Dell CS24-SC Server

I picked up 3 Dell CS24-SC Servers off eBay for ~$150. They have 8 Cores, 16 GB DDR2, and 4x15k SAS RAID. The fans don't always run at full speed, so I don't notice how much noise they make, but they're in my mechanical room in the basement where the HVAC fan makes a lot more noise.

The IPMI BMC listens on port 81. The draws about 8W @120V when the main system is powered off. That would cost me $10.13/year at $0.1445/kwh

I made a USB stick to boot the ESX installer. I had to type install at the boot prompt. Then to install ESX it is necessary to boot with the option ignoreHeadless=TRUE
When ESX boots after the install, the same option has to be given. And to make the option permanent, from the ESX command line, run esxcfg-advcfg --set-kernel "TRUE" ignoreHeadless

Running ESXi 5.5.0u1 idle, the server uses 160W. For a year that costs $202.53 in power.

I also got an 8-port KVM switch which works great. It draws 2W.

Leaving that plugged in 24/7 for a year would cost me $2.53 in power

Recommended components for a media creation machine

A friend of mine asked for recommendations to build a computer to do media creation (music, photos and video). Here's my edited reply:

Here's the specs I'd recommend and why:

CPU: The fastest one with the most cores that you can afford. Doing media editing you can never have a fast enough processor. This will make the biggest difference by far, so if you can skimp on other specs (except the SSD) to increase the cpu speed, it'll be worth it. If you have about $2000 for the budget, I'd go with the Intel Core i7-980X Extreme Edition Gulftown 3.33GHz 6 x 256KB L2 Cache 12MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Six-Core Desktop Processor BX80613I7980X for $999

Or if you want to keep the total around $1500, go with the Intel Core i7-960 for $579.99

Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD3R LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard $209.99. This motherboard is compatible with the CPU, and has the best chipset available. If you look at the reviews, there are lots of people complaining about the Gigabyte RMA process. Keep in mind that only a small percentage of boards fail, and people who are pissed write reviews. People who are happy usually don't. But overall there are still a lot more positive reviews. If you're worried about that, you can go with Asus (Rampage III for $289.99), who usually have good support. Any motherboard on this search will most likely work with the cpu: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100006519%2040000280%20600007887&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&ShowDeactivatedMark=False&Order=RATING&PageSize=20

RAM: 6GB (3 sticks of 2GB each): G.SKILL 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9T-6GBNQ $119.99. You could buy two of this kit for a total of 12GB, but I don't think you'd notice any difference, so you might as well save the money and put it towards the processor or SSD.

Video Card: SAPPHIRE 100293L Radeon HD 5570 1GB 128-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Low Profile Ready Video Card $84.99. This card is able to run any current game on the market if you want. It supports any size monitor up to 30". You could save $30 going for an older card, but they aren't the great. This one is the best value I could find.

Hard Drive: Crucial RealSSD C300 CTFDDAC256MAG-1G1 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) $525.99. Using an SSD for your primary drive makes a HUGE difference in the speed of windows. Boot up and launching applications feels instantaneous. It will also help a lot when doing media work. This model is the fastest SSDs on the market, and one of the few ones that supports SATA 6Gb/s. If you need to save a bit off the budget, you could go with the 128GB version for half the price, but you'd probably fill it up quickly and need to start using a secondary hard drive.

Secondary Hard drive: If you feel that 256GB (or 128GB) won't be enough storage (you can fill that up pretty quick with video), then add the Western Digital Caviar Black WD2001FASS 2TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive $179.99. This is plenty of space and one of the fastest spinning rust drives available. You could get the 1TB version for about half the price if you don't need all the space.

Optical Drive: Get whatever, they're all about the same. If you need to burn Blu-Rays, it will cost more. You can get a Blu-Ray reader for not very much. Or if you go with a DVD/CD burner, they're about $30.

Case: This doesn't matter so much, might as well get one you like. It's got to be an ATX case (most are). The most popular one on newegg.com is the Antec Nine Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case $105.99. It sounds like it's quiet and keeps the computer cool. You can't ask for much more than that from a case. There are plenty of other cases which will work fine for less. The second most popular one on newegg.com is COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 CAC-T05-UW Black Aluminum Bezel , SECC Chassis ATX Mid Tower Computer Case for $49.99

Power Supply: It's important to get a good quality one, otherwise your computer can have random crashes or be more likely to fail. This one is well recommended:

SeaSonic S12II 430B 430W ATX12V V2.3/EPS12V 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply $59.99

If you want to read more discussion on building your own pc, check out these pages:

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/guides/2010/09/the-ars-system-guide-september-2010-edition.ars

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/UltimateDeveloperPC20Part2UPDATEAndPODCASTOnBuildingAWEI79AndRFCForBuildingAGOMGodsOwnMachine.aspx

How I add a new device (drive/partition) to a Linux software RAID array

How I add a new device (drive/partition) to a Linux software RAID array:

Note: All of this can take a long time so it is best to do it in a on the console or in a vnc/freenx/screen session.

# First test all the blocks on the new drive. I've had more than one drive come with bad sectors.
$ badblocks -w -p 1 -v <new device>

# Because resizing a raid array doesn't always work right and can cause data loss, if I have enough free pvs, I'll move the data off the one being resized. In this case it isn't necessary to grow the array, I can just delete it and create a new bigger one. Unfortunately pvmove is quite slow, so this approach may take a few days.

$ pvmove <md>

# If I don't have enough free space or time to move the data off the array, then it's necessary to grow it in place.
$ mdadm <md> --add <new device>
# take note of how many devices are part of the array
$ mdadm --detail <md>
# watch /proc/mdstat and wait until the array is not rebuilding anything or else the following command will block
$ mdadm --grow --backup-file=/root/raid_resize_backup --raid-devices=<num> <md>
# wait until the reshape is finished
$ watch cat /proc/mdstat
$ pvresize <md>
$ mdadm --detail --scan > /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf


How I resize a logical volume:

# Take note of how many free extents are available on which devices
$ pvdisplay -m
# Stop any processes using the volume
$ umount <logical>
$ lvextend -l +<number> <logical> <physical>
$ e2fsck -f <logical>
$ resize2fs <logical>
$ mount <logical>
# Start back up nfs, smb, etc. that were stopped earlier

Debugging WCF connection issues

First make sure the service is working correctly:
Connect to the service with a web browser. If running under the VS webserver, the URL will be something like: http://localhost:33102/Service.svc. If there is an error with your service configuration or contract, the exception details will be returned to the browser.

In the .svc file, the ServiceHost element Service attribute value must match the value in the application config system.serviceModel/services/service element name attribute.

Linux software RAID component device mismatches

Somehow my raid array has gotten out of sync, and the monthly check logged this message:

Aug 2 02:42:29 filemaster mdadm[2430]: RebuildFinished event detected on md device /dev/md0, component device mismatches found: 128

I was a bit concerned about this, since this array is a 2-drive mirror, and I don't know how to tell which device is correct. I suppose I'll have to just let the kernel fix the mismatches and hope for the best. Google found some pages that say the way to tell the kernel to rebuild the array is:

echo repair >> /sys/block/md0/md/sync_action

I did that, waited for the rebuild to finish, and then initiated a re-check:

echo check >> /sys/block/md0/md/sync_action

However, once that finished, the same 128 mismatches were still reported.
I think the way to fix it is to make one of the devices as failed, remove it from the array, then re-add it.