ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 ต.ค. 2024
- Please expand the whole description!
After 263 videos (and counting!), I've stretched the disk storage that I have to its limits. I have borrowed storage capacity from wherever I've had it, which isn't good practice for different reasons. I need to get all these videos into one place, with some fault tolerance and the ability to make easy backups that can be transported offsite. This Dell Dimension 8100 should be more than up to the task with its 1.5GHz Pentium 4 CPU, Intel i850 chipset and (luckily!) a relatively plentiful 512MB of installed RDRAM. It's in very good condition--even the outer plastic shell still looks good. (It usually falls victim to various boo-boos over the years.)
Storage is cheap, and a lot of work has gone into making the videos you have seen so far...there's no point in putting this off any longer. This is part 1. There will be more parts to this project as I assemble all the needed pieces and test them.
Dell actually used to build some really solid hardware, despite their sometimes harebrained marketing. Look at the steel in this case! It's nothing compared to a PS/2, but very good for a computer produced in the early 2000s. It was assembled in Round Rock, TX by Trend Technologies. Today, they've totally cheapened everything out in most of their computers. Only the OptiPlex and Latitude are left standing, and who knows how long those have left?
Even the lowly Dimension 2400 (a brilliant computer as long you install a decent amount of RAM and don't expect it to be something it isn't) is better than what they are selling today.
I am using an old 8100 as my main rig at the moment. It has a 1.3 GHZ CPU and 384 MB RDRAM. I have overclocked it so I can watch TH-cam vids in 480p...it's a beautifully made computer for it's day.
I love these type of vids! btw, i remember I asked you about what linux flavour to use on my 1ghz junkie with 256mb of ram? Well, I install Xubuntu and now its an awesome file server. Even assessable from any place on the internet with FTP :)
The only thing that bothers me, is that it uses 100watts, which is kinda high as it is not in use most of the time. I wish i could get a cheap netbook and attach external HDDs to it!
You must make really huge video files, because I have my video archive comfortably stored on one 500 GB external hard drive. The largest single video file I ever created was 1.2 GB, but most are in the several hundred MB range, since most of my videos are produced at a data rate of 8 to 9 Mbps. (My oldest videos back in 2008 were only around 1 to 2 Mbps, but they are by now only a small minority of the total collection.)
Do you think the precision series is still built right? :-)
i like that lamp :P
@ElektroHut i had some trouble with the fans too recently, I really love the craftsmanship Dell used to put into there machines, I have a Dell Inspiron M101z Laptop which i use primarily for internet while on the road, the chipset and CPU overheat constantly, the GPU is sluggish, and the fans are ALWAYS ON due to the overheating
i hope you have better luck with freeNAS than i have. there's nothing like conflicts in hardware.i have had my share of that.LOL your dell pc should be just fine for that. i was using a hardware raid setup and had to much conflicts with freeNas
(sometime ago) might be better these days. it wasn't worth the headache and ended up using a dell inspiron laptop with external drivers. does our serialATA card have a onboard raid controller, or you doing the not so great software raid?
I don't think you've answered this in the comments, but how did you manage to (safely) modify the power supply to include sata power connections? And what were those useful looking blue blocks on the power cable? Did it require soldering or was it just something you clip on? A video about this sort of thing sometime would be great too! ;-) Really enjoy your videos -- thanks!
Lets face it Bill...You're just a good old fashioned Genius!!!
I'm no way in your league I just have a Dell Netbook which was gifted to me with a damaged screen running 24/7 in a nice cool, dry discrete location with just over 4.5 TB of memory connected to it. The Netbook only has flash memory and the power consumption is minimal...It's also covered by a UPS along with the router. I keep the other 4 machines on my Network virtually empty...It makes life so much easier! :)
@ElektroHut Thats awesome! So you found 1GB for the original 8100 mobo? RBRAM is really expensive in most places and also really hard to find. And using a CF card instead of a HDD is what im doing with my server for a boot drive atm.
2000 is probably my favorite Non-7 entry in the NT Line. XP, i've been using it for far too long - It'll be a couple of years before i can stomach it again!
