Data Storage

Hardware RAID 5 Performance Configurations? 62

Posted by Cliff from the how-many-drives-per-channel dept.
gandy909 asks: "I am facing the need to replace a major server in the next few months due to both EOL status and disk I/O bottleneck issues with the array containing the data. The server is configured with a 2 channel array controller. It is a RAID 5 array and has 4 drives, 2 per channel (2 data, 1 parity, and 1 hot spare). Obvious performance benefits in replacing the server are quadrupling CPU speed and doubling the memory. Other side benefits I will gain with the new drives, that I think should help my performance, are moving from u160 to u320, and going from 7200 RPM to either 10k or 15k RPM." How would you configure a larger array to best increase its performance?
Wireless Networking

WiFi Bridging? 51

Posted by Cliff from the wire-to-air-and-back-to-wire-again dept.
An anonymous reader asks: "I have a wireless network on one side of the street, and want to connect a computer on the other side of the street to it. Unfortunately this computer is behind a nice solid metal wall, and can't really be positioned near the signal. Currently I have a 20' USB cable going to a USB Linksys 802.11b unit, and a 20' RG58 cable going to a 14dB antenna and a PCI Linksys 802.11b card. Both of these cut out about once every 30 minutes, for about 5 seconds at a time. I also have an Airlink 802.11g PCI card and a Netgear 802.11b PCI card. What's the best way to connect to a kind of weak (-65db) signal? Can I use a wireless bridge in reverse, telling it an SSID and plugging the other end into an ethernet card? Which WiFi card has the most reliable software, that doesn't drop the connection all the time? I haven't been able to find much real info on this. Any help is appreciated, thanks!"
It's funny. Laugh.

Segway vs. Roomba 153

Posted by CmdrTaco from the battle-of-the-titans dept.
Jerry23 writes "We all knew it would happen. We just didn't know when. But Second Life's Cory Ondrejka has just blogged The Encounter: At last weekend's Accelerating Change Conference, Dean Kamen's demon seed, the Segway personal transporter, met Helen Greiner's lovechild, the Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner, in a climactic crash that will echo through the ages. And I quote: "That night also had what was, for me, the highlight of the conference. I refer, of course, to the ultimate convergence of technology. The perfect connection of human and robot. The consumate collision of 21st century geek products. I am referring, of course, to the moment that a Segway ran over Roomba." "
Wireless Networking

Wi-Fi Toys 71

Posted by timothy from the xmas-time dept.
prostoalex writes "A lot of avid PC users got first introduced to the computers through games. Some later turned their hobbies into full-time jobs. The ExtremeTech series of Wiley books aims at the readers who are curious about technology and are willing to dedicate some time to personal to projects that educate and develop skills. Before this review starts reading as a press release, I will throw in a link to my review of another title, Linux Toys, the book that pioneered the series." Read on for Alex's review of Wi-Fi Toys.
Data Storage

Data Recovery Techniques For Dead Zip Disks? 44

Posted by timothy from the choose-a-deity-and-start-praying dept.
Lkmyst writes "Recently I had a Zip 250 disk die on me after the obvious channels were checked and found to be too expensive for a college student at $200US + I looked to see if there was perhaps another method I could use. A *nix dd looks like it might work but I thought I would ask slashdot to see if anyone out there has had luck with zip disks the drive no longer recognizes."
Data Storage

USB Flash Drives for Backup/Long-Term Storage? 81

Posted by Cliff from the reliability-of-flash-media dept.
cyberdigm is curious about this issue: "I am writing two books and have just recently gone through the trauma of having my hard drive flake out (physical damage to several sectors). Fortunately, while the OS instance was trashed, the file system is still intact, so I have been able to recover my files.Given that, I am now much more aware of the needed to regularly back up my files. I'd be interested in any opinions about the suitability of USB flash drives to help me solve this problem. The idea would be to store copies of all my files on a USB drive and back them up every day. I like that USB drives are generally fairly cheap. My concern is the long-term wisdom of this approach. Are there (practical) rewrite limits for USB flash drives? Is there a chance that the data would degrade on the drive over time? Other alternatives I am considering include external/USB hard drives. Of course, an overarching concern is that I'd rather not spend a lot of money."
Software

Must-Have Pocket PC Software? 41

Posted by Cliff from the code-your-pocket-can't-live-without dept.
MBCook asks: "I just got a new Pocket PC with Windows Mobile 2003 SE on it. I haven't owned a PDA since my old HP 320LX (7 years ago, with Windows CE 1.0!). So since I've been out of the game for a while, I'd like to ask: what PocketPC software (both commercial and free) do you find essential? What little gems can't you live without? Game, productivity, utility, oddity, or other... I'd love to know what Slashdot readers find to be the best software."
Data Storage

How Do You Handle Home Media? 381

Posted by timothy from the one-bit-at-a-time dept.
carpoolio writes "Yahoo's Tech Tuesday has an interesting series on bridging the PC/home entertainment gap. The solutions are fairly complicated, and very Windows-centric. As I store more media on my PowerBook, I'm finding more ways I can't listen to or view it on my stereo and TV. One example: TiVo Desktop won't stream AAC files - only MP3s - from iTunes to TiVo. That's an easy fix, but still: how do you get stuff off of your computer and onto your TV, stereo, etc.?"
Hardware

