Posts by Lusty 1686 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Jun 2009
It looks like you're right, although the one in the Pro looked to me just like a regular PCIe slot but it's too short for a x4 connector (I thought it was a x2). It could be that they have just put 2 lanes on either side to keep the size down but either way it's different. I suspect that anyone buying this won't be bothered by expensive flash, after all the equivalent HP part is €1400 for a 410GB flash drive (FusionIO PCIe).
It might show up as a logical drive but that doesn't mean it's a "disk". This is much closer to a FusionIO board than a disk which is why Apple specked it. The lack of understanding on this forum is because PC people don't understand the difference and so assume an SSD is comparable storage which it is most certainly not. Transfer speed is higher, latency lower and IOPS higher than SSD. This also has the knock on effect that less memory is required and even less CPU since it's not locked in a wait state all the time.
"The old Mac Pros let you have internal raid arrays"
But those were using SAS which maxed out at 6Gbps while the Pro has 6 Thunderbolt 2 ports on the back so performance will be vastly superior in every way. The old RAID had a controller in the way while the Thunderbolt is direct to the CPU so potentially lower latency.
"Some of us bought Mac Pros to fill them with hard disks (all 4 of my bays are full + have 2 DVD writers). The new Mac Pro will not let you upgrade either the boot hard drive or the memory."
What you appear to have missed though is that even if you used 16Gbps FC to add disk to the old one it would not have been as fast as using the full Thunderbolt capability in the new Pro. Since you appear to have added disk internally probably with SCSI or SAS that would suggest you either don't understand disk performance or just needed capacity. In either case a NAS is the modern way to achieve what you have done while a SAN would be the way to achieve high performance if you decide you need that. Nobody with up to date knowledge would think of upgrading a machine in this class with internal drives for anything other than system disk which is upgradable on the Pro. Using Thunderbolt you could even add external PCI flash if you wanted to.
Solid state disk. These come with drive electronics which the PCI flash doesn't require and is therefore a different component. It doesn't connect to the disk system it connects direct to the CPU via the PCI bus at far greater speed than SAS can manage and therefore also could offer higher IOPS.
"safer and more robust than pretty much anything more "current""
There is also FTPS which predates SFTP by a few years while using the actual FTP protocol and daemons. Of course, the protocol isn't what the problem was here, it was a software bug leading to rights escalation and so could just as easily affect SCP/SFTP. It's less likely that anyone would find the bugs in the FTP/S daemon these days when compared to SFTP due to lower usage but if someone wants your system there is usually a way.
"should be living on the DMZ"
Should be on A DMZ, not THE DMZ. Why should my FTP server be anywhere near the web server or mail server? Modern firewall design allows individual dirty networks for services so why only have a single big dirty network playground for hackers? The fewer systems they can access from the compromised one the less likely it is they will spread to the internal networks.
I also hate the term DMZ since the dirtiest network after internet is often the internal client one, and DMZ sits next to the internal networks rather than between them and internet these days so DMZ is very outdated.
"When you start getting into large data sets its quicker to recall the tape offsite than to wait for the data to be replicated from offsite even with dedicated links and networks . Most large enterprises use disk to disk to tape ."
Most large enterprises use tape out of tradition and fear rather than necessity. Also because many admins seem to believe that a backup tape is some kind of archive - it's not.
When you're working with large data sets it's actually quicker to recall from the online snapshot in a highly resilient and redundant SAN than it is to recall a tape even from the same room. Just because data and recovery points replicate off site does not mean they cease to be available in the primary site so no WAN access is necessary to recover data within the backup system.
Disaster recovery is a different matter altogether. If there is a disaster then you won't be operating from the same data centre anyway and so as I said the remote copy would be your new local copy. In this scenario, with SAN boot or virtualisation you just switch on the systems at the remote site and they already have their data. No need for "bare metal recovery" or streaming from tapes, you just switch on and smile at your boss.