I worked as a MCSE for NCR besides working as a ATM and POS and had to setup a backup system for Lowes backoffice and they used a system close to yours they had 2 250 gb drives inside and 5 USB external drives all raided together using 4 drives raided as 1 large drive and 1 drive for parity. They used a proprietary software tat I still have a copy somewhere in the archives. I replaced 4 drives over 5 years and they never lost any information , They also had 2 DAT drives for external bckup
@uxwbill Love the computer videos. I'm an older Dell fan myself. I have a semi-off topic request though. I currently own a Dell Studio XPS 16 laptop. (It's the 1640... 1st generation with the Centrino 2 processor.) Now, I HATE laptops but I needed one for school. DDR3 memory in laptops had JUST came onto the scene, and this was one of only a few Dell models to offer it. I was sold. But anyways, whats your take on laptops? If someone can ONLY own a laptop, what do you recommend? Maybe a video? :)
Good idea with the screws, Good vid
Great video! Hope its not to long before you upload another i have two acer T180 P.C's and was woundering if you could tell me your thoughts on them and how you rate acer ect... I pade about £260 for them new about 3years ago and thay have been great so far, the two of them run windows xp and have service pack 3.
I think you are a great person and well knowlagable in computers
@uxwbill I already pulled all the crap out of it, but the HDDs use a ton of power. I also have another problem, the fan at 100% all the time. It runs 5600rpm all the time and I have no idea how to slow it down. If i don't figure that out soon enough, i will just put a resistor to make it run at half the speed.
About CPU throttling, i honestly don't really know what it is, but will google for help.
It's kind of aggravating that the power supply in that dell didn't shut off in overheat protection instead of just running until it failed while being a potential fire hazard if it had been running overnight or something.
@uxwbill I have friends who have Optiplexes and you are right, DELL used to be such a great manufacturer. I bought a laptop from them recently and it has cheap plastic hinges, a 1.7 GHZ CPU, and it overheats alot. I am talking about the Inspiron M101Z.
Can you make a video of your Optiplex GX400's?
My desktops power supply had a fan failure thankful the thermal protection saved the system.
I need to get my videos organized too...I have a lot that need to be downloaded off this site. Although for me an external hard drive is what I will be choosing. A 500GB one or so would do, I just need to get a good brand that wont die. Samsung has been great to me.
Otherwise, sounds good, and if I ever have the need for so much space, I would consider doing this.
@ElektroHut Thats whats happening now with my fan, its making this really loud noise...Thats also why i want to build a custom PC, so i can put what i want into it. When i finally get around to building it I will probably reuse the 8100 as a home file server. I have put many years with slight upgrades, RAM, HDD ect and it has been faithful through all of those years, I just couldn't bear to part with it. it should end its life as a 20 year file server if all goes well :)
These cables turn sata into esata. i use them all the time and they work great!
just go to amazon and type in Tripp Lite P952-003
@uxwbill I think that would do it, I actually have a e-GeForce 7600GS (256MB) GPU from EVGA that im going to put in my 8100 one of these days. Its not much but if im short on cash from buying RAM ect i could put that in temporarily
@uxwbill I did that and I get a LONG beep and the system shuts down. The fan runs, but I guess the system thinks its disconnected and shuts down... Gonna have to try something else
@ElektroHut sweet man, maybe i should go get some more RAM...it could keep my 8100 alive and running windows 7 in no time! lol
You cant just leave us on a cliff hanger on the emachines!
Im suspecting its long gone, its been 9 years
I don't remember. It probably wasn't worth making a video about, even if it did work.
@@uxwbill ok then
Hi you said in your video that a power supply failing can sometimes cause a motherboard to break, i have a powermac G4 and the power supply failed on that. I got a replacement power supply and put it in my powermac but when i turned it on it did not display any video also the internal cooling fans went to full speed. Do you think changing the motherboard on this computer would solve this problem?
Thanks :-)
Quick question, do you know of any good NAS storage device i could use for my 2TB drive? I can rig it up to plug into my laptop through USB but i dont want the drive just sitting there because it gets fairly warm and could easily be damaged.
