All the Perl that's Practical to Extract and Report

Quiet

pudge on 2004-06-02T19:23:12

My internal HD in my server seemed to be dying. I am not sure what's wrong -- nothing I tried revealed problems -- but some files were unreadable (like Console.app's executable). So I needed to replace the HD, or risk waiting until it completely died.

The thing is, my server is a PowerBook G3/500. HDs are not cheap. So after mulling over the possibilities, I decided to take one of the two external FireWire HDs connected to the server (via a 14-foot cable, so they are in the closet) and repartition it so the startup volume is now there instead. And now, I have no internal HD.

Now, what I at first didn't think about when devising this plan is that one of my biggest annoyances with my server is the noise the internal HD makes. It's pretty loud, and always has been, but now, it's gone. For some reason it would spin up periodically, so I removed it altogether. It's kinda weird to type on the keyboard since the machine is quite a bit lighter. But the important thing is that it is nearly silent.

Right now the only loud noise in the room is the room's fan, and the old Linux box in the closet, which is muffled by the closet doors, and is only on for a week or two while I finish up some development on it.

network boot?

mary.poppins on 2004-06-02T21:03:19

Neat. Are you doing a network boot, or firewiring
the laptop to the HD?

Re:network boot?

pudge on 2004-06-02T21:25:04

The laptop in question is the house server, so it would have to load the network boot image from itself. :-)

The FireWire drive is connected directly to the laptop, it boots from the startup partition there.

Re:network boot?

mary.poppins on 2004-06-03T04:11:00

I love laptops as servers. They're quiet, small,
and don't use much power.

Re:network boot?

pudge on 2004-06-03T05:32:48

Indeed. Except for the HD, which is now gone! :-)

Quiet laptops rule!

da on 2004-06-04T19:42:34

Until three weeks ago, my laptop (Vaio 505TR) was so loud I was embarrassed to bring it in public. Not so much for the steady noise, because you get used to white noise, but occasionally it would spin down then spin up again, and everybody around me would give me sidelong glances like they really wished I'd shut off my damn laptop.

I finally broke down and bought a new HD, and a wireless USB mouse (to replace the finicky touchpad). What a difference. That, plus the improvements I got by replacing the 2.2 linux kernel with 2.4, make me feel like I have a brand new laptop.

So- if anybody who's reading has a loud HD (for some reason, owners of older Vaios particularly report that their HDs seem to get louder with age- I don't know if it was Sony's choice to buy cheaper Fujitsu drives or what)- I can strongly recommend a new drive.