All of this assumes you have a second data centre of course, but if you don't then online disk based backup is rather less useful and tape may be the better option.
Not if you know anything about disk based backup it doesn't. You seem to be under the impression that disk based backup works even remotely like tape based backup. Restores on a proper system are immediate because you restore from the local recovery point. Only in disaster recovery would you need to use the remote copy, and then it is in fact the local copy.
I'd agree, as a virtual SAN the HP one is pretty much right. Pricing starts at free with all the Gen8 servers and it can scale very well if necessary by adding real hardware SANs into the mix.
Personally I think Microsoft will win this one within a few years. Hyper-V is spanking VMware at the moment and they have been busy adding storage features to Server 2012/R2 while also beginning the path to cloud integration with Azure and StorSimple. I'll be amazed if Windows Server v.next doesn't roll a lot of this in to allow scaleable storage on every Hyper-V node with automated cloud archiving and migration. If they pull it off they will probably win by default for the same reason they have with Hyper-V - admins are lazy and it's easier to just use what you've got licences. The product doesn't even have to be better, just look at Hyper-V!
Quite right. Oracle are popular for the same reason Cisco are popular - the qualified people are in charge of which product to buy and they buy what they know. Now that alternatives are as good or better for many uses that is beginning to change as the cost can't be justified as easily. Oracle may always be better for very specific workloads but that won't be sufficient to keep them afloat what all the other workloads are moved to alternatives.
You're probably also one of those people who zooms in on photos to test the Retina display...
I can definitely tell the difference between old iPad and retina iPad as well as MBP and rMBP when displaying photos and can honestly say that more dots would be better. Currently neither device is even close to what my DSLR outputs, or even my iPhone camera, and I am sure the photos would look better for it whether I can see the dots or not.
A good example I have is a photo of a marina. Without the Retina display some of the yacht rigging is invisible and some has jagged edges. With one, more of the rigging is visible and it is smooth edged. With a 4K resolution I would expect all of the rigging to be shown smoothly regardless of distance. Whether you can see the difference or not isn't important, it's whether there are enough people who need/want the device who can see the difference and are willing to pay for it.
As for the rumour, I'd be surprised if that resolution is used as it's just too different, forcing a change in form factor which is rare for Apple.
"What I do not see yet is which cloud this will sit in"
The Azure/Office 365 EU cloud I'd imagine in Ireland and Netherlands which, given that it's not sensitive data will be absolutely fine and (apparently) not subject to the Patriot Act. All this info is on the MS website if you choose to read it, the solution is actually pretty good now albeit still with a few limitations. The data centre will certainly not be in England (or UK) though, they don't have one which has been publicly disclosed for the cloud here and given how specific the documentation is I doubt they have an undisclosed cloud DC here either. There's an outside chance they might add an Azure pod to one of the Microsoft Corp DCs just for government of course, MS love to win government contracts one way or another :)
"If I were Apple? It's time for serious price cuts to the 5C"
Then thank goodness you are not Apple, since you don't understand their business at all. What people often seem to ignore is that computers and other technology really has not gotten cheaper over the last decade, it's actually quality dropping causing price cuts. Look at the MacBook range, cost is similar to a decent PC a decade ago and quality is excelent with attention to engineering where it counts (battery life a good example). Other vendors have laptops of this quality and they all cost similar. Now look at your "free" android phone and tell me if it's as good as a top end Samsung from last year. It's not, it's a worse phone in every respect and yet you're expecting Apple to sell last years quality model for less just because they have a better one out. Apple really don't need the business that badly, and the only way they would go bankrupt is if they race to the bottom with HTC etc. or if product quality and innovation stop - which is what killed RIM rather than price since if you'll recall RIM did have cheap crappy phones.
"Can't you nazis get it through your heads - it's my human system and if I want to fuck it up that's my choice."
