Category around the house

Oh boy. I don’t need this now:

c0nsumer@rowla:~> dmesg
[...]
ad0: FAILURE - device detached
subdisk0: detached
ad0: detached
GEOM_MIRROR: Device hotbackup: provider ad0 disconnected.
c0nsumer@rowla:~>

No SMART warnings, nothing. On Sunday the disk reported a clean healthcheck with 17970 hours of power-on time. ad2 had 24195 hours reported in the same log file. I’d expect it to go soon, too.

Thankfully ad0 is one of the first two disks on a secondary pair of disks in the box which aren’t critical. I first copy backups to those disks then copy them from there down to my house each night. Having half of that mirror set gone isn’t horrible, but I’ll have to take care of it at some point.

Maybe I’ll just throw one of the 320GB disks I have here on there in its place and finally get around to moving all my backup drives here internally. Time to check prices on new disks at Newegg I guess.

UPDATE: For $120 I can get a 500GB Seagate which would go nicely in my Mac Pro as a backup volume. I could then use one of the 320GB disks it would be replacing it as the hot backup in rowla.nuxx.net. I’d then have a spare 320GB I could leave attached to the Mac Pro via the FW800 enclosure, turned off, as an offline backup of photos.

Or I can leave it and wait until the other half of the hotbackup mirror set (ad2) falls over. The replacement 500GB disk will probably be cheaper at that point and it’ll require no work to be done right now.

This will be decided tomorrow.

Rack, cabled, ready to go.
(Click for full size image…)

Last night, in preparation for the coming (on the 6th, I hope) Mac Pro I decided to re-cable my office. Back in 2003 just before I first acquired my Power Mac G5 (photo gallery retired) (when the Power Mac G4 Cube (photo gallery retired) was my only Mac) I set up my office in what is generally its current configuration, with the large O’Sullivan Diplomat L-shaped desk, black wire rack, torch lamp, vertical bookshelf, etc.

Since then I’ve changed things slightly, but most of what I’ve done is just add on additional cruft (cabling) to the things without pulling out much of the unused stuff. Well, last night I pulled out a large pile of various cables from both behind my desk and behind the rack and cleaned everything up. I also pulled the VCR out of the stack, moved the DV bridge to beneath the computer, eliminated the USB 1.1 and FireWire hubs, etc.

With all this cabling done in the rack I was able to directly plug everything in smoothly, and the Mac Pro should fit in just as well. Beyond the MP, the rack also holds a JetDirect, HP LaserJet 5L, Formac StudioTVR (TV Tuner / DV Bridge), APC SmartUPS 1400, USB 2.0 hub, and two external hard disks. This is connected to the desk via a cable trunk which maintains a 1″ separation or right-angle crossing between data cables and power lines. On the desk there is a USB 2.0 hub, iPod cable, USB 2.0 CF/SD reader, speakers, LCD, keyboard, and mouse. It is all connected without any cables hanging on the floor or even visible beneath the desk, just how I like it. (I’ll post photos of the wholly done office once it’s… done.)

Hopefully tonight I’ll be able to finish moving everything to compact fluorescent lighting too. Right now I’ve got a 30W Sunwave full spectrum bulb in a lamp on the desk, but I need to redo the diffuser for it. A coworker gave me some 14W bulbs I’ll use in the ceiling fan in place of the extra-hot halogens, and I’ll move the torch lamp to some manner of CF spotlight. I’m putting X10 controls back on all lighting (except the ceiling fan), and I’ll probably put an X10 switchplate next to the normal one.

Then it’ll just be a matter of dusting a bit more, straightening up things in the closet, and waiting for the Mac Pro to arrive and I’ll be done with my office. Yay!

My new-ish network setup.

While the Airport Express + Cable Modem beneath the couch setup I put together back in January was working well for a while, within the last two weeks or so it’s started to become especially problematic. Last night I put a call into Comcast because the connection seemed to be dying fairly regularly. And by regularly, I mean many times per day. Eventually yesterday came around and I couldn’t really get it to come back at all.

After I had a case submitted and an appointment scheduled for next Saturday I did a bit more digging and found the actual problem: neither of my Apple Airport Expresses would link any more. I had this problem with one of them a while back, but I’d sort of forgotten about it. Now the other one was refusing to link.

Thinking that it was an autonegotiation problem I flipped it to 100/Full and that fixed the problem for about six hours. After that the PC light on the cable modem once again went out (indicating no link), would no longer light after many reboots / resets of each device. I then brought out my laptop and found that there were no problems linking to there. I tried a few other devices and the cable modem could link with them as well. Then I knew the problem was the Airport Expresses.

Since I don’t currently own a device which has AppleCare they are both out of warranty. With the Somerset Apple Store being closed I had to either pay full price (I normally get Student Discount), wait a week for shipping, or drive out to the Apple Store in 12 Oaks Mall. Fortunately today found me leaving work early to run down to the RenCen to pick some things up, and with me downtown at 2:15pm, I figured it wouldn’t be too far out of the way to swing by Novi on the way home.

While I hit a few slow bits of traffic (I-94 between I-75 and I-96), most of it moved surprisingly well. I-696 was horribly backed up going westbound, but not where I was going.

Anyway, long story short, things are working much better now. The shared hard disk thing is interesting (mounts HFS+ and FAT32, at the very least, but partitions can’t be edited), the built-in switch has allowed me to use my JetDirect, wired network on the G5 (hopefully Mac Pro soon), and provide a link for the workbench. I’ve had no dropped connections at all, and the Airport Expresses are all set up as clients of the main base station (no WPA) to save on bandwidth, and music can stream out as desired.