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Server brands

Posted: Tue Oct 08, 2019 5:35 pm
by TheCatt
Cakedaddy wrote: You're running plex on an Atom CPU?
Yop. No complaints from anyone yet. I was concerned about performance, but it's worked fine.

Server brands

Posted: Tue Oct 08, 2019 6:08 pm
by Cakedaddy
TheCatt wrote:
Cakedaddy wrote: You're running plex on an Atom CPU?
Yop. No complaints from anyone yet. I was concerned about performance, but it's worked fine.

I'll let someone else field this. . .

Server brands

Posted: Tue Oct 08, 2019 6:13 pm
by GORDON
Tis what she proclaimed.

Server brands

Posted: Tue Oct 08, 2019 7:49 pm
by TheCatt
TheCatt wrote:
Cakedaddy wrote: You're running plex on an Atom CPU?
Yop. No complaints from anyone yet. I was concerned about performance, but it's worked fine.
Wouldn't believe the number of people I've served with it, too.

Server brands

Posted: Tue Oct 08, 2019 9:48 pm
by Leisher
TheCatt wrote: Wouldn't believe the number of people I've served with it, too.
Also what she said, and so forth.

Server brands

Posted: Wed Oct 09, 2019 10:56 am
by Cakedaddy
He's lobbing them in, and you guys are bunting. Very underwhelming.

Server brands

Posted: Wed Oct 09, 2019 11:03 am
by TheCatt
Cakedaddy wrote: He's lobbing them in, and you guys are bunting. Very underwhelming.
Mine may not be the fastest, but I make up for it in size.

Server brands

Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2019 12:04 am
by Cakedaddy
I decided to look at the AWS crap. I thought it was supposed to be easy? What exactly is it? Was going to do the free trial, but they wanted a credit card? For file sharing, there's a bucket and a separate client that I'm using for file transfers? I expected it to show up like a shared drive that I can drag and drop to/from or open the document directly from it. How do you handle version control? If I download the doc and use it, then my wife does the same while I'm still using it, who wins? Right now, she gets the "Open in real only" message so she knows I've got it open.

I get the impression that I have a windows server out there that I can load stuff on (just as if it was in my basement and I'm remoting in with VNC). Is that correct?

How do backups work? What are they doing to handle one of their physical servers going down and taking all the virtuals with it? Right now, my 'server' fails, I can pull the hard drive out and access it. I'm also mirroring the drives. With their server, I won't have that kind of access. They'll just rip the server out of production, install a new one, restore from backup (assuming there is one) and I'm back to whatever date was the last backup. Or is it more robust than that? Do they mirror servers so there is no loss in the event of a physical failure?

How is this different from me just trusting my current ISP to host my shit, who sucked at it because restoring from their backup meant a complete loss for me?



NAS: What's your fault tolerance on your NAS? Backing up files? Can it do RAID? Or do you not care about it's contents so you don't know?

Server brands

Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2019 8:34 am
by TheCatt
Cakedaddy wrote: NAS: What's your fault tolerance on your NAS? Backing up files? Can it do RAID? Or do you not care about it's contents so you don't know?
I used a RAID 5, everything I care about is backed up to the cloud. I need to change my backup situation though, cuz it's a bit janky. I use a $10/month service that doesn't support my NAS, so I sync between the NAS and a Windows box, then backup from the Windows box. Been looking at AWS glacier to replace it, but haven't had time to do anything.

Server brands

Posted: Sat Nov 16, 2019 6:00 pm
by Cakedaddy
All I kept reading here is "AWS yo. Servers be stupid." When I ask some serious questions about it, crickets! Honestly, with the learning curve involved with AWS and the expense (Just my email appears to cost about $500/year), a $2.5k server seems to be a no-brainer.

Server brands

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 10:11 am
by Leisher
Don't you get it Cake? Give them control of all your data so you have to pay them eternally.

What could go wrong?

