In Fun

Desktop Build


For a while now I've only had my Core i3 laptop with 6GB of RAM from 2010. That changed slightly because Linode provided me with a MacBook Pro when I started working there, which I do use for non-work activities. But I don't game on the MacBook, and my old laptop can only just handle modded Minecraft or League of Legends on all minimum settings. After building my NAS it was time to finally get a desktop. I planned to go a bit overboard, but not insanely so. The system I ended up with is more than I need, but I'm quite happy with it.

One of the biggest choices, given recent offerings, is going with an Intel or AMD CPU. Given reviews, price point, not being a hard-core gamer, and frustration with vulnerabilities (Meltdown & Spectre, Foreshadow) while working at Linode, I went with AMD. I was initally also going to go with an AMD graphics card, but my brother offered to sell me one of his older nVidia cards at no markup and I happily took him up on the offer. He also gave me the case for free as a Christmas present, which was awesome. The rest is pretty standard, chosen mostly based on cost or brand recognition, except I wanted (a frankly unnecessary) 32GB of RAM to make it basically impossible to run out. Most of the components were purchased at MicroCenter, the rest on Amazon (I'm using Amazon links for almost all of them for consistency though).

Item Model Price Quantity Total
CPU AMD Ryzen 7 2700X $279.99 1 $279.99
Graphics card nVidia GTX 1060 (3GB) $175.00 1 $175.00
RAM Corsair 2x8GB DDR4 2400MHz $149.99 2 $299.98
Motherboard MSI X470 Gaming Plus $99.99 1 $99.99
System drive Samsung 860 EVO 500GB SSD $94.99 1 $94.99
Case Fractal Design Meshify C $89.99 1 $89.99
Power supply EVGA SuperNOVA 550 G3 Gold 550W $84.99 1 $84.99
WiFi card TP-Link Archer T6E PCIe 802.11ac $44.99 1 $44.99
Fans Noctua NF-S12A 120mm $22.99 3 $68.97
Main OS Ubuntu 18.04 $0.00 1 $0.00
Gaming OS Windows 10 Pro $189.00 1 $189.00
RAID drive WD Red 4TB HDD $124.99 2 $249.98
Monitors Acer R240HY 23.8 in. 1080p $129.99 2 $259.98
DP / DVI cable Amazon Basics 6ft DP/DVI cable $11.99 1 $11.99
DVI cable Monoprice 6ft DVI-D cable $5.89 1 $5.89
Keyboard 1st Player Steampunk Black Switch $55.99 1 $55.99
Mouse Logitech G203 Prodigy $37.17 1 $37.17
Headset Logitech G233 Prodigy w/ boom mic $79.99 1 $79.99
USB soundcard Sabrent USB soundcard $7.49 1 $7.49
UPS APC Back-UPS Pro 1500VA $169.00 1 $169.00
Gaming chair Songmics polyester gaming chair $194.99 1 $194.99
Armrest pads Aloudy memory foam armrest pads $17.99 1 $17.99
TOTAL AMD Desktop and Gaming Center $2518.35
(excluding chair) $212.98 $2305.37
(also ex. UPS) $169.00 $2136.37
(also ex. peripherals) $180.64 $1955.73
(also ex. monitors) $277.86 $1677.87
(also ex. HDDs) $249.98 $1427.89
BASE SYSTEM (also ex. Win10) $189.00 $1238.89

Some comments on the items:

I first installed Windows 10, then Ubuntu 18.04 on the SSD. I then named it shinkiro in honor of Lelouch's custom Knightmare Frame from my favorite anime, Code Geass. Photos:

Further reading:


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tags: tech diy build hardware projects


In Fun

Home NAS Build


I'm planning on building a desktop soon, but one of things I wanted to do first was build a storage server. I'm calling this a NAS, but it might be more correct to say networked DAS. At any rate, I want a central place to store my files, which are currently scattered across my laptop, homeserver, raspberry pi, external hard drive, and various USB drives. In building the NAS, I want to know the files I put there will be safe from mechanical failures and silent corruption. In addition to hard drives failing, digital storage has a scary failure mode. Here's the 3 main safeguards you should consider using to protect the data you care about most:

