PBW in the market for some new hardware
 

Sometime back we moved the PBW server to a new box that had a faster processor, more memory and HD space. The intention at the time was to keep the old server as a backup. However the site has grown to the point now though where we wouldn’t be able to put it back on the old box if we needed to. So I’ve retired the backup server. (Technically I gave it to my wife for her schoolwork, but a 5+ year old machine works for what she needs.)

What I’d like to do now is put together a new server either as a backup to the current server, or to take the place of it in which case the current would become the new backup. We’ve got some cash in the maintenance account, but before I dip into it I thought I’d post a message and see if anyone has any hardware lying around that you might want to donate, or give us a good price on if you can’t give it up for nothing.

What we’ve got now is a 1.9Ghz Pentium 4 with 1GB ram and a 40Gb HDD. If anyone’s got components, or even a whole box for that matter, that they are looking t get rid of let me know.

Geoschmo

Re: PBW in the market for some new hardware
 

I can pitch in a CD Rom or two, an old 3dfx video card, and mybe an old 10gig or higher HDD to the cause.

Re: PBW in the market for some new hardware
 

Hey Geo, I've got some systems I could part with. What I have in mind is a AMD 3000 NF2 syatem. I can put a pair of new 40gig drives in it. You'll need to find a 512meg stick of ddr, it only has 512 in it IIRC. PM me

Re: PBW in the market for some new hardware
 

To go with Thermo's box, I've got a few 256 Mb DDR PC2100 RAM but no 512. I have plenty of 512 PC133 but not DDR.

And I can probably come up with other things as well if we have a specific shopping list. I have quite a bit of hardware just waiting to be used.

Re: PBW in the market for some new hardware
 

NForce 2 boards should really have Ddr 400, if we can come up with some.

Re: PBW in the market for some new hardware
 

If you need a graphics card for it, and the motherboard is PCI-Express compatible, I have a 6200 TC you could have. It's a piece of crap, but it's better than nothing. Might have a spare power supply lying around too, if I can find it...let me know if I should look for it. Think it's 350W.

Re: PBW in the market for some new hardware
 

I think I have 2 HDs around not being used because they are small (26 GB and maybe a 32 GB). Seems like you've got offers of higher size than that but I thought I'd lay it out there just in case. The old drives that use the same ribbon cable as the CD drives do, not the newer SATA drives. (did I get that right?)

And before you dip into maintenance fund, I can send $50 to help with what others might not have available.

Just let me know. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Re: PBW in the market for some new hardware
 

Well, with what I’m sending him, he could still use a CD reader and a floppy drive, along with some ddr 400 ram. I’m not sure what OS he runs, so perhaps he could use a license for that.

Re: PBW in the market for some new hardware
 

Fancy video card isn't really neccesary. I don't even have a monitor hooked up to it most of the time. I haven't looked at the specs on the MB Thermo is sending yet, but if it's got any sort of onboard video that will likely be sufficent.

I'd like to get a good writeable CD or DVD drive so I can start doing more regular backups. Those have really come down in price lately though so that shouldn't be too hateful for me to get on this end somewhere if noone has one.

I'll have to look at the memory in the current server. If that's what we need I could always move that over.

I'm guessing the box Thermo is sending already has a power supply in it.

The current server has a 40GB HDD, and I think Thermo said the new one will have two of those. I think that will probably be more then enough hard drive for the foreseeable future.

Of course donations are always accepted if anyone would like to do something like that Slykny. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Geoschmo

Re: PBW in the market for some new hardware
 

Floppy Drive yes, and possibly a CD-RW too. Not sure but I may even have a larger HDD that's not being used too. I'll check what I have when I get back home (on vacation right now).

I've also got some RAM sticks but I'm not sure what I've got until I get home to check too. I have a feeling that they are smaller though 256 max. But they are DDR.

Re: PBW in the market for some new hardware
 

A thought on the hard drives...We really don't need to put PBW on used drives. Most data loss is caused by failed IDE hard drives. So if you have a new drive, that would be cool. But a used drive with unknown amuont of hours on it is asking for trouble.

What would be really nice if if someone wanted to kick in a little PCI raid card. Then Geo could set the drives up in a mirror. Something like a little Fasttrack 2000 would work great.

Re: PBW in the market for some new hardware
 

The mainboard has an onboard NVidia video chip and onboard LAN. It has sound too, for what it's worth.

Re: PBW in the market for some new hardware
 

With 80GB HDD's going for 50 bucks these days, you are probably right it makes sense just to buy a new one.

I can get another licensed copy of an operating system, so that's not a problem.

Re: PBW in the market for some new hardware
 

Oh, good. Cuz I was just going to offer my brand new OEM copy of XP-Pro SP2.....