Hi, I also have a pentium 4 pc as a home NAS, with two 1tb samsung sata drives hooked up to the motherboard, and two other drives connected to a sata controller pci card. It's quite good so far but the only downside is the pci sata controller card...if I copy files from the drives hooked up to the motherboard to the drives on the sata card, it's painfully slow. I guess this is because the bandwith of the pci bus. I also wonder how the ecogreen drives will perform, please keep us updated. Thanks
@Jerkwad152 It doesn't take much to spank an P4. I have an old Pentium III 1400 box overclocked to 1.575GHz that just destroys the 1.8GHz P4-based Dimension 4400 sitting next to it. Cache probably has something to do with it; the P3 has 512KB of L2 while the P4 only has 256. The P4 struggles with 720p MKVs while the P3 plays 'em flawlessly. The P3 box even runs Windows 7 extremely well with 1.5GB of RAM.
those had Delta/Newton psu's, and these last a long time.
@macreviews94 oops sorry, I thought you were talking to me about my GPU...I have an 8100 also and mine does have a GeForce 2 MX. I'm not sure about uxbill's PC but it does seem like it is the same one
@ElektroHut I have one and I will probably install it soon, as long as i stop procrastinating...lol
I know this will sound very low tech...but why not get a couple of free yahoo or hotmail accounts and store the videos off site? Then they would be retrievable on any computer with internet access. I enjoy your vids, keep up the good work
talk of freenas, rsync, and repurposing old pc get me all excited... anyway, despite having only 2 internal hd bay, I'd use more internal hd instead of external sata. I'd use the 2 to3 5.25 to 3.5 drive bay (using 2 cdrom bay to install 3 more external hd). Or I could just make a home made bracket for more hd in the empty space just below the HD bay. I think internal HD are cleaner and I don't like having too many external HDs.
@famouswolfy Best and, sadly, probably cheapest AGP card you're going to find is 4650 or 4670. You can get a 4650 AGP on NewEgg for about $80. Quite a deal considering that AGP cards are very expensive.
Nice project but why only 5400/5900 rpm drives?
While I'm an XP guy, Windows 2000 Professional is very nearly as good an operating system. IMO, it's got about 85% of what XP has. Just not as good wifi support and no Luna(could be good or bad).
Also, I remember the first Pentium 4s. That's the chip that AMD spanked for six years. :D
@famouswolfy Try a search for Radeon x800. It was the last AGP card i ever bought. I rember it having no problem playing Quake 4 @ 1440 x 900 max settings.
@videoflyguy Oh sorry lol that question was aimed at uxwbill, from the video it looked like the same card I have in my 8100
I need the fittings for the cdrom for my 8100 om rebuilding
i subscribed :) you seem to know what you are doing
I miss xp very much it was great
Is that a GeForce 2 MX?
i still can't get freenas to work...
can you tell me what raid is the best
Depends upon your application.
That's a "how long is a piece of string?" question.
If you have important data to store and keep as secure as possible from any drive failure whatsoever, use RAID 5 ( min. 3 member disks, n-1 total storage capacity ) or RAID 6 ( min. 4 member disks, n-2 total storage capacity ). Raid 5 allows for up to one drive to fail, while 6 allows for 2 drives to fail.
Now the choice is yours: Capacity or redundancy!
why say serial ata ? why not sata? ("sayter")
i store mine on a 1tb western digital external
I wish I was you D:
@kinkyduffy every desktop Segate HDD I've seen has died.. every single one sold recently.. AND the laptop drives aren't much better.. I'm in the business, I see the shit every day mate; it's a shame they're allowed to be sold.
@midnit19 your comment doesnt make sense.. do you even know the purpose of this system?
I have a Dimension 8100
yuck.. Segate is DEADLY!.. as are ANY drives over 1TB.. but I hope yours work.. I've seen MANY of them die though... 1TB is about the max on safe storage, and only from WD or Samsung..
@Sansui350A yea they are mine just went out
@macreviews94 unfortunately no... ;(
dell don't make computers like whey did any more I bout a dell studio 8100 and a little bit after I bout it started to crash after wondering what happened the motherboard is bad