Back to the drawing board (yes, again...)

Here's another tid-bit of information gleaned from my wanderings on the internet in search of a disaster proof solution to my data storage.

The safe I was looking at was more a Gun Safe.  And as such would protect Guns and seems like even paper from burning in a severe house fire.

However, looking at the hardware specs for the NAS I had designed it seems like the max survivable temperature for when the thing is off, is around 150 F.

If you look up the specifications for UL-72, you'll see that there's 3 classes for devices by their ability to maintain the class temperature (in F).  Then a time is added to specify the period of time for which that temperature can be maintained in a fire-like environment: 1/2 hour, and 1 or 2 hours.

350 - Mostly for protecting paper documents and valuables such as jewelry and guns
150 - Electronics, CD's, DVD's, etc.
125 - magnetic media, such as tapes, and (*ghasp*) floppy disks (and if you keep the latter, you may want to keep a floppy drive in with it too since those are getting hard to find.)

So what I discovered I was really looking for is a UL-72 Listed Class 150 1 hour Safe with built in power and ethernet.  It became clear by looking at the specification of the Cannon Home Guard H8 (and most of their safes really) that they're not sufficient to keep the NAS protected during a fire.  It's not waterproof either.  And any safe that would be listed UL-72 Class 150, wouldn't likely have a AC power/ethernet/USB penetration through the case (trust me I looked).  And Media Safes that are Listed as such are expensive (for good reason!)  That being said, I find the inclusion of the connectivity feature on of the safe I was looking at somewhat misleading, since the connectivity feature is obviously for electronics, but the safe itself won't protect them.

As an alternative, I was able to find this:
IOSafe N2
But it wont' be available until January of 2013.

But here's a video of another one of their products being tortured. And then the data being recovered.  Pretty impressive!

The N2 can be bolted to the floor and has a keyed faceplate so you can't just open it and take the drives.  It also has the fire protection I need in addition to being waterproof.  Though it's not listed by UL, it was instead tested to ASTM E119.  On that note, as a member of ASTM I was able to look that up:  it's a construction materials fire resistance test.  There's details for testing steel I-beams used in construction of buildings, and not much for preserving your stored electronic data like the UL standard.  However, when you purchase an N2 with the drives provided by IOSafe, you get a pretty decent warranty that makes up for not being UL listed against the -72 spec:  if they can't just swap your drive into another IOSafe N2, they'll cover up to either $2500 or $5000 for forensic data recovery (this just means they'll take the drive platters out of the drive and put them in another...this is an expensive process since it requires a very controlled environment to accomplish.)  So for the price, it's a pretty sweet deal.  My only concern is that you can extend the warranty to 5 years only.  After that, you're on your own or must purchase a new one.  I would think a 10 year warranty would be more appropriate for what is being advertised and sold for the cost.

Expensive, but promising.  And honestly for the size of storage I was considering in addition to the safe, I think if I got the N2, and a significangly less expensive document safe, it'd be the same price as what I was considering before.  So here I am.  Undecided.  Though I really liked the mini NAS I designed.

Buyer Beware

With the upcoming release of Windows 8 (I guess tomorrow, actually) I wanted to post a few things I've discovered while trying to install it.

I had downloaded the Consumer Preview and tried to install it on one of my old PC's:  the hardware requirements being a meager 1 GHz Processor, 1 Gigabyte of Ram, a DX9 video card.  All of which this old PC of mine had.  So I thought I would install it and see how I like it before committing my desktop and netbook to the new OS.

However, I kept getting an error every time I tried to install it.

Hunting around the internet for the error code lead me to what should have been an asterisk on that 1 GHz Processor requirement:  it must support for PAE, NX, and SSE2.  My XP Athalon 3000+ doesn't meet this requirement.  So just beware.

Also, there's plenty of articles on the difference between Windows 8 RT and Windows 8/Pro:  RT being designed for ARM processors (and therefore geared more for tablets.)  It isn't the full version of windows 8 that the other two (Windows 8 and Windows 8 Pro) are.  I would compare RT to Windows 7 Basic that was available on netbooks, while the others are more featured and capable (remote desktop for instance).  So, just beware and make sure you get what you really want, and don't waste money trying to upgrade if your processor is too old.

