[SPARCbook] ADMIN NOTE: Server upgrade soon

[Bill Bradford]

(forgot to send to the SPARCBOOK list too)

Hey folks,

A status update on the machine that hosts all these lists, SunHELP, an IRC
server, and lots of folks' DNS, email handling, and shell accounts:

The long-delayed upgrade of ohno.mrbill.net from an E420R (quad 450s, 4G
RAM, dual 18G hard drives) to a T1000 (8 cores, 32 threads, 8G RAM) will
finally happen in the next 30-60 days.  I'll be going to S10u6 with ZFS
root of course.

I've taken up a collection from some of the major users of the system
(shell, email, etc) and I'll be upgrading the 80G drive that came with the
system to a 1T drive (most likely a Western Digital "Caviar Black"
WD1001FALS, unless someone has other suggestions).  

I thought about putting in one of the WD10EADS "Caviar Green" drives but
they've only got a 3-year warranty and I don't think they're really meant
for heavy-duty server use.  I'd love to put the WD "RE3" Raid Edition drive
in, but they're $50 more than the WD1001FALS.

Depending on funds, I will probably also purchase another WD10EADS drive to
put in my rsnapshot backup server here at home, and backup *all* of the
user homedirs and data on the new machine and eliminate the " you're
responsible for your own backups" policy.  

If any member of these lists has gotten use and enjoyment out of the
services I provide (12 years and counting so far!) and would like to
contribute to the upgrade fund, please let me know offlist.  

There will be a few hours of downtime over a weekend sometime in the next
couple of months (I'll give plenty of warning).  

Bill

-- 
Bill Bradford 
Houston, Texas