.... and I really didn't want to! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

TT

Re: PBW in the market for some new hardware
 

Geo, that PayPal thing still working? I opened my PayPal account back up about half a year ago, so I can digitize that $50 for you later.

Re: PBW in the market for some new hardware
 

Ok system is ready to go, will ship it out next week.

For those needing to see things for themselves...see attached.

I put a pair of 40gig drives in it, they were imaged spares and have less than an hour of use. So you are good to go on drives. The system itself probably has about 50 hours if that. This was a demo system, showed it to several clients and I ended up building 175 of them. It's kind of funny, when I ordered the cases, I did a bulk purchase. They came on palets, with cardboard shrink wrapped around the whole stack, no indivirual boxes. I got home one day and it was sitting in the driveway! I was worng on the ram, I had pulled it at some point in the past. I scrounged up a 256 meg stick of ddr 333 to get you going. Memory is like beer around here. If it isn't being used by someone, it walks off. You can pick up a pair of 512 ddr 400's for less than 70 bucks. You'll need a CD reader (writer would be nice, then you could ghost it to cd's. And a floppy reader. For what they cost, perhaps some Empire will spring for new ones and write it off to foreign aid. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif
Memory
Burner
FDD

Re: PBW in the market for some new hardware
 

Here's a look at the back. It should have everything you need. LPT-Serial-LAN-PS2-Sound-IR-Video-and a bunch of USB.

Re: PBW in the market for some new hardware
 

We have a computer store that one week sold 200Gb hard drives for $90 with a $75 rebate. I got one, but since my motherboard has a maximum of 30Gb drives allowed that is what it is formated for. What a waste. :-( If I could get a 30Gig one and copy everything over I would be happy to trade.

Re: PBW in the market for some new hardware
 

There are two workarounds for that problem. Most boards have newer drivers that add support for drives larger than 30 gigs. And the drive suppliers have little apps to make the really big drives usable. Some boards need both, some just need the app form the drive company.

Re: PBW in the market for some new hardware
 

geoschmo said:
With 80GB HDD's going for 50 bucks these days, you are probably right it makes sense just to buy a new one.

pffft, thats expensive per GB. How about $30 for a 200 GB drive (after rebates)? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Or Parasite's.

Re: PBW in the market for some new hardware
 

Looks like the only thing missing is the dust. How do you make your computer work without all the dust on the back? I thought that was a requirement. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: PBW in the market for some new hardware
 

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif Correct me if I'm wrong, is that not cheaper per MB then writeable CD's? That's unbelievable.

Re: PBW in the market for some new hardware
 

The paypal account still works for sure. I believe all the paypal links on the PBW site do as well. Let me know if there's one not working though.

Re: PBW in the market for some new hardware
 

There is still enough for it to work http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif It had been sitting for months and a spider had setup house keeping. So I took a blow gun and moved him and the dust out.

Re: PBW in the market for some new hardware
 

IDE drives are cheaper than tape if you add the cost of the hardware. Not to mention how much faster it is. In bulk, IDE is about 30 cents a gig, and it costs about $100 bucks to add 4 controllers to a system (8 drives). You don’t need a big iron server to run it, so you can set it up on an old box or a low end new box. You can raid 5 800+ gigs for less than a grand on an existing box. A tape picker and tape will cost three time that much and be slower to write/read to. And the most troublesome piece of hardware in the datacenter is the tape picker. They break if you just give it a harsh look. Down side is that you have to handle drives with care when transporting them off site. But you can get padded carry cases now. You just pull the drive racks and slide them right into the case. Many shops are moving to IDE backups, they run automated IDE backups during off peak hours and then write to tape from the backup server during business hours. That way if the picker acts up during business hours, there are people there to give it some TLC. No more walking in at 6 AM Monday and finding out that the picker hung on the second tape Friday night. Some shops are also using DPM to keep almost real time copies. In the past, SCSI costs made this an expensive luxury. But with IDE being so cheap, you just add some disks for redundancy and swap them out long before they reach the end of the MTtF. And instead of lugging 20 tapes out the door every day, you carry 4 drives. It also makes life nice when you need to restore a file in some high echelon PITA’s home folder. It takes way to long to pull a single file from tape, with IDE, its much quicker. If you can swing DPM, restoring a file takes seconds.

Re: PBW in the market for some new hardware
 

All done, Geo. Glad to help out in some way. Good luck on the migration!

Re: PBW in the market for some new hardware
 

Tape? People still use tape?!?!

Re: PBW in the market for some new hardware
 

I use a 250 GB drive (3rd real drive in my system) to back up my 400 GB RAID 0. And for $25 (I believe), I use the "poor man's" software that works easily and surely, Argentum.

Re: PBW in the market for some new hardware
 

Geo: Watch the mail, should be a big ugly box in it about middle of next week.