Thoughts and Ramblings

General things I find of interest.

FreeNAS Internal Backups

I’ve changed my media storage system from the Linux setup I outlined earlier to FreeNAS. In the process of the transition, I built an entirely new server using a Norco 4224 as the case and a Xeon processor with ECC. Since FreeNAS makes ZFS so easy and doesn’t suffer from several of the problems of ZFS on Linux, I elected to use this OS for my storage going forth. The only issue I had to resolve was how I would handle backups.

Posted by Thoughts and Ramblings on Monday, December 28, 2015

Yosemite Install Can't Be Verified

This weekend, I noticed that the spinning hard drive in my MacBook Pro was dying. I ordered a replacement, installed it, then proceeded to install Yosemite. After counting the numerous Yosemite installer bugs, I noticed an unusual one: This copy of the Install OS X Yosemite application can’t be verified. It may have been corrupted or tampered with during downloading. My searches for this didn’t yield a useful solution so I figured out what the problem really was: Since I disconnected the battery as part of my install process, the computer was completely without power for a moment and loss the date/time.

Posted by Thoughts and Ramblings on Friday, February 20, 2015

Not All Packets Are Equal

The term Net Neutrality covers a lot of hotly debated topics but at its core is whether ISPs should be allowed to treat some traffic differently. In the midst of the discussion, one minor fact seems to have been lost: Not all packets are truly equal. Around 10 years ago, I had DSL with 768kbps down and 128kbps up. I quickly learned that if I did any upload at all, the download speeds suffered greatly.

Posted by Thoughts and Ramblings on Thursday, January 22, 2015

My Media Setup - Part 3

In my previous post I outlined the issues with using the GoogleTV for playback and I promised to outline my new client. The Hardware Since a list makes this easier, I’ll present the hardware that way: First the computer: I bought an Intel NUC (D54250WYKH) as the base machine. If you wish to get the same, be sure you get a version with the power cord as it is not a standard PC power cord.

Posted by Thoughts and Ramblings on Thursday, August 7, 2014

My Media Setup - Part 2

Since my last post on the topic, my client and server software have changed. In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I now work part time for Plex, though all of my decisions outlined in this post were made before that time. Necessity for the change I started to get frustrated with some of the limitations of the GoogleTV: The platform seemed to become stagnate (and the pending AndroidTV hadn’t been announced yet).

Posted by Thoughts and Ramblings on Saturday, August 2, 2014