indiboi.com

The New Disk
Disk /dev/sdd: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x638212f6

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdd1 1 30401 244196001 fd Linux raid autodetect


The Old Disk(s)
Disk /dev/sda: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 30401 244196001 fd Linux raid autodetect


They Match!

Time to add the new drive
mdadm --add /dev/md0 /dev/sdd1
mdadm: added /dev/sdd1

Now to grow the array
mdadm --grow /dev/md0 --raid-devices=4
mdadm: Need to backup 768K of critical section..
mdadm: ... critical section passed.


The growing/reshaping took 9 hours.

Time to check the integrity of the filesystem

fsck -f /dev/md0
fsck 1.40.8 (13-Mar-2008)
e2fsck 1.40.8 (13-Mar-2008)
Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
Pass 2: Checking directory structure
Pass 3: Checking directory connectivity
Pass 4: Checking reference counts
Pass 5: Checking group summary information
RAID: 96834/61063168 files (31.4% non-contiguous), 104634355/122097920 blocks


Now to resize the filesystem

resize2fs /dev/md0
resize2fs 1.40.8 (13-Mar-2008)
Resizing the filesystem on /dev/md0 to 183146880 (4k) blocks.
The filesystem on /dev/md0 is now 183146880 blocks long.


Whoohoo!

RAID has gone 695 days without being checked, check forced.

I think that’s the entire period of time that I’ve had my RAID running here at home. Woops.

I’ve decided against setting up a new raid for extra space, as that will cost $500 or so and I just don’t need the multi-terrabytes of storage that would give me. Instead I paid a premium for another 250GB drive and have decided to ‘grow’ the current RAID instead.

I could have purchased a larger drive (twice as large actually) for a mere $20 more, but that space would also be wasted considering the current RAID is 250GB drives. I suppose I could do the swap/rebuild business over and over again until the array is using larger drives. That’s a lot of work and I would rather not go through that trouble.

So, for now, hopefully growing the current array by one drive will do the trick. I will, eventually, probably upgrade to something more substantial, but I think an extra 250GB will do me quite nicely for a while. I’m not really the type to store the entire internet anyway (unlike my brother Matt, hah).

It’s this Friday, anyone that wants to watch it on my 42″ in HD just needs to let me know. I’ll save it on the DVR for Saturday viewing if anyone can’t quite make the 10pm lateness of the first run episodes. Let me know about that too, obviously. It could be a weekly thing even, heh.

I think I need a fish category, because the Martha category doesn’t really work for this, heh. Anyway, this is Henry, the male (shock!) Blue Ram. He’s been incredibly camera shy, meaning I have mostly lots of really blurry photos of him.

Click to enlarge, as usual, the thumbnails look a bit wonky.

I tried to extend the game play as long as possible, basically three or so full days, perhaps four, spaced out… but I have now finished playing Half Life 2.

I have to say that I absolutely hated driving the buggy and the whole antlion thing was very annoying… overall though I thoroughly enjoyed playing the game.

I did encounter the horrible stuttering problem toward the end. In the final chapter it was totally unplayable, then I defragmented the drive and it that mostly solved it.

My cheapass Geforce 6200 was able to play the game on its highest settings (with the exception of no anti-aliasing) using the full native resolution of my LCD, 1280×1024. I don’t have framerate data, but I can say that apart from the stuttering, which has nothing to do with the graphics processor, the game was completely playable… unlike when I tried to play Doom 3 on my Geforce 420MX — which was a slideshow.

It’s interesting, I suppose, that even though I was getting such lovely visuals with an admittedly low end graphics card, how I wrote down on my specificiation sheet that I wanted a Geforce 7800 GT for my new little Shuttle box. Those cards come in around $400… almost as much as the AMD 64 X2 I have my eye on. I say almost, as when you’re getting into the higher figures the difference of a hundred dollars seems insignificant, lol.

I think I found myself wrapped up in overkill mode, why not get the best.. even though there is a GTX version of the 7800, it won’t fit in the Shuttle, heh. Then again, I just don’t know… it’s about spending once and then not having to worry about it for a couple of years, thankfully and horribly, it’ll be a long time before I can muster the cash to actually buy any of that, heh.