Server brands

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 10:27 am
by TheCatt
Cakedaddy wrote: I get the impression that I have a windows server out there that I can load stuff on (just as if it was in my basement and I'm remoting in with VNC). Is that correct?
You can do this.
Cakedaddy wrote: How do backups work? What are they doing to handle one of their physical servers going down and taking all the virtuals with it? Right now, my 'server' fails, I can pull the hard drive out and access it. I'm also mirroring the drives. With their server, I won't have that kind of access.
You don't need to do any of this crap. The drives are already mirrored. You would just backup your EBS volumes using Amazon Backup.
Cakedaddy wrote: Do they mirror servers so there is no loss in the event of a physical failure?
It would take a pretty sever outage to lose data, but it could happen. Storing your backups/snapshots elsewhere (another zone) would reduce the chances. The "server" in terms of compute + RAM is meaningless. It's the volumes that matter.

I've been using AWS for 4+ years, with no data loss/issues. But the main things I love are that a) I don't need IT to do my job any more, and b) I can get the hardware/resources I want and need, which shift from project to project.

If you're just running a single server with a defined workload, there's very little upside.

Server brands

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 11:23 am
by Leisher
TheCatt wrote: It would take a pretty sever outage to lose data, but it could happen. Storing your backups/snapshots elsewhere (another zone) would reduce the chances.
This I agree with wholeheartedly.

Server brands

Posted: Tue Nov 19, 2019 1:29 pm
by Cakedaddy
Say I want to start storing documents out there. Less than 1GB. Not much at all. What service would I be looking for and how much would I expect to pay?

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Posted: Tue Nov 19, 2019 1:46 pm
by TheCatt
Cakedaddy wrote: Say I want to start storing documents out there. Less than 1GB. Not much at all. What service would I be looking for and how much would I expect to pay?
I would use S3 to store objects, and 1GB would cost $0.023 / month ($23/TB/Month).

S3 is not inherently mountable as a drive, but there are people make projects like this one: https://tntdrive.com/ to allow you to do it.

The problem is that AWS really solves bigger problems. S3 makes more sense as part of a larger solution. If I had < 2TB of documents + stuff, and only cared about them as files, I'd use DropBox.

Server brands

Posted: Tue Nov 19, 2019 2:23 pm
by Cakedaddy
You REALLY trust cloud sites, don't you? Or, you aren't storing anything important. I can't imagine storing my personal/financial documents on drop box.

Is there version control with S3? Can two people access the same document at the same time, or does it at least warn you that it's happening?

Server brands

Posted: Tue Nov 19, 2019 2:32 pm
by TheCatt
Cakedaddy wrote: Is there version control with S3?
Yes: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/la ... oning.html
Cakedaddy wrote: Can two people access the same document at the same time
Yes. Last write wins. There is no warning if two people make simultaneous edits though, because it's not a filesystem, it's an object store.

Server brands

Posted: Tue Nov 19, 2019 6:02 pm
by Cakedaddy
Last write wins, but with versioning, at least the other changes are still out there as their own (older) version, and now you manually combine them.

Is that just an S3 thing, or is all cloud storage like that? I have always assumed cloud storage was better than this. Assumed it was a mountable drive. Kind of like a server drive would be. Just remotely hosted.

Server brands

Posted: Tue Nov 19, 2019 8:53 pm
by thibodeaux
Cakedaddy wrote: All I kept reading here is "AWS yo. Servers be stupid." When I ask some serious questions about it, crickets! Honestly, with the learning curve involved with AWS and the expense (Just my email appears to cost about $500/year), a $2.5k server seems to be a no-brainer.
re backups, you don't need to backup stuff that's in S3. They have 11 9s of durability. Turn on versioning and stop worrying.

Server brands

Posted: Tue Nov 19, 2019 9:17 pm
by thibodeaux
And sorry for the drive-by posting. I’m pretty busy lately (teaching an AWS class in fact ...)

The thing is, if you expect the cloud to be the same thing you’re doing “on prem,” just virtual, you’ll probably be disappointed. It’s like Henry Ford and the faster horse.