• 12 Posts
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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: March 19th, 2024

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  • Do you have backups? You mentioned family photos, so I hope so. If yes, have you tested them? Remember, RAID (or RAID-adjacent) is not a backup.

    What filesystem are you using at the moment?

    Questions aside, since you have precious photos and are using RAID, I would absolutely get a UPS. This will save you a lot of pain in the future, and you can continue to use it while you wait to upgrade. You can find them for relatively cheap on ebay, just make sure whatever you get has a new battery (frequently listed as “NEW BATT” or similar). Bonus points for a USB connection to gracefully shut down your raid array, protecting it from getting corrupted.

    For the drives themselves, even if you aren’t shucking them yet (shucking meaning taking external drives out of their cases to put into a server), I would use https://shucks.top/ to find the best deals per TB. This comes with the upside of allowing you to shuck them in the future if you get a proper enclosure or chassis, and you don’t have to buy an extra case. Interestingly, external drives (like those listed on the website above) are generally cheaper than naked drives, especially when priced per TB. If you want to avoid shucking entirely, you can pick up DC rated drives for relatively good prices on https://serverpartdeals.com/

    The three main concerns with this setup, in my opinion, are power, heat, and speed. With raid, you’ll want the UPS as discussed, which covers the power issue. Since they’ll be in cases, it’s definitely possible they’ll heat up quickly, especially if you ever have to do a data rebuild or otherwise hammer them with lots of writes. As long as you’re able to keep them below 55-60C during those operations, you should be fine, but it’s something you’ll want to keep an eye on. Speed, meanwhile, won’t impact too much but you’ll probably notice some slow writes compared to having a drive over SATA. Rebuilds will be pretty slow.

    Apologies if that was kind of rambling. I’ve been a data hoarder archivist for over a decade. I’ve gone through several iterations of NAS and learned some hard lessons along the way. I encourage you to keep thinking about how to best secure your data from loss; it’s good to ask questions like this.






  • I agree that a general strike could do the trick, but the challenge will be getting almost everyone onboard while still allowing the working class to eat and have shelter. By design, working class Americans have little means of weathering a long term general strike, and the upper class has enough wealth to ignore it unless it’s a prolonged effort. A general strike for a few days will not cut it.

    It might be “easier” for other countries to start dumping US debt. Not that it’s their responsibility to “save” the US, of course. However, if enough debt was dumped, it would collapse the US economy. This is a nuclear option since it would also hurt the global economy, but would certainly hurt the US the most.


  • I don’t think this will work either. If Trump pulls the insurrection card, he’ll just use drone strikes to obliterate any homegrown force. Sure, US citizens are armed up. But the arms that citizens have are meaningless when it comes to things like high altitude drones.

    I think this is what people outside of the US forget when they call for 2A people to rise up. The US government has made the second amendment relatively meaningless in regards to it’s original purpose. Kind of hard to fight back when you get vaporized by a dot in the sky.

    I personally think hurting the upper class in the wallet is the only way anything in the US will change. Could be done through a general strike by US citizens (although at the time being I think this is unlikely to happen, given how little money people in the working class have. they have to be able to eat and be sheltered to weather the strike, after all), or by other countries sanctioning and messing with bonds.

    Edit: if you originally meant homegrown as in US citizens. if not, carry on.







  • If you end up owning a home (or have parents that own one and won’t be able to manage in their old age), general home maintenance and repair skills can save a fuck ton of money. Things like learning how to do drywall repair or replacement, fixing pipe leaks, or framing (if you’re feeling a little extra) can go a long way. I learned electrical as well, but I’m hesitant to recommend this one unless you know what you’re doing (you can burn down your house, or worse, die).

    I did a bathroom remodel that would have cost a fortune to have contractors come in, as it required drywall, plumbing, and electrical. Labor costs have skyrocked in my area, it probably would’ve cost me over $15k if I hired out. In the end, I probably paid a few thousand dollars along with a large portion of my hairline.