Category: hardware

Synology Hybrid RAID Expansion Begins…

Synology upgrade begins

This is actually my first go at using this little trick. I only noticed it a few years ago.  i haven’t had a need to use it.  Until now.  i am so delighted that Synology continues to innovate.  Every time i deploy a Synology, it has even more functionality. i am not getting paid for this, honest endorsement.   I only wish they made direct attached storage or SANs.  I do not mean to imply that i have a problem with NAS.

I am not only upgrading the capacity, but the throughput and seek times as well.  With dual drive protection, it will be a few redundancy passes before i see any additional storage and probably even longer before i will see much more performance.  it will be an interesting project. The process so far has been simple. i just deactivated the outgoing drive and replaced it with the new bigger faster drive.  Once that is done, you repair the volume with the new disk and wait.  And wait.  Eventually do it all again. And again.

hardware, Recreation, technology, Travel

Hello Internet, meet Zapp Brannigan my new ride!

| be3n

Zapp Brannigan - Tesla App

After my last car was destroyed, I knew i wanted an electric car.  After extensive research and soooo much driving around to check out cars.  I am very excited to announce my Model 3 that i have named Zapp Brannigan in honor of its electric power and my favorite cartoon.  I cannot wait until i can drive to visit my friends and family again.

Zapp Brannigan - be3n driving his new Tesla Model 3Zapp Brannigan - be3n's new car

hardware, technology, Travel

Saying farewell to a gallant steed!

| be3n

More than 5 years ago, i bought this car after its kin had served me well.  This one did me proper as well, not one major problem. . .

goodbye elantra - 1 - Hello Elantra

Until two weeks ago, this happened on the 101.

The damage didn’t seem that bad.  i tied my bumper up and drove it away. my neck was a bit stiff.

Battle Damage

After some work, the true extent of the damage was revealed.

Battle Damage CloseBattle Damage BareFinal GoodbyeI hope you live again in salvage
I didn’t expect my car to be totaled so i had left quite a bit of stuff inside.  I made short work clearing it out.  (made shorter by this timelapse)

3D Printing, art, Culture, hardware, technology

Cartesian Geometry is for suckers!

| be3n

be3n unboxing monoprice delta pro

I am very thankful for an early Thanksgiving toy!  It’s a Monoprice Delta Pro!  (originally $1400, they have dropped a few times and are now on sale for $550. Delta printers are so cool.  They do not move at all like traditional 3D printers. i can watch mine all day.  you can too, the live cam is back!

Delta Printerhttps://printer.be3n.com

It was a snap to get it setup. The opposite experience of my Maker Select V2. Oh i love the auto bed leveling. There is no official Cura profile for the Delta Pro, so i had to throw one together from the Delta Mini and the specs.  I did have a few failures.  I bought some inferior filament and it would continually get clogged. After switching to the good stuff, my prints were beautiful.  Then i started to play with the speed rate options.

S.S. Cheap rainbow filamentSpeed Printing with Delta Pro
That articulated slug is a great example.  you can see the first layer is a bit sloppier on the head segment compared with the other segments. I turned the speed rate up to 130%  I’m not sure exactly what that does, because it certainly doesn’t have that profound of an effect on the print speed.  but if you raise it high enough it gets very sloppy.  i shaved about 30% of the time for a print by upping the speed rate to 200% but the first few layers had much more serious flaws than the slug. On the whole it wasn’t a bad speed print.  I’m sure i can improve it with tweaks.

Status update:

Drobo Speed Test

My Drobo has been acting up since last week.  I couldn’t get speeds over 40MB/sec  for a while i wasn’t seeing anything faster than 25MB/sec.  I read all the forums and i was on deadline to return some customer data.  I put hours into this only to get to 35MB/sec.  The final answer was actually a stupid one i read in a forum but didn’t put much stock in.  My favorite part of USB-C is that it doesn’t matter which way you plug it in.  At least that is what i thought.  Turns out that with some Drobo 5c it does matter.  After flipping the port, i’m back to useful speeds. It’s even mentioned in the Drobo 5c FAQ.

hardware, Soapbox, Software, technology

I am joining the largest super computer in the world to help fight COVID-19!

| be3n

The amazing people behind Folding@home have set their sights on COVID-19.  Their efforts are to better understand how the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 can be targeted with small molecule and antibody therapeutics.  Got any computers that aren’t doing anything?  join up.

folding@home status panel

The Mac client needs work to support GPUs, but my stats are rising!