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Balbir Thomas | 1 Mar 2009 04:30
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Re: RSI: Was VACANCY: Site Reliability Engineering

On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 5:13 AM, Richard Jones <rich <at> annexia.org> wrote:
>  http://www.reason.com/news/show/29944.htm

Thanks for that interesting link. I think i'll save myself the effort
of a dovrak typing tutor.

The kinesis keyboard is quite expensive though I have heard good things about
it. As a grad student I could only afford Microsoft ergonomic and have been
quite happy with it (almost 7-8 years now). No numbness and pain. It was 30$
then for the basic model. Though the palm rest could have been softer.
 Another thing that helped was a tip from a physiotherapist in trying to
 identify and eliminate causes for psychological stress while using
the mouse or keyboard. She pointed out that if one is too excited or tense,
the muscles tighten (for instance, when playing a game or using a
paint program),
which increases the chances of RSI and pain. (Oddly enough I am a total retard
when it comes to computer games and Paint programs, but that didn't
save me from being RSI prone)

regards
bt
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Dylan | 1 Mar 2009 12:48
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Current advice for HD purchase ...

Hi all,

What's the current best options for new HDs? Are any manufacturers to be 
avoided? I'm looking for up to 4 250 - 500G units for a new machine.

Cheers
Dylan
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Alain Williams | 1 Mar 2009 12:56
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Re: Current advice for HD purchase ...

On Sun, Mar 01, 2009 at 11:48:37AM +0000, Dylan wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> What's the current best options for new HDs? Are any manufacturers to be 
> avoided? I'm looking for up to 4 250 - 500G units for a new machine.

You don't say what technology or how you will use them: IDE, SATA, SCSI -- I assume SATA.

I would get 1 TB SATA disks and mirror them. Each such disk will set you
back by about #90 (inc VAT).

The Kernel MD works well and is simple to set up. Put LVM on top of that for
divvying out usable partitions.

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Dylan | 1 Mar 2009 12:59
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Re: Current advice for HD purchase ...

On Sunday 01 March 2009, Alain Williams wrote:
> On Sun, Mar 01, 2009 at 11:48:37AM +0000, Dylan wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > What's the current best options for new HDs? Are any manufacturers to be
> > avoided? I'm looking for up to 4 250 - 500G units for a new machine.
>
> You don't say what technology or how you will use them: IDE, SATA, SCSI --
> I assume SATA.

Ah indeed - SATA - and the machine will be used for general personal use.

>
> I would get 1 TB SATA disks and mirror them. Each such disk will set you
> back by about #90 (inc VAT).

Total machine budget is £250 ... so would be adding 2 now and 2 later.

Dx

>
> The Kernel MD works well and is simple to set up. Put LVM on top of that
> for divvying out usable partitions.
>
> --
> Alain Williams
> Linux/GNU Consultant - Mail systems, Web sites, Networking, Programmer, IT
> Lecturer. +44 (0) 787 668 0256  http://www.phcomp.co.uk/
> Parliament Hill Computers Ltd. Registration Information:
> http://www.phcomp.co.uk/contact.php Past chairman of UKUUG:
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Alain Williams | 1 Mar 2009 13:12
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Re: Current advice for HD purchase ...

On Sun, Mar 01, 2009 at 11:59:53AM +0000, Dylan wrote:
> On Sunday 01 March 2009, Alain Williams wrote:

> > I would get 1 TB SATA disks and mirror them. Each such disk will set you
> > back by about #90 (inc VAT).
> 
> Total machine budget is £250 ... so would be adding 2 now and 2 later.

Picking my local supplier ...
160GB ExcelStor -- #30
250GB ExcelStor -- #33
320GB Hitachi   -- #41.60
500GB Hitachi   -- #50
750GB Hitachi   -- #54
1TB   Hitachi   -- #90

So: you definitely get more bytes/pound as you go up, the sweet point seems
to be 750GB.

Picked in that order because that is how they appear on the page:

	http://www.rlsupplies.co.uk/rlstore/Product_Catalogue_3_5__SATA_II_70.html

When getting disks to mirror -- buy 2 different manufacturers, less likely to have both
fail in the same fortnight.