Back to the drawing board

Being an engineer, let's be honest:  I'm cheap.  So, in waiting for prices to come down to pre-flooding prices, my home was unfortunately broken into.  Yeah, that sucked.  Fortunately for me, it was a smash and grab and whoever did it made off with my Xbox  and then a bunch of stuff out of my master bedroom.  My computers (which were in the basement) were left behind.

But the experience reaffirmed in my mind the need to get my NAS up and running as a back up for all our family memories that I have saved as pictures and video, my important documents, and the like.  But even just having a NAS wasn't enough for me.

After the break in, my mind has been playing all sorts of worst case scenarios of what could possibly happen to my data.  And I've finally come up with a plan:

First, I'm aggressively liquidating all my extra hardware and computers to raise some capital.

Then I'm ordering a low power pico x86 computer, with an extra hard drive bracket.

I've got some 2 GB laptop ram from when I removed it and put 4 GB in my netbook (which also wasn't miraculously stolen).  Then I'll order two 2.5" 2TB hard drives and a 4GB usb flash drive for the Freenas OS.  All that will constitute my low power 2TB software raid NAS.  Why not more power?  Or use the stuff I already have?

So I can put it in this:  Cannon H8 Safe with AC Power outlet, ethernet, and USB.

It has to be low power so not to burn itself up with it's own heat inside the safe.  So far between the processor and the two hard drives, max TDP (Total Dissipated Power) comes to around 14W max.  I imagine most of the time it won't be that high.  Cannon sells a safe dehumidifier that runs 8 watts.  I figure my NAS could run as a safe dehumidifier too.

Then, once I get my SSD and install windows, I'll put my windows 7 User Accounts on the NAS* which will be in the safe.  (If the information in that link works for mapped network drives...still have to determine that.)  So that way if my computer ever disappears, I'm only missing the hardware and installed software.  None of my personal information goes with it.  If my house ever burns down...I'll still have my data.  

Now to come up with $1350.  Which sounds like a lot.  The safe ($750) will last a lifetime.  As for the $600  NAS, it seems like a lot.  But if it works for 10 years, then hey, that's only $5 a month.  I don't know of any safe deposit boxes the size of this safe for that price, and you would still have to go and get your backup drive from it on a regular basis.  (And I've yet to find safe deposit boxes with an internet connection...and I'm sure if I did, it would be much more than $5 a month).  And I can't put my extra car keys and passport on the cloud, nor find 2TB of storage that cheap (and I don't want my data there anyway).  This is the best of both worlds.

*Update:  I've since posted to the tutorial in the SevenForums asking if it's possible to move these folders to a mapped network drive.  The author of the tutorial discourages it.  However, I may move what I can out of my user folder to the NAS through libraries and the programs that store stuff in the Users folder.  We shall see.

I ain't got a gat, but I got a soldering gun...

If you're reading this, it's because you have an NZXT Vulcan case that is giving you horrid audio artifacts through the front audio port because of the ground loop they designed into their printed circuit board.  Here's what you need to do to fix it.

Here you can see that the path from audio jacks to the audio ground wire is shared with the same path that's used for the USB.  In order to eliminate the ground loop (and the annoying sounds that come with it) you have to separate the grounds. 

Using a dremel with an engraving tool, I separated the front audio cable header ground wire from the rest of the circuits. 

Then I separated the audio grounds near the jacks from the everything as well.  

Then I soldered a wire connecting the grounds of the jacks (you only need to do one since they're both connected) and then solder it to the ground wire on the header.

That's all you have to do. I had originally just jumped a wire from the headphone over the header ground, but it stuck up too high and broke off when I installed it in the case. So I ended up laying a wire flat and running it like a trace on the pcb.

This eliminated all the noise I was picking up through my front audio headphone jack, and the speakers too.

NZXT - if you read this, you owe me money for the engineering re-work on your case design. Thank you.

