Home server history
For last 8 years or so my home was served by a UNIX machine running Samba. First, it was a small SUN SparcStation, that would also periodically dial a modem and fetch e-mail. Its array of SCSI drives complemented our electrical heating well, but was counter-productive during the summers.
Then it was a Pentium III hidden in a closet, running some old Fedora. It would act as a router, file/mail server and Tivo.
After moving to the new house, I have separated HTPC and server function. Server was Celeron-D under Fedora. I did not touch it for months. It would freeze a few times a year, and everybody would notice, since it was a router, firewall and parental control filter. Don't know why it would freeze. There was never anything in the log or on the console. I suspect the Gigabyte motherboard bought off e-bay used. Particularly, this board is under-clocking any CPU one puts in it, by some 30%. It is good for power conservation, but there must be something wrong with this board.
I even managed to set up 802.11g access point with this server, using a PCI wireless card lying around, after my first NetGear router died.
So, this machine was pretty OK. I probably could keep ignoring it for a few more years, but I grew uncomfortable about the disks. It had 5 400GB Seagate ATA/SATA drives bought in 2005 and 2006, when Seagate was still a good company. The last drive I bought was a lemon. It took 2 round trips to Seagate (at my expense!) to have it replaced with something that worked, but not trusted anyway...
Seagates are spun down most of the time, to save energy. System drive is one of the first WD Greens. It never failed, but WD made a psychological mistake with it. There is a head parking counter in S.M.A.R.T. As all resource counters there, it started with 200, going down and down and down with time. I tried to slow this process by not letting disk be idle. It helped a bit. Anyway, this counter is at 0 for a while already.
Then it was a Pentium III hidden in a closet, running some old Fedora. It would act as a router, file/mail server and Tivo.
After moving to the new house, I have separated HTPC and server function. Server was Celeron-D under Fedora. I did not touch it for months. It would freeze a few times a year, and everybody would notice, since it was a router, firewall and parental control filter. Don't know why it would freeze. There was never anything in the log or on the console. I suspect the Gigabyte motherboard bought off e-bay used. Particularly, this board is under-clocking any CPU one puts in it, by some 30%. It is good for power conservation, but there must be something wrong with this board.
I even managed to set up 802.11g access point with this server, using a PCI wireless card lying around, after my first NetGear router died.
So, this machine was pretty OK. I probably could keep ignoring it for a few more years, but I grew uncomfortable about the disks. It had 5 400GB Seagate ATA/SATA drives bought in 2005 and 2006, when Seagate was still a good company. The last drive I bought was a lemon. It took 2 round trips to Seagate (at my expense!) to have it replaced with something that worked, but not trusted anyway...
Seagates are spun down most of the time, to save energy. System drive is one of the first WD Greens. It never failed, but WD made a psychological mistake with it. There is a head parking counter in S.M.A.R.T. As all resource counters there, it started with 200, going down and down and down with time. I tried to slow this process by not letting disk be idle. It helped a bit. Anyway, this counter is at 0 for a while already.
posted by satcat66 at 6:47 AM
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