Friday afternoon hardware questions

[Bill McGonigle]

On Jan 17, 2008, at 22:32, Bruce Dawson wrote:

> How much are you selling these for?

:)  Maybe when I get the shop built.  SWMBO isn't a fan of stacked- 
dado-set dust.   The openings are 2.5"x6.75"x12".  I used 3/4" cherry- 
veneer plywood only because that's what was in the scrap pile.  1/2"  
MDO would be closer to ideal for this kind of project, but that costs  
$40/sheet around here, and the scrap was well-priced.  With so many  
equally spaced cuts, a jig would be pretty useful.  You'll notice a  
gap on one shelf where I should have been using a jig and a  
featherboard.

> Or worse: *they* don't die, but kill everything around them before  
> they
> succumb.

This sounds familiar.

[snipped lots of great info]

> Of course, if you're a conspiracy believer, blame it on planned
> obsolescence. :-)

I would if these weren't less than half way into their 5-year  
warranty (Seagate).  Everything is RAID-1, so if a drive goes I can  
swap it out with them without too much pain.  Or maybe the conspiracy  
is more insidious and they've already calculated weirdos like me into  
their formula. ;)

> My own belief as to why drives overheat is that the bearings are dying
> and the motors are overheating trying to keep the drive up to spec.

Interesting - to the touch, now that they're separate, I can't tell  
the difference among them, but this might be the excuse I need to buy  
a non-contact thermometer and see if there's variation.  Mysteries in  
IT always come back to haunt.

Only two of these are on e.SATA, so smartctl can't see the others (on  
USB).  Still waiting for that $50 8-port e.SATA card...

-Bill

-----
Bill McGonigle, Owner           Work: 603.448.4440
BFC Computing, LLC              Home: 603.448.1668
bill at bfccomputing.com           Cell: 603.252.2606
http://www.bfccomputing.com/    Page: 603.442.1833
Blog: http://blog.bfccomputing.com/
VCard: http://bfccomputing.com/vcard/bill.vcf