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j.roberts | 1 Mar 2009 13:15

Re: Current advice for HD purchase ...

Dylan wrote:
> What's the current best options for new HDs? Are any manufacturers to be 
> avoided? I'm looking for up to 4 250 - 500G units for a new machine.

Just at the moment be very careful with Seagate drives (7200.11 and BS), 
500, 750, 1000. Oh, and Maxstor.

We have had a batch with bad firmware which has been a complete PITA 
sorting out.

They are reported to occasionally die on startup. Has not happened to us 
but neither am I prepared to risk it.

MeJ

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Tethys | 1 Mar 2009 14:40
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Re: Current advice for HD purchase ...

--------

Dylan writes:

>What's the current best options for new HDs? Are any manufacturers to be 
>avoided? I'm looking for up to 4 250 - 500G units for a new machine.

Same advice as ever. Get different drives from different manufacturers,
and RAID them together as appropriate (I use RAID1, YMMV). I don't
really think there are particular manufacturers to avoid, but AFAIK,
Seagate are still the only major drive maker offering a 5 year
warranty, so that might be worth paying a bit extra for.

Tet
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Andy Millar | 1 Mar 2009 14:40
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Re: Current advice for HD purchase ...

On Sun, 2009-03-01 at 12:15 +0000, j.roberts wrote:
> Dylan wrote:
> > What's the current best options for new HDs? Are any manufacturers
> > to be avoided? I'm looking for up to 4 250 - 500G units for a new
> > machine.
>
> Just at the moment be very careful with Seagate drives (7200.11 and
> BS), 500, 750, 1000. Oh, and Maxstor.
>
> We have had a batch with bad firmware which has been a complete PITA
> sorting out.
>
> They are reported to occasionally die on startup. Has not happened to
> us but neither am I prepared to risk it.
>
> MeJ
>
>

I recently picked up 16 of the 1.5TB Seagate drives (with the new
firmware that apparently isn't affected by the bug) and they seem ok.

The performance seems relatively good (400MB/s sequential read, 250MB/s
sequential write) as well when pumped through a 3ware 9650SE.

- Andy

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Andrew Davies | 1 Mar 2009 14:50

Re: Current advice for HD purchase ...

Tethys wrote:
> --------
>
> Dylan writes:
>
>   
>> What's the current best options for new HDs? Are any manufacturers to be 
>> avoided? I'm looking for up to 4 250 - 500G units for a new machine.
>>     
>
> Same advice as ever. Get different drives from different manufacturers,
> and RAID them together as appropriate (I use RAID1, YMMV). I don't
> really think there are particular manufacturers to avoid, but AFAIK,
> Seagate are still the only major drive maker offering a 5 year
> warranty, so that might be worth paying a bit extra for.
>
> Tet
>   
5 years on Retail and Enterprise, 3 years on OEM:-
http://www.mobile-computing-news.co.uk/tag/seagate-5-year-warranty

WD Green Power drives may have issues:-
http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=51401
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Nix | 1 Mar 2009 16:55
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Re: RSI: Was VACANCY: Site Reliability Engineering

On 28 Feb 2009, Tim Porter stated:

> Yeah the shape of the whole keyboard is something that I think would
> make a difference, unfortunately at least on my laptop, that's a bit
> tricky.

Yeah, RSI pretty much rules out using laptops / netbooks on the move for
anything involving much typing. Bendy keyboards just don't work with
non-bendy screens.

I suspect we'll have to wait until they get roll-up screens :)

> At the end of the day, its less distance to move your fingers around,
> the middle row on my keyboard reads "AOEUIDHTNS" and I'm informed there
> are about 50k words that can be written with just that. I can't say I've

What matters isn't the raw number of words you can write with it: it's
whether *common* words can be written with it. Word frequencies in
natural language text follow a power law, so if you can write the most
common ones without moving away it'll make a huge difference; if you can
write 50k really uncommon ones but only 1/10th of the common ones,
that's almost worthless.

The Maltron home row reads ANISF DTHOR.

Let's look at the top hundred words in the Oxford English Corpus,
constituting 50% of all the words in the Corpus (by count):

"the be to of and a in that have I it for not on with he as you do at
this but his by from they we say her she or an will my one all would
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