I do have to hand it to NZXT though. I sent them an email describing my problem with my case, and they responded by sending me a new front audio/USB cabling and hardware. Which, kudos to them for sending me something, rather than just blowing me off. Yet they sent me the exact same pcb and it didn't fix the problem. It did give me enough confidence though to modify one of them to see if I could do it, with a backup in case things went wrong.

Fortunately, this worked out great, and now I've got a replacement part if I ever need it.

I also have to hand it to Creative, as after this, the X-Fi Titanium really shined. The audio quality is fantastic. I also like how the 'modes' keep track of settings for headphones and speakers separately, and automatically switches when I plug my headphones, or unplug them. That way the CMS3D is on when the headphones are in and on game mode, but off when using my 5.1 speakers or listening to music with headphones. Nice. I had to do it manually with my old card. It's really a nice piece of hardware and sounds great. And for 36 bucks, it was a steal! In a way I almost felt sorry for Creative: I wondered how many people returned these cards under the presumption they were defective, when all along they were really fine and their case was a bad design like mine. At any rate, it ended up benefiting me because I got one on the cheap because of it.

But then I'm reminded of the headache of their software and the planned obsolescence Creative has embraced to maintain their cash flow, and think: I'm glad I didn't have to give them more money than I had to because I know my card will be obsolete before it really should be.

Loop-G-Loop

As stated in a previous post, I had picked up a copy of DCS A-10C on Steam for $20.  But in order to play it at 3840x1024 resolution at respectable frame-rates, I picked up a HIS IceQ Turbo Radeon HD 6970 2GB.  This card manages this task quite well.  You can read some of the settings I had to put in place to get good framerates (as there were some compromises) here.  For all the other games I have, it's overkill. It came with Dirt3, it stays cool, and it matches other pcbs in my case (blue!).  However, it is advertised as only taking up 2 slots, but does in fact take up 3. My Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD2 motherboard is equipped with a 16x pcie slot, followed by 2 pci slots, then another pcie slot that is only 4x (but can take a full sized video card.)  Since my video card blocks the two pci slots, I had to evict my Audigy 2 Zs Platinum Pro PCI sound card. And since my second pcie slot isn't really effective for a CrossifireX setup at only 4x, I figured it would make sense to put a nice pcie soundcard in there.  So when a refurbished  X-Fi titanium pcie showed up on Newegg for $36, I snagged it despite my previous experience with Creative.

Thanks to Creative's awesome drivers (sarcasm), getting the drivers for this card to install was a pain. Even after uninstalling my old drivers, I kept getting an error saying more up to date drivers were already installed. I finally had to manually delete any and all registry keys from my old hardware (even after Driver Sweeper and CCleaner). Then I was finally able to get the driver to install. I also had an issue where my firewall software was automatically blocking the auto-update, but was able to manually allow it and get my bundled software. And for some reason, it took nearly a whole morning to download 150MB. Unacceptable.

Also, popping and crackling sounds seemed to result from changing 'modes' while audio was being played. However, it would go away after reboot. Then I realized that it states very clearly on the mode switcher in the audio control panel that it is recommended to quit ALL audio applications and games before switching modes. Obeying this rule seemed to reduce audio artifacts.

Another issue I thought I had is that there was a lot of noise from my computer coming through the speakers and when I was using headphones out of the front audio.  Additionally, with the volume all the way up on my old card there was very little noise. This one I could hear all kinds of system stuff (on speakers or headphones.) It was very annoying and sounded as bad as (if not worse than) my onboard audio.

I originally thought this was the fault of Creative, and the fact that it was a refurbished card.  I thought it was broken.  However, after some troubleshooting (I did want to make sure I knew what the problem was, and I didn't really want to pay to send my $36 card back) I realized I had a completely different problem.

I had a ground loop.

I have had experiences with ground loops before.  Most notably in my car when I've powered an audio device (like an mp3 player or DVD player) with the cigarette lighter, and then fed the audio into the car stereo.  When you do this you can hear the hum of the alternator through the speakers as a result of the ground loop.