Do it in a cupboard and we'll leave you alone. Do it next to us and we will bother you about it. That doesn't make us Nazis, that just means we don't like what you're doing. I wouldn't like you sitting next to me if you shit your pants so why would I like you blowing your crap in my face?
Drinking alcohol sensibly is not the same as this since none of the alcohol ends up near other people. A drunk pissing on your desk is more like what;s happening here. There may not be alcohol in it but I still don't want it anywhere near me...
You mean typing as a geek who failed to implement what management wanted and then had to bodge something to save face. The problem is that most geeks have zero clue how a business works, and the vast majority think that lowering cost is always a good thing which often leads to underspeccing a solution which leads to failure when spending a little more would have given enormous business value.
The reason why people are outsourcing (what this article and the above comments are actually about) is because of geeks who are hard to work with. Many companies I speak to prefer the uptime record of Azure to having whiney geeks in their building who hold up projects.
Of course the reason I had to clarify that this is about outsourcing is because most of the geeks writing and reading the register have no idea what a cloud is. It's perfectly possible to have a cloud strategy with no outsourcing. It's perfectly possible to have a cloud strategy without having equipment outside your building. NIST have written and published a very clear definition of cloud which the main vendors adhere to. If a few more people read this (I'm looking at you Reg hacks) then there would be a lot more understanding instead of BS around cloud technology.
@Coconnor55 I'm curious, is the elastic band there because it's easy, because the design was poor, or because 3D printing couldn't produce something with a robust closure mechanism?
I don't mean offense at the "design was poor" btw I'm just curious about 3D printing and have been told it has many and varied downsides.
@Nuke realistically using a DSLR with a hole to the outside world will nadger the sensor quickly enough with dust and muck that keeping interchangeable lenses may not be viable for long. Many photography/camera books explain this as the sensor becomes charged in use and therefore sucks crap towards it. You had a good point though.
IBM do use these patents. They use them to make money in order to fund research and development into new products and ideas. They hold many patents for disk drives and CPU production - the microdrive came from their research into quantum storage. The research failed but they used what they learned to make a traditional drive platter fit into a CF slot. IBM do this all the time, and that is their business model.
Patent trolls on the other hand, do no new research and charge for patents which they often bought in. IBM have probably done more for the industry than any other single company so if they want to profit from their work I say let them as long as they are genuine claims.
That's the last thing you want before an IPO. One of the few companies that wouldn't actually need staff to remain profitable in the foreseeable future taking you to court for patent infringment. To be fair to IBM they did help to crush the wind out of Santa Cruz Operation so it's not like they are usually the evil ones.
I'd imagine this would come down to how long Big Blue have ignored the infringements and whether they waited for the money to roll in. If they didn't defend for several years previous it could go either way.
I actually disagree with this. In my experience on networking and storage it's entirely possible for things to go slower than the lowest common denominator. For instance if you misconfigure link aggregation of two GbE NICs, it's possible and probable that you'll get nowhere near 1GbE from it due to flip floppery in the network yet the slowest component might still be 1GbE.
The article was great though, if only more people would take note of the lessons.
"I do not know VMware Snapshots"
Then you'd probably be best not commenting on them. VMware snapshots are the work of the devil and should never be kept beyond 24 hours unless something really catastrophic makes removal impossible.
VMware snapshots are backward looking, and designed to be discarded when testing is complete, so the new data is put in a separate place which must be checked prior to accessing the original data. Two snapshots and you check two places. SAN generally uses forward looking snaps where new data "replaces" the old data in the original image so performance is generally unaffected until you perform a restore.
Yes, snapshots do have a place in backup, just not VMware ones. It's also arguable that you want your data out on the SAN as well rather than in a VMDK. Encapulation isn't always a good thing, and large data sets are more manageable using SAN tools directly on many SANs. NetApp is the poster child for this, where any VSS application such as Exchange or SQL lives on the SAN and is backed up directly and separately to the VM which just houses software.