Safeguard Example Failure Mode
Redundancy RAID, RAIDZ, backups A hard drive dies
Integrity zfs, btrfs Bit Rot
Versioning versioned backups, zfs, btrfs You delete a file

Many people have heard about RAID, but fewer are aware of Bit Rot. It's not very common, since hard drives have some built-in error correction, but it's still possible, and can be devastating for even a single bit flip depending on the exact circumstances. After reviewing various options, I settled on ZFS with RAIDZ2, which has all 3 features baked-in, and a very easy deployment process that lends itself to set-it-and-forget-it. It also has easy to use quotas which is good since I intend to share some storage with my friends.

For the hardware, I settled on a 6x4TB hard drive array in RAIDZ2. In exchange for reduced usable storage space (in my case 24TB became 14TB), RAIDZ2 means up to 2 hard drives can fail without any data loss. If a hard drive fails, you can just plug in a new one and ZFS automatically populates the new drive and restores redundancy. I picked the drive size and number based on my desired storage size (minimum 10TB) and the cost/TB of the drives. Based on various recommendations online, I went with WD Red drives. The rest of the hardware was chosen based almost solely on cost.

Item Model Price Quantity Total
RAID drive WD Red 4TB HDD $124.99 6 $749.94
Spare drive WD Red 4TB HDD $124.99 2 $249.98
System drive Silicon Power 128GB SSD $38.99 1 $38.99
Case Antec 302 $64.96 1 $64.96
Motherboard GIGABYTE GA-B250M-DS3H $59.99 1 $59.99
CPU Intel Pentium G4560 Dual-Core 3.5GHz $58.99 1 $58.99
RAM Crucial 4GB DDR4 2400MHz $47.45 1 $47.45
Power supply EVGA SuperNOVA 550 G3 Gold 550W $85.99 1 $85.99
Fans Corsair HSP 120mm Purple LED 2 Pack $23.99 1 $23.99
Fan power cable ModTek Molex to 4x3pin Fan $8.99 1 $8.99
PCIe SATA card IO Crest PCI-e x1 4 Port SATA III $39.89 1 $39.89
SATA cable Monoprice 18in SATA III 10 Pack $14.99 1 $14.99
SATA power cable StarTech 4x SATA Power Splitter $5.85 2 $11.70
Operating System Ubuntu 18.04 $0.00 1 $0.00
TOTAL 14TB RAIDZ2 NAS $1455.85
(excluding spare HDDs) $1205.87
(excluding all HDDs) $455.93

Some comments on the items:

After getting it up and running, I ran the long SMART test and destructive badblocks (the latter inside screen sessions) on each drive to appease my paranoia (all tests came back clean as they should for brand new drives):

sudo smartctl -t long /dev/sdX
sudo badblocks -wsvo diskX-bb.txt /dev/sdX
sudo smartctl -t long /dev/sdX

It was then affectionately dubbed trichiliocosm in honor of one of Zoro's attacks from an episode of One Piece (kudos @glenn for the suggestion). Photos:

Further reading:


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tags: tech diy build hardware projects


In Fun

Gerrymandering


Here is the best example of gerrymandering you will ever see. If you're not familiar with the term, it's one of the ridiculous techniques politicians use to gain an advantage in the two-party system. The green region is a single congressional district in Illinois, commonly called "The Earmuffs." Using the scale on the map, the thinnest sections are about 200 feet across. Why divide a region into rectangles when you can have earmuffs instead?

Image from this Wikipedia article. More info in this Washington Post article.


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tags: politics


In Fun

Lightning in Slow Motion


This is the best video I've ever seen of lightning. It's really awesome; you can see the leaders and return stroke perfectly. After some quick math using the timestamp shown in the video, it's been slowed down by a factor of 238.


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tags: science video