My aspirations to build a Solaris fileserver have finally been realised and I now have 2TB of networked storage sitting beneath my desk as I type this. Now that the server is built and working, I figured it was time to share my experiences with the world.
The Requirements
Put simply, I wanted a fileserver to host all of my music, movies and other files in a central location that was networked with the rest of my house. Not only did I want to store my files, but I wanted around 2TB of actual storage so that it would last me a while, as well as some sort of protection against an inevitable drive failure. Unless you want to run some sort of backup software, which I don’t, then RAID is generally how you protect against drive failures. So RAID it was.
After some research, I decided that a dedicated box with RAID was definitely going to meet my needs the best. I also decided that RAID 1 (a simple mirror) was inefficient as it sacrifices too much drive space. As cheap as storage is these days, I’m still a poor uni student. So, something like RAID 5 is what I wanted. Once this was decided, it was time to look at filesystems. It didn’t take long to see that Sun’s ZFS with raidz was probably the way to go. This made the choice of operating system simple, as ZFS means Solaris unless you want to run your filesystem in userspace. To be honest, I’m not sure how much this would impact performance, but a chance to get acquainted with a new OS was too good to pass up, so Solaris it was. Continue reading →
Just a quick post to show off this cute video of my friend’s dog playing with another friend’s cat. For the geeks out there, this was shot on a jailbroken iPhone using Cycorder and then transcoded to h.264 using iMovie.
A few nights ago I was setting up my new fileserver (post to come soon) when I heard something like fireworks on my street. Upon further investigation I saw big flashes which were going off in time with the exploding sounds. After a little while I saw that people were down on the street watching whatever the show was, so I went down and got some footage. For the record this was in Kenmore Hills some time around 2-3am on 14 Jan 2009. If anyone knows what this is, please let me know via email or in the comments.
Summer Tingle (noun) – A sweet-ass cocktail invented by Harry Kinsman and myself on New Years Eve 2008. The two of us stumbled upon this concoction after making a Canne Cannes and deciding that it was too plain. With careful consideration, we started adding ingredients and tweaking proportions until we got something a little more interesting. After arriving at the first batch by accident, we then attempted to recreate the magic from memory until we arrived at our final recipe. The name comes from the fact that it tastes like a Fruit Tingle, but has more of a refreshing, citrus flavour (hence the Summer part). Here’s what you need to make your very own Summer Tingle:
1 1/4 shots gin
1/2 of one lemon’s juice (let the lemons sit in warm water before juicing – more juice)
1 heaped tsp powdered sugar
1/2 shot soda water
3/4 shot Triple Sec
1/8 shot rasberry cordial
Shake all of this over ice (even the soda water) and serve in a cocktail glass. If you’ve done it correctly it should be a light pink and taste delicious.
NOTE – if you’re concerned with appearing manly (you know who you are) then you might want to avoid drinking Summer Tingles.