I agree, the problem is only so large because so much government dealings are "secret". Given we elected them, realistically the vast majority of what these people say in meetings should be recorded and made public. Obviously there are exceptions for genuine security reasons, but everything else should be completely on the record and publicly available.
"you cant do that with some recent devices...particularly fruity firm devices - the iPad and Macbook Air spring to mind here."
And you can't fit that old upgradeable laptop through a gap 8mm wide. Consumers have voted with their feet, and although several people are very bitter that they are not on the winning side, that doesn't change the fact that the rest of us voted for portability.
Yes, your shitty old laptop is more usable now you fitted an SSD, but my iPad Air is more usable because I have it with me. Win for the iPad.
Yes, your shitty old laptop is upgradeable so you can keep on flogging that dead horse, but my MacBook Air doesn't cause permanent damage to my back while carrying it in a bag around London.
Yes, you may be able to replace your old battery, but I don't even need to carry the power supply because my modern devices last 12 hours with constant use while yours, even with your new battery and hours of cocking around with settings and stopping services, probably lasts "up to 4 hours" which we all know means 2 hours of actually using it.
No I can't upgrade my stuff, but it's so much nicer that I'm not bothered by that at all and will continue to buy the new versions while selling the old ones for slightly less than I paid a couple of years later - I lost around £100/year on the old iPad which works out at pennies per hour of usage. You may think I hate the environment, but in that time you've probably binned a lot more kit than I have!
Oh I didn't realise we define easy as 10 seconds now. Not sure how you get a battery delivered in 10 seconds though, I'd imagine in reality the whole process is probably similar in time to the Apple process, and a quality battery from the phone vendor is probably similar money too. The difference being that Apple devices look nice and pack more into the case because they don't have a door and a big plastic battery to accommodate.
"I've never bought a landfill phone without a replaceable battery"
Are there any phones available without replaceable batteries? I feel you're trying to make a point about Apple, but since everyone with an IQ over 4 (ie most Apple users according to Reg commentard fandroids like yourself) knows that iPhone batteries are easily replaceable your point seems to be that your IQ is less than this :/
@AC When I say gifted I mean that it wasn't written by the open source community but was a commercial product to which the source was opened when it failed commercially. Libre Office may be OK for many people, but it's far from being on a par with Office 2003 and certainly not up to writing large documents. My experience is based on continual use of Linux in various forms over the last 17 years. Yes you're right it's nice to have a nice text editor, but having 200 variations of a text editor and one very poor copy of Visio isn't helping the platform gain users on the desktop. All I'm saying is that it's time we either accept that Linux will never catch on for mainstream desktop use, or some of the open source coders will need to start coding things for other people to use instead of writing a new GUI or text editor every couple of months.
I'm not bashing Linux, I'm not bashing the coders. All I'm saying is that the coders fascination with installers, GUIs and text editors is doing more harm than good in terms of adoption rate. I say these things not because I dislike Linux but because I want it to succeed. I also say these things because I know that if some of these talented coders set about trying to fix the actual problems they would have it cracked in a matter of months.
@AC your comment is the opposite of why Apple are the top of this game. There are too many geeks who think whacking in a bigger screen and disk and just making it a few mm thicker are a good idea. This is the sort of mentality that made it so shocking that Apple brought out the MacBook Air and then the iPhone and the iPad - in every case they removed the extra crap that a portable device doesn't need to make a device that was portable enough that people actually started taking the devices with them and using them. You want a bigger device, buy a desktop. You want something portable, deal with less disk space :)
"Brilliant idea, clearly just at v0.5, but upgradeable"
Yeah genius. Just at the time the whole industry is moving away from this sort of thing. PCs are dying on their ass and laptops are getting so small there's no room for even a DIMM module. I agree that lots of geeks like this sort of thing, and the downvotes I'll get for this will prove that Reg readers think this is a winner. A good business model though? I really strongly doubt it.
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