The "New Gear/Willy Waving" thread

jonneymendoza · 6 Mar 2015 at 06:35

An Exception said:
I Haven't finished the setup yet so wires are a little messy, but basically it will consist of the following.
16 HDD's & SSD's + Peripherals + Uninterrupted Power Supply + GPS Tracker in wooden box. GPS tracker will text me co-ordinates if box moves beyond specified radius. Box will be locked with thick metal chain and a number combination padlock. Box + contents should be too heavy for one person to carry.

Box is soundproofed and placed 6 meters from computer so it is out of the way. All devices are connected to computer over a single thunderbolt cable.

Hiya. Is that some kind of NAS box?

An Exception · 6 Mar 2015 at 07:27

If anything it's a DAS box. It's a box that has storage + Uninterrupted Power supply and all my peripherals. The stuff I don't want on my desk clogging up USB ports etc. and looking messy with power bricks/cables laying around and making noise.

Phal · 6 Mar 2015 at 07:30

jonneymendoza said:
Hiya. Is that some kind of NAS box?

It's a box containing 2 NAS boxes

Or Time Machines since Apple doesn't call anything the same name as anyone else lol

Those temps look pretty good but I forgot they were all SSDs in there so that would explain the good temps despite being in a big insulated box

I've often wondered about the 180mm macro but the sharpness doesn't look as good as the 100mm which puts me off a bit.

An Exception · 6 Mar 2015 at 07:34

Phal said:
It's a box containing 2 NAS boxes Or Time Machines since Apple doesn't call anything the same name as anyone else lol

Those temps look pretty good but I forgot they were all SSDs in there so that would explain the good temps despite being in a big insulated box

It has two thunderbolt 2 direct attached enclosures. One enclosure has 4x 1tb SSD's, the other HDD storage. The rest of the hard drives are 2.5" and run off the USB bus, and are located underneath the enclosures.
It then has USB extensions on the lid of the box so I can plug SD cards and HDD's in away from my desk. All data then travels to computer over thunderbolt 2.

An Exception · 6 Mar 2015 at 07:44

Phal said:
Apple doesn't call anything the same name as anyone else lol

Nothing I've tried works as well as time machine. It's set and forget simple but keeps everything I need safe. If I need to recover my system or a file/folder, it's also very simple/elegant.

413x · 6 Mar 2015 at 07:51

Phal said:
It's a box containing 2 NAS boxes Or Time Machines since Apple doesn't call anything the same name as anyone else lol

Those temps look pretty good but I forgot they were all SSDs in there so that would explain the good temps despite being in a big insulated box

I've often wondered about the 180mm macro but the sharpness doesn't look as good as the 100mm which puts me off a bit.

Oh really. I had read it was sharper? But that was off Ken Rockwell site :-\

Yeah it is that lens ray. Got wires crossed when said it isn't macro but think you were referring to 200

NickK · 6 Mar 2015 at 08:02

Good you went for RAID1 and RAID0 arrays. I had a 1.2TB RAID5 array back in the day with UPS - lost the whole lot in one go. The UPS I had lasted about 7-12 minutes (it was a headless athlon full-sized linux box).

My golden rule for NAS drives now is that I need to be able to read the entire disk if it's pulled from the drive and connected directly to the computer. RAID1 is better for doing that than RAID5.

For the RAID1 you could encrypt the data (as the blocks are mirrored) and speed of storage isn't the goal. Leaving the RAID0 as unencrypted. It would provide some additional security.

I take it the battery backup of the tracker is not the UPS?

An Exception · 6 Mar 2015 at 08:56

NickK said:
Good you went for RAID1 and RAID0 arrays. I had a 1.2TB RAID5 array back in the day with UPS - lost the whole lot in one go. The UPS I had lasted about 7-12 minutes (it was a headless athlon full-sized linux box).

My golden rule for NAS drives now is that I need to be able to read the entire disk if it's pulled from the drive and connected directly to the computer. RAID1 is better for doing that than RAID5.

For the RAID1 you could encrypt the data (as the blocks are mirrored) and speed of storage isn't the goal. Leaving the RAID0 as unencrypted. It would provide some additional security.

I take it the battery backup of the tracker is not the UPS?

Yeh I'm not a fan of raid 5. Sorry you lost your data, it must have been a horrible experience. I used to have one and when I had a few power cut's, each time it happened the raid 5 would rebuild and take a few days. All the time I would be biting my nails and the computer would be slow as hell.
You also don't know if you actually have 'parity' unless you verify it periodically, which takes allot of time. Apparently it's not unusual for raid 5's not to be able to rebuild due to disk errors these days as drives are so big.
Also these are software raid so they are enclosure independent. I can just plug the drives into my computer via USB and it will be able to read either the raid 0 or raid 5.

