I received all the crap I ordered from ebay over the last week. So my projects were:

1- 1U IBM netfinity to replace my old login box

2- D1000 jbod drive array to replace my old 711 Multipack

3- Replace my Fileserver with a rackmountable solution

Here is how it played out this week:

1- Got the Netfinity fine, looks like it turns on fine. BUT freakin IBM and its proprietary crap. it uses something called Cable Chaining Technology (C2T) for future reference. So I need to buy a converter to be able to hook up a monitor,keyboard, and mouse to this thing. I can’t really blame the ebay seller because IBM doesn’t ship this with the systems by default. So This whole project is stalled until I get the “break-out” cable from IBM.

2- D1000 came, and it was totally screwed up. I did get a suspiciously good price, and now I see why. The controller board didn’t even plug into the backplane. Plastic was broken all over the place, and the cover didn’t even want to stay on. There was a big fat “SCRAP” sticker on the front of it. Doesn’t look good. The rack-option was made of metal and it was contorted around the body of the case. As I am the laziest person in the world when it comes to mailing things, I figure I’ll try and fix this before I pursue a return. Meanwhile, I need a differential controller and a drive to plug into this thing. I previously thought my Multipack drives would work. And they would, except they are full-height and wont fit correctly. So I call up Workstation.net (GREAT parts place) and overnighted stuff I needed. Back to the D1000. I pull out my vise grips and bend the rack kit back in to shape so I can remove the D1000. I take it all a part, and see why the controller isn’t plugging in. Some pins on the backplane are bent, and it looks like the previous owner just tried to force the controller in harder to no avail. So I bent everything back into place, and coaxed the controller in there correctly. Which finally did go in. I plugged in all the other parts, and all looked good. plugged in an old sun drive, just to see if it powered up. Plugged everything in, and powered up, and wonder of wonders, everything looked like it powered up good. Super-glued the front on, and looks to be holding. It’ll be workable, and worth the price I paid. Another funny thing, is that it had an Enron sticker on it :)

3- Still need to get a rackmountable case for my Gateway. Looked at the motherboard, and it is a standard ATX motherboard. So I was thinkin. My Alienware workstation has a rackmountable case. So I thought about switchin. Problem was it Alienware has a dual-Xeon setup, and needs a power supply that has some extra cables (which my gateway doesn’t have) The sizes were different so I couldn’t switch around the power supplies. So I’m stuck with either getting a powersupply for the gateway that will fit a dual-Xeon setup, or get a rackmount case, and leave my alienware as-is. I think I’m going to just go for a new case. Supermicro is definitely the way to go for this, but I have to find “just the right” one.

Alright, enough geek-talk. I was drivin around in this snow storm the other day. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it was gonna be. My car kicks ass, by the way. The AWD is where its at ! But I still have yet to see the “blizzard” maybe it won’t be so bad. The thing that sucks about snow is trackin wet slush every where you go. Luckily I have rubber mats in my car.