up and formatted and Sage likes it just fine now. Unfortunately, it no longer sends IR codes via the USB-UIRT.

Before starting up Sage again I upgraded Java to _05 because the little tray app kept bugging me. At first I got a lot of stuttering in live tv (via client) and I wondered if it could be the Java upgrade. I uninstalled both Sage and Java _04 and _05. I then reinstalled Sage and the Java _04 that comes w/ the installer. That's when java.com decided to do maintenance on the download server and the installer couldn't d/l any files.

This morning I wake up and the java.com site is still down can't even get the manual installer so I go the sun.java.com, d/l JRE_05 runtime and start Sage up. Quick test before I leave for work shows that the USB-UIRT is not changing the channel on zone 1. Zone 2 and 3 are fine.

When I get home I verify that zone1 is not working and do a complete uninstall of both Java and Sage, deleting the folders. Restart and reinstall Sage, going through the Setup Wizard for all 3 tuners and cable boxes. Exited Sage and restored the wiz.bin. Now the UIRT will not change channels in any zone.

Does anybody know of a way I can test the USB-UIRT outside of Sage? I need to know if I had a coincidental death of the UIRT or if it is a SW problem.

[ukmgranger]

Originally Posted by sleonard

Does anybody know of a way I can test the USB-UIRT outside of Sage? I need to know if I had a coincidental death of the UIRT or if it is a SW problem.

Here you go. I had some USB-UIRT problems, and John Rhees gave me the attatched helper.

[themule]

Originally Posted by mdmint

...
BTW, IRRC RAID5 is not faster than RAID1 for writes do to parity calculations. ...

For multimedia workloads with large writes, RAID-5 is indeed faster than RAID-1 on 3+ disk arrays. See page 21 of this paper:

RAID: High-Performance, Reliable Secondary Storage

[sleonard]

Originally Posted by ukmgranger

Here you go. I had some USB-UIRT problems, and John Rhees gave me the attatched helper.

Thanks ukmgranger. Using these apps I can send codes to zones 2 and 3 but not 1. Same problem I'm getting in Sage so it looks like a UIRT problem and not Sage. Until I find the fix I've taken that tuner out of the lineup. I'm hoping I can re-install the UIRT firmware or something and get it working again or I'm gonna have to buy another.

[ukmgranger]

I would suggest talking to John on the USB-UIRT forum. He is incredibly helpful and should hopefully be able to sort out your problem.

[sleonard]

Well, I got everything fixed and I'm back up and running. When I get home tonight I will find out if the new 2.2.2 beta fixes my stuttering problem that cropped up after the disk crash.

The USB-UIRT is fixed also. Jon emailed me that the solder joint on the stereo jack had probably come loose and that's exactly what happened. I just heated up the joint w/ a soldering iron and reattached it.

I also suggested that Jon start putting two mono jacks instead of 1 stereo. As I was fixing this I noticed that a stereo > 2 mono adapter + 2 wired emitters placed a lot of strain on the solder connections.

[sleonard]

Well, this nightmare never ends. A week after getting everything back up the array crashed again. This time the computer would not even boot. Traced the problem to a complete HD failure on HD number 3 (of 4 in the array, also have another for boot/Windows). Turns out it wasn't the defrag originally but this HD that was beginning to fail.

So I ordered another HD and a new case since I had everything stuffed into an old P3 box that did not have enough proper mounting nor cooling for the 5 hard drives. They arrived from Newegg yesterday.

I moved everything into the new case and it wouldn't boot, no video at all. Checked and rechecked all HW connections and jumpers etc. but no change. Started disconnecting devices one at a time and trying to boot but got all the way down to a bare motherboard and a known good video card but still nothing.

I put the MB/P3/MEM/Video back in the old case and still nothing.

Off to Fry's to get a new MB/memory/and processor. (Old one was a P3, couldn't just replace the MB) Picked up an Intel 915 MB, 512K DDR2, and a P4 2.8. Also had to get a new SATA HD for C: since the MB only had one ATA connector and I'll use that for the DVD drive.

Got home and started to put it all together and realized that Fry's had given me DDR not DDR2 and they are now closed. Oh well, will stop by agian tomorrow and exchange it. Tried to hook up what I could in the meantime and realized that the new MB's like I got have completely new power supply connectors and won't connect to my brand new case/PS.

OK, now I feel like running down the street naked and screaming until the men in clean white coats take me away to a rubber room somewhere.

So now I'm waiting to get off work, go back to Fry's and exchange the memory and get a power supply. Guess I'll put the other new PS on E-Bay.

In the end though, I'll have an entirely new system that is capable of being used for playback, MVP client serving and comskip too. The old P3 barely made it as a server. Just wish this had not all happened so close to the holiday's when I need the $$ for presents.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by sleonard

In the end though, I'll have an entirely new system that is capable of being used for playback, MVP client serving and comskip too. The old P3 barely made it as a server. Just wish this had not all happened so close to the holiday's when I need the $$ for presents.

You're transition to the dark side is now complete . When you can take a total PC meltdown, and make it a good thing, you know you're one of us

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by stanger89

When you can take a total PC meltdown, and make it a good thing, you know you're one of us

Yeah, but even though I know ways to recover from not being able to boot into Windows because Ghost 9 causes a BSOD or because a disk failure makes NTFS give an error that causes Windows to BSOD immediately every time you try to boot, etc., it doesn't mean that I don't get a sinking feeling of helplessness every time it happens.

