[Info-vax] SBB's

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2013-01-02 07:52:56 +0000, Jan-Erik Soderholm said:

> Phillip Helbig---undress to reply wrote 2013-01-02 05:00:
>> 
>> I started out with VMS 20 years ago.  My DISK$USER has now grown to 9
>> GB, hence replacing it with an 18-GB disk.  I initialized it with enough
>> headers and could grow it to 36 MB or even 72 if necessary.  I'm 48, so
>> I'm thinking that I won't reach 36 MB before I die.  :-|  However, I
>> moved from film to digital photography a few years ago (and even before
>> that towards the end of my film photography got the negatives scanned)
>> and like to put my photographs on disk.  I have them on CD or DVD but it
>> is more convenient to have them on disk.  Also, with a shadow set where
>> I can replace members when they fail, this might be more robust than CD
>> or DVD.  (One hears that one should copy them every few years, but if
>> something has already gone bad, then this won't help in such a case,
>> though it might prevent further loss.)  I'm now at 18 GB for this disk,
>> but 72 GB  within a few years is not at all unrealistic.  Thus, such
>> disks would find a good home here and will hopefully see many years of
>> service!
>> 
> 
> Now, as much as I low VMS, I (only) use VMS for things that VMS does well.
> Acting as a repository for the families files (sound, music, digital
> pictures and such) is *not* one of those, IMHO.

Careful there Jan-Erik, you might just join me as the newest member of 
the Club of the Not Nice (Anymore).  Yes, there are far better 
operating system choices for SOHO uses and for multimedia and as file 
servers, but Phillip has been quite clear and entirely indefatigable 
with his desire to apply OpenVMS for SOHO use.  To his enviable credit, 
Phillip has also successfully outsourced his OpenVMS IT escalation 
processes to c.o.v., which means there are some disincentives around 
conducting a software or hardware migration.

Given I'm installing terabyte-sized disks and batches of eight and 
twelve terabyte RAID arrays and toaster-sized servers are arriving with 
a pair of terabyte disk and RAID in the box and quarter- and 
half-terabyte SSDs are becoming common, discussing 18 gigabyte and 72 
gigabyte rotating-rust disks seems just a little quaint.  But I digress.

> I have two Netgear ReadyNAS boxes...

Synology <http://www.synology.com/> is also gonzo-capable (you can load 
apps onto the NAS), and quite popular.  There's also the FreeNAS 
<http://www.freenas.org> project.  HP and others have NAS offerings 
here, too.  Or given a very low budget, loading up one of the BSD 
distros on a spare x86 or Alpha box, and serving storage from there.

There is, unfortunately, no good NAS client for OpenVMS.  AFAIK, NFS is 
your sole choice.  Related: <http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/1211>  
Most other operating systems have several clients capable of accessing 
common NAS devices, and either integrated or available.

ps: Phillip, about those DE500 NICs from that other IT-support thread — 
see the FAQ <http://www.hoffmanlabs.com/vmsfaq> for details on 
differentiating the DE500 variants without pulling the card and 
<http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/907> for speeds and duplex.  No, I 
wouldn't try juggling those settings with the cluster lit and running.  
While that switch-over usually does work, cheap switches are cheap, and 
managed switches can be demented, and clustering at its defaults is 
fairly unforgiving about network disconnections, and your disks are 
slow for HBVS rebuilds, and you may need to hot-plug the NIC to get the 
switch to renegotitate settings.  Put another way, shut down, sort out 
the settings, and reboot.




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