A Private Home For Retired Supercomputers 164

Posted by timothy from the they-rest-for-a-bit dept.
Steve writes "Every geek has wanted to play with a Cray supercomputer. Hexus.net had the rare opportunity to meet up with a man who has something of a fetish for collecting them! They got a look at some of the amazing kit Armari - a systems integration company - have in their possession. Ever wanted to see inside a Cray T3D MPP, or maybe the gargantuan machine that is the T90? Now is your chance!"
Communications

Linux Cellphone for Kids 11

Posted by timothy from the handedness-matters dept.
Dan Shapiro writes "Wildseed has shipped the Identity cellphone, manfuactured by Curitel. It runs a Linux 2.4.19 kernel, has serial and USB 1.1 connectors, and includes busybox--although there's no way of getting to a terminal prompt, yet. The phone doesn't show its Linux roots; it's actually designed for teens. It has unusual features like Airtext and SmartSkins, which look like a cross between a faceplate, a Nintendo cartridge, and a Winamp skin. Cellular One and Tiger Direct got them first."
Graphics

NVIDIA Engineers On The Realities Of Linux Drivers 21

Posted by timothy from the not-at-this-time dept.
linuxquestions writes "LinuxQuestions.org recently interviewed members of the NVIDIA Linux team. The interview covers the internal use of Linux at NVIDIA, the current demand NVIDIA is seeing for Linux drivers, the biggest perceived obstacle in Linux becoming a mainstream gaming platform and the decision to maintain both an Open Source and closed source Linux driver."
Handhelds

Sony U750P Handtop 81

Posted by timothy from the cute-but-limited dept.
captainJam writes "In September we announced that Sony's U50/U70 line was being dropped. With news today that a North American version of this handtop is coming out, that news becomes half-truth. The U50/U70 may be no more, but the line has been upgraded a touch and simplified by having just one model instead of two. Handtops.com has a brief look at the new Sony U750P."
Software

Dealing with Inherited Data and Code? 34

Posted by Cliff from the organizing-the-informational-glut dept.
bhima asks: "Recently I have inherited an embedded project which developed and maintained by a recently acquired company. The 'technology transfer' consisted of me traveling to their facility for two weeks of special high intensity training and returning with a couple of hard drive, equivalent DVD-ROMS, 200 kilograms of paper and a stack of tape backups. These contain a lot of interesting and important data but it is in every conceivable format: hundreds of megabytes of Outlook PST files, Adobe PageMaker & Illustrator (4 different versions for Mac & PC), Gerber files, Microsoft Office files (every version ever), Visio Files, Tiffs, Jpegs, AutoDesk Files, Pro-E files. To top it all off they used no concurrent versioning system for their firmware so I have hundreds of tar.gz files that are snapshots of code, plus the resultant binary record for version represented by the tar file. We have a student translating all of the CAD data to our system, but that's only part of the story. Is there an easy way to get the firmware in to CVS or subversion? What's the best way to organize all of this data so that it's actually usable?"
Wireless Networking

A Linux Server Express for Portable Wi-Fi? 37

Posted by Cliff from the powered-by-the-penguin dept.
crome wonders: "The new Apple Airport Express is a little wonder of technology. It packs a wi-fi base station with all the usual capabilities of base stations plus the iTunes over network thing in one little square appliance that plugs directly to the power plug in the wall. I have a few of these and I am quite happy with them. Often however, when I most need a wi-fi base station on the go, I also need a server on the go. For example, in my second home I have an old DSL modem, and I have an Airport Express but I have no way to share the connection over wi-fi because the Airport Express doesn't support PPTP. Having a similarly formatted small Linux server with two ethernet ports, a usable Linux distribution on it with all the tools one needs when traveling, and some disk space to save stuff would be great. Any hints on what components to use or anything that comes close to a Linux Server Express?"
Data Storage

PVFS2 - a High-Performance Parallel File System 26

Posted by timothy from the good-nodes-are-still-available dept.
neillm78 writes "As part of the development team, we're announcing PVFS2 version 1.0 here in Pittsburgh at the SC2004 conference! PVFS2 is a GPL/LGPL based parallel file system for cluster-based applications. It logically groups any number of storage servers into a coherent file system for use by client nodes, specifically tailored to handle efficient access to large shared files. PVFS2 supports access via an MPI-IO interface for high-performance parallel applications, but you can still mount it like a regular GNU/Linux file system for traditional serial applications and managment. The PVFS2 project is conducted jointly between The Parallel Architecture Research Laboratory at Clemson University and The Mathematics and Computer Science Division at Argonne National Laboratory. Please feel free to give it a try!"
Toys

Automated Sentry Robots 216

Posted by michael from the angry-cat dept.
jimbob5 writes "New Scientist reports that you can now buy your own automated Room Defender. 'Who would like this gift? Any child, or anyone who saw the director's cut of Aliens and dreamed of owning one of those automated sentries.'" The New Scientist gift guide looks pretty useful.
Wireless Networking

Bluetooth Plans to Triple Bandwidth 144

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i'll-believe-it-when-I-see-it dept.
stallard writes "Yahoo! news reports that "The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) Monday is releasing a three-year road map for Bluetooth short-range wireless technology that includes a tripling of bandwidth and the ability to multicast signals to seven other users.""
Robotics

The Real da Vinci Code 235

Posted by timothy from the nostradamus-predicted-this dept.
r.jimenezz writes "This month's Wired magazine has a fascinating article about an American roboticist and an Italian scholar who apparently have demonstrated that one of Leonardo's creations, a three-wheeled cart, is actually a 'physically programmable robot'. Very interesting reading."

Slashdot Top Deals