(I think I've _finally_ decided to check out Acronis.)

- Andy

[angular]

Originally Posted by Cayars

If you're thinking of building a secondary Raid array don't for backup purposes. Look at ebay and you'll find Dell Powervaults on there in the range of $1500-$5000. I picked up one last year for 2K that holds 36 tapes (auto changer) and has two internal tape drives. Each tape is 100GB without compression (200GB with)

Your refering to the Dell Powervault 136T (a.k.a. ADIC 100), right? $2k is a steal, as I have been eyeing the 132T w/LTO-2 200GB/400GB Tapes with a max of 9.6GB compressed (24 tapes), but I can bring myself to spend $4k. Do you know where to get tape drive sleds?

[sleonard]

Originally Posted by stanger89

You're transition to the dark side is now complete . When you can take a total PC meltdown, and make it a good thing, you know you're one of us

You have no idea. I've been waiting for this since I first built the Sage server in the old P3 box. It just happened at a bad time of the year with presents to buy and looooong lines at Fry's.

Unfortunately I'm still down. I exchanged the RAM on my way home from work, got home and started to put it all together. When I opened the MB box I found that it did not have the onboard NIC. The display model labeled with the same Part # 915GEV did have the NIC. I promptly drove back to Fry's w/ the MB and found that the display was incorrectly labeled and they don't carry the model w/ the NIC. I just got the chargeback and came home.

I chose the 915 MB for the Intel HD audio thinking I would make the server a playback system as well but after doing the proper research I found that all the new 915/925 MB's are short one needed feature or another. So I think I'm going to return the expensive LGA775 processor and the DDR2 RAM, get something a little cheaper and use it just for a server. So I need suggestions for a MB. The MB needs to have 4 PCI slots (that will play nice with the 3 PVR250's and an Adaptec 1200A RAID card), onboard NIC and onboard video (just a server, remember). What chipsets and P4's should I look for?

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by sleonard

What chipsets and P4's should I look for?

For chipsets, stick with Intel, either 845, 865, or 875. The 875 is the "Server/workstation/enterprise" chipset but it's probably more than you need. I'm running an Abit BE7 in my HTPC and it's great:
http://www.newegg.com/app/searchProd...&InnerCata=280
Beyond the 845 (for which it could be harder to find processors) is the 865:
http://www.newegg.com/app/searchProd...&InnerCata=280
The big dog is the 875:
http://www.newegg.com/app/searchProd...&InnerCata=280

I'd probably go the IS7 (maybe the G version with Gigabit Ethernet) it's relatively inexpensive, should be rock solid (based on my experience with other Abit boards) and should be a relatively good performer, or at least give you the option.

[sleonard]

Thanks for the suggestion Stranger. The IS7G looks perfect for what I want so I went ahead and ordered it. Also got 2x256MB Kingston dual channel RAM and a P4 2.4 GHz cpu. Now I can't wait until it gets here next week.

[flagg0204]

Originally Posted by sleonard

Thanks for the suggestion Stranger. The IS7G looks perfect for what I want so I went ahead and ordered it. Also got 2x256MB Kingston dual channel RAM and a P4 2.4 GHz cpu. Now I can't wait until it gets here next week.

People who use Intel make baby jesus cry

Save yourself some extra coinage and go with AMD.

[Opus4]

Trust me... _anything_ will make a baby cry...

- Andy

[stanger89]

I think you mentioned Acronis above Andy.

Well my latest experience and I 100% love it now. I had hosed my HTPC, I uninstalled SP2 to troubleshoot a S/PDIF dropout problem (why do the even make it uninstallable?). Anyway, I decided it was time to start fresh and restore my base image. Well you've got to reboot/do that outside Windows, so for the heck of it (without much hope) I decided to try and restore it from a network share. Much to my surprise, in the Acronis recovery enviroment (scary, that might be what they actually call it) I was able to do an incrimental image, and then restore my base image, all to/from a network share.

I'm happy

Now I just need my drive cages so I can set up my array.

[JasonJoel]

Don't need to tell me, I have an 9 DAY old on my lap as I type... (our first kid)

Jason Bottjen

Originally Posted by Opus4

Trust me... _anything_ will make a baby cry...

- Andy

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by stanger89

I think you mentioned Acronis above Andy.

I never had to worry about Drive Image... but now that Symantec bought it & brought out Ghost 9, it caused a bunch of problems for me -- mostly sudden lockups w/no BSOD where I would be working & suddenly the PC would stop responding. After the latest lockup, I always got a BSOD when trying to reboot -- even when trying to boot into safe mode. I was at least able to boot the Ghost 9 CD & rename the PQV2i.sys file. No lockups after uninstalling it. I haven't had time to look into this further with tech support, but for now I'll probably just go back to my previous version of Drive Image & consider Acronis for my next version if Symantec doesn't have an answer. (I have other backup software running too, so no rush.)

Originally Posted by JasonJoel

Don't need to tell me, I have an 9 DAY old on my lap as I type... (our first kid)

Congratualations! But, to stay on topic... now _that_ will corrupt your drive array!

(And anyone who thinks that the phrase "sleeping like a baby" is a Good Thing doesn't know what they are talking about... The reality is waking up every so often and starting to cry.)

- Andy

[stanger89]

Yeah, Powerquest was the way to go, I was a die hard user, until Symantec bought them and released that damn V2I protector crap.