For my computer, it was actually coming from the front audio and front USB ports sharing a common ground, resulting in being able to hear everything I plugged into the USB port. To test it I plugged in a usb hard drive into the front usb and plugged my headphones into the front audio jack: man you could hear everything that drive was doing! I was able to plug my headphones in the rear, and it sounded so much better.  To be sure, I have a ground loop isolator (that I usually use in my car) and plugged it into the front audio port and then plugged my headphones into it. Dead silent. No noise. Plugging in the USB hard drive with the ground loop isolator and my headphones plugged into the front audio still allowed me to hear quite a bit of sound from the drive, but it was attenuated.  I found out too that a lot of cases do this (search on Google for it). Even high end cases have this issue. It is not the card: it's the case. In my instance an NZXT Vulcan.

So in the following post, I'll show you what I did to fix this problem.

Battered Woman Syndrome

In trying to procure a replacement sound card for my Windows 7 machine, I didn't have a lot of requirements.  Other than it should be as good as or better than my Audigy, it should be inexpensive, it should have a pcie interface, and preferably NOT a creative card.

 But when a Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium showed up in the refurbished section of Newegg, and with a promotion code for 20% off putting it at $36...I couldn't pass it up.  Despite being a Creative Product.

I get to keep most of the features and specifications that my Audigy had (although apparently you cannot get a sound card with DTS and DD hardware decoders anymore...some law somewhere that it must be done with software, although I didn't honestly spend enough time to verify this claim.)  I eventually decided I wanted to connect my HD front audtio, and my 5.1 analog speakers to the card.  This does that.  It also supports EAX and positional audio for gaming.  So it had what I wanted, familiar (for better or worse) softwares, and for $36 bucks, I'd let Creative beat me again.

The only thing I need now is this in order to plug my Sennheiser HD555 headphones into my computers.  (Since I don't have a 1/4" jack anymore...)

NUKE!

In trying to liquidate some of my hardware, I was faced with the challenge of how to wipe my hard drives I want to get rid of.  You see, even formatting the drive will leave information on it.  Granted it takes more than just slapping it in a computer to read the files, but people bent on getting your personal information are resourceful to say the least.  I've heard of people trolling garage sales, second hand stores, and even dumpster diving for computers to pull personal information off of.

It was along these lines that I came across another useful Linux distribution:

Darik's Boot and Nuke

Download the iso from sourceforge (I had to use version 1.07 for it to work) and boot from the burned CD.  It will detect any hard drive you have installed on the computer and wipe it with DOD level wiping:  meaning it will be near impossible to recover any data from it once it's wiped.

So be sure to take care of your identity and wipe your computers before disposing of them.  In the same respect, make sure there's nothing on it that you want to keep.  You won't get it back if you use this program.

Hardware for sale...Make offer

With all of this going on, I also managed to pick up DCS A-10C Warthog on Steam for $20 for Christmas.  Very nice.  It goes well with my CH Products Fighter Stick, Pro Throttle, and Pro Pedals.  The only downside:  my HD 4850 couldn't manage it on 3840 x 1024 resolution.  That's right:  triple 1280x1024 monitors.  So subsequently for my birthday I picked up a HIS IceQ Turbo Radeon HD 6970 2GB which managed the game just fine.  (Although, I admit, it seems a bit silly to spend $300 on a video card to play a $20 game.)  At any rate it's a really great card.  Except for the fact that it takes up 3 slots in my case, blocking the 2 pci slots below the pcie slot it's plugged into.

Super.

This simply means I was forced to evict my Audigy 2 zs Platinum Pro sound card.  It was bittersweet:  I was finally able to move on from Creative.  Yet, it's still a great card with a lot of capability and life left in it.