Regarding the UPS, the whole system (like HDD's, screen, everything) idles around 108 watts. When power cut's out the screen dims and power goes to 90 watts, then after a minute the screen turns off and power goes to around 50/60 watts. UPS should last around 25/30 mins. The system will shut itself down when the battery get's to a certain level. The main reason I have a UPS is because SSD's that don't have a special capacitor (usually found in enterprise SSD's), can brick themselves entirely in a power cut. I had an Samsung 830 pro do this.

The GPS charges via the UPS but has it's own battery that lasts 3 months.

D.P. · 6 Mar 2015 at 09:54

al4x said:
I thought only nikon had that!

Maybe you are thinking of the Nikon 300mm f/2.0, now that is a sweet frigging lens

Phal · 6 Mar 2015 at 10:03

al4x said:
Oh really. I had read it was sharper? But that was off Ken Rockwell site :-\

Yeah it is that lens ray. Got wires crossed when said it isn't macro but think you were referring to 200

The DxOmark sharpness scores definitely favour the 100mm F2.8L but it's also a much newer lens if I remember correctly.

The mpe 65 interests me too but range would limit me I think with the way I use my 100mm and I quite like using my 200-400mm with a 25mm tube for Butterflies and Dragonflies

jonneymendoza · 6 Mar 2015 at 10:16

An Exception said:
If anything it's a DAS box. It's a box that has storage + Uninterrupted Power supply and all my peripherals. The stuff I don't want on my desk clogging up USB ports etc. and looking messy with power bricks/cables laying around and making noise.

do u use it to backup and archive all your photos?

gt_junkie · 6 Mar 2015 at 10:31

Luke said:
I've had a 2nd hand splurge (wow, that sounds so wrong!) on lenses.
I've picked up a Canon 300mm f/4

So skint, so very skint...

Used to have one of those - probably my favourite lens ever! Good handling, fast focussing and razor sharp wide open... IS was a bit noisy and only offered a stop or so but that was it for negatives.

Enjoy!

An Exception · 6 Mar 2015 at 12:49

New work table arrived today.

Luke · 6 Mar 2015 at 12:53

gt_junkie said:
Used to have one of those - probably my favourite lens ever! Good handling, fast focussing and razor sharp wide open... IS was a bit noisy and only offered a stop or so but that was it for negatives.

Enjoy!

I've not used it much at all, but really hope to as the weather improves.
This is the first decent shot I got using it which isn't that impressive but is a very heavy crop as it was a long way away!

IC7D3717

JDR82 · 6 Mar 2015 at 13:42

An Exception said:
New work table arrived today.

Nice, I need a new desk but can never decide on one always spot something else, also my cat likes to smack things off of tables and shelves, the office door is kept firmly closed

An Exception · 6 Mar 2015 at 14:43

The desk it replaced was a £25 Ikea desk made of compressed cardboard. My cat does that to, get's a little annoying at times..

JDR82 · 6 Mar 2015 at 15:24

Random coincidence, the desk I'm looking to replace was a basic Ikea computer desk bought cheaply in haste while deciding on something more permanent.

GTRacer · 7 Mar 2015 at 10:40

Phase one of my move to full frame has begun (sticking with Nikon):

Traded in my Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera + Metabones Speedbooster + cash for it (actually made a profit on the camera haha). Will order a D750 in the next month or so. Lens is amazing.

Above&Beyond · 7 Mar 2015 at 17:41

You trade it at MPB?

Phal · 7 Mar 2015 at 17:42

Not really a new purchase since I bought it last summer but I spent a fair bit of today using my Reikan Focal to calibrate lenses for my 7d2. I've had the 7d2 since November or something so I figured it was about time I got things calibrated and I remembered getting an email when they updated Focal to work with the 7d2.

What they didn't mention in the email was that this version of Focal that supported the 7d2 wasn't able to remotely control your camera! This means I had to sit there and set -20, -10, 0, +10, +20 and then any other adjustments it wanted to test before I got my outcome lol.

The 100 F2.8L was easy since it's a prime so that was quite but zooms need to be done at the wide end and the tele end and my 200-400 has to be done with and without the 1.4x extender engaged at the wide end and tele end so it was a pain in the ass!

Hopefully it was worth it since I went out after and a flirty Kestrel was hunting along the seafront so I got some awesome shots which are (hopefully) nice and sharp