A lot of activity has happened behind the scenes of BillsWrite because I have been preparing for a number of upgrades, which will be the basis for a bunch of new things to come. I'm not ready to announce the new stuff, but I thought it was time to update my earler systems overview.
Over the past few months I've been taking advantage of sales and ebay auctions to acquire hardware and a little software. This week I began an upgrade process that will last another week at least. The first part, my two primary workstations, are done.
The first one was my OS/2 system, my primary writing, browsing, and email system along with scheduling, notes and a lot of other stuff. The system went from a Duron 950 to 1.3 GHz, from 320MB to 512MB, and upgraded two 4GB SCSI drives by adding two 9GB SCSI drives and a second controller. It also moved into a larger, better ventilated box in anticipation of warmer weather to come. I added two exhaust fans, but will have to switch one of those to intake because the power supply is now not getting enough airflow.
The second system, my FreeBSD workstation where I manage this website, also moved to a new box, aded an 18GB SCSI drive to the two 9GB drives, and memory from 384MB to 512 MB. That has an added intake and exhaust fan and is ready for more drives if needed. This is where I download and burn new CDs, explore software and will move my scanning capability.
Currently under way is a major upgrade of my older NT workstation, which mostly was powered off unless I needed to run a specific MS only software package such as Pagemaker. The reason for this upgrade and a W2K install is my planned build of a TIVO like system based on an inexpensive TV capture card. This has been a long time plan, suddenly moved up because of the unexpected price drop in the capture card, which includes software. The NT system will move into a larger box with extra fans, upgrade from a Cyrix 300 with 128 MB to a Duron 950 with at least 256 MB. Also added will be two 18GB drives to the original pair of 4GB drives.
A few other systems will be added after that. One will be (finally) a common file and print server with a raid array of 18GB SCSI drives. A second system will be a web/search server. A third system, currently idle, has a 90GB raid array for file storage. Add in a new firewall and some other odds and ends to complete the whole upgraded environment.
There is still a lot to do, but you get the drift. Notice that none of these systems would qualify as SOA as the fastest CPU is an XP2200. They are all designed as 'fast enough' and upgradable if I need more speed, memory or disk capacity.
I have specifically moved to SCSI drives and away from IDE drives because of the poor lifetime of the IDE drives, as implicitly admitted by those manufacturers who only offer one year warranties. My advice on disk drives is to not ever buy one with less than three years warranty, and plan to back it up regularly. I'll have a separate article on backup options available soon.
Along with this activity, in my not so copious free time, is the finishing of a rebuilt room where all this office stuff will move when it is done. Right now, my systems are scattered in two rooms and disorganized to a serious degree. The rebuild has taken much longer than planned because it has involved replacing the floor and structure suffered in a fire before we bought the house. My being ill most of last summer did not help things.
I'm really looking forward to operating with an upgraded systems environment in a better organized office, with much more disk capacity. How long have I been at this? Well, I remember when I bought a 660 MB hard drive (yes, megabytes) for $2700 and thought I would never need another disk. Good thing I don't bet on the horses. :-}