That being said, with all this new hardware I've purchased, I've got some stuff up for grabs if you want to make an offer.  Here's what I'm willing to part with:

Audigy 2zs Platinum Pro (Complete)
VisionTek HD 4850 (PCIe)
MSI RX9800PRO-TD128 Radeon 9800PRO 128MB 256-bit DDR AGP 4X/8X Video Card
Dell 8960 ATI X300 (PCIe)
Hynix 2x1 GB PC3 10600S Laptop RAM
Rosewill RC-400-LX Network Adapter
Thrustmaster Firestorm Dual Analog Controller
256 MB PC3200 400MHz DDR ram
Samsung LTN154AT09 LCD Screen for Laptop

In addition to all of that I have various Hard Drives:

Quantum Fireball ATA66 15GB Hard Drive
Maxtor ATA100 15GB Hard Drive
Seagate 40GB IDE Drive
Hitachi 60 GB IDE Drive
Seagate 160 GB IDE Drive
Samsung 500 GB SATA I/II Drive

I'm also willing to part with my wife's computer (CHEAP!).  With it, I'll throw in your choice of up to 2 IDE drive(s) and install (and give you the install disc and product key for) Windows XP Pro.

Everyday I'm Shufflin'

It's been a while since I've updated my blog, so I've got a lot to cover.  Let's start with my NAS situation as it's changed substantially since I've last posted.

My desire to use my wife's old PC as a NAS was completely abandoned.  There was an issue with trying to shut it down.  When I'd try to shut down the NAS from it's web GUI, it wouldn't shut down and just hang.  So instead of trying to figure that out, I swapped computers yet again.

I took apart my Windows XP computer, got a new case for my Windows 7 machine, and shuffled everything around yet again:

From left to right:
NAS, empty case, wife's old compy.

NAS Specs:
Rosewill R101-P-BK 120mm Fan MicroATX Mid Tower Computer Case
Rosewill RFA-120-BL 120mm 4 Blue LEDs LED Case Fan
CHAINTECH 7NIL1 462(A) NVIDIA nForce2 Ultra 400 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
AMD Athlon XP 3000+ Barton 2.1GHz Socket A Processor
Rosewill RCX-Z100 One ball bearing for over 45000/hrs life CPU Cooler
1.2 GB PC3200 DDR 400 RAM
Transcend 2GB Compact Flash (CF) Flash Card Model TS2GCF133
SYBA SD-CF-IDE-BR IDE to Compact Flash Adapter (Bracket Version)
MSI RX9800PRO-TD128 Radeon 9800PRO 128MB 256-bit DDR AGP 4X/8X Video Card
Rosewill RC-209-EX PCI 2.3, 32bit, 33/66Mhz SATA Controller Card
LG CD-R/RW Drive (CED-8120D)
HIPRO HP-P303W PSU

The empty case is a Foxconn 300 Watts MATX Mini Tower Case.  I bought it in 2004 for $30 and has been a pretty nice case.  It just lacks hard drive space, access to the far side of the case (or the side where my wife's computer is in the picture) and HD front audio.  This was the case my Windows 7 machine was in up until recently when I bought an NZXT Vulcan for that computer.

For my wife's old computer, the specs are on the first post of my blog, although it's changed too with the addition of the following:
DVD-116ME DVD ROM
Floppy Drive
Zonet Firewire/USB2.0 PCI Combo Card Model ZUC2400
Dynatron BH-610/C61G 60mm Ball Cooling Fan/Heatsink
And I've removed the hard drives from this computer.  (More on that later.)

Additionally, the heatsink currently in the NAS I had originally bought for my wife's computer when it was going to be the NAS (because her heatsink/fan was on it's last leg and was loud.)  But being I bought it new, I felt I would keep it over the 8 year old Dynatron, and moved it from the Athalon 1200 to the Barton XP and put the Dynatron on the Athalon 1200.

This NAS configuration ended up being quite a boon to the project.  Not only did the NAS become less problematic, but actually ran faster.  My wife's computer running as a NAS only ever topped out at 25 MB/s.  With the new hardware (and a SATA drive installed) I was able to get 37.5-60 MB/s.  In fact it was kinda fun to watch the system as I transferred files to the NAS.  The CPU temp would slowly climb, once it reached a threshold, the transfer would pause to allow the CPU to cool back down, and then it would start again.  Very nice.

As for the HD for the NAS, I'm still waiting for prices to reach pre-flooding prices (or about $70 for a 2TB drive).