Moribund Honey Badger - Becoming The Top Gamer, One Death at a Time!

Home • Blog • Social

NAS & Backups	2017-01-17
This article is a little off topic but being into technology and the like, I feel I should do an article on an important piece of a network and how I like to run things. Maybe people will disagree and show me a better way and I will learn, or maybe others will pick up a couple good ideas. In general, I like to keep things separate. Instead of building a single computer that holds a lot of storage (usually using slower, low performance drives) and also trying to have some high performance disks, a fast processor, lots of RAM, great video card and everything else - I try to separate it out. I thought about it at one point and came to the conclusion that I should separate things out a little. I should build a very powerful and high performance machine, and then have a second machine with all of the storage so I can back up my "primary use" machine to a box that is reliable and I do not constantly work on. This kees the backup data more reliable and I can work more on my active machine without worrying so much. Wait a minute, this means I have to build a second computer to simply house my data? Well, yes ... but I tend to be able to build a less expensive computer that I mostly fill with drives. Although, this has also been quite expensive. And now that a friend of mine has decided to set up a proper network system in his house (fast wired network between all of the important areas, with a WiFi for mobile units and a strong central storage unit for backups and general data storage) we decided to shoot for something a little less stern in the wallet. So, here is the general idea: We have network TVs, Laptops, Cellphones and Computers. To begin with, we need to map out the computers. Computers and stationary devices should be connected with a strong, wired Ethernet backbone. Then a WiFi access point or router should be placed in a good central location to feed the mobile devices, which tend to include the Laptops and Cellphones. I believe there is a tablet in there too. We want to make sure that no matter where one is on the property, it can reach the wireless with decent strength. Then we need the Central storage for holding all of the pictures and backups and data that you are not using cosntantly and want to store for long periods of time. In addition to this, we will be shooting for a good dedicated Firewall and Router or a combiantion of both. We feel that having a dedicated Router/Firewall coming off of your DSL/Cable/Fiber modem is a good choice and one should have the Wireless Access Point or Router farther down the line so that you can manage them separately (Remember: You will likely have guests connecting to the wireless). I am going to focus on the Central Storage. This has been a costly item in the past for me because I build a full computer and get a case where I can isntall several 3.5" internal desktop type drives. These tend to be pretty cheap and large in capacity. This time, we are trying to avoid such a power hog of a machine and get something that is essentially just a RAID controller and an enclosure full of hard drives. The popular companies out there that provide this style of box are "QNAP", "Synology" and "Drobo" - all of which minimize the computer around your disks and try to provide you with reliability in some form for your disk space. I am also going for a more conservative 4 disk system. The plan is to be able to put 4 disks in it, expandable to 8 TB drives. Kicking it off with 4 TB drives for now, but I want room for expansion. Drobo has one device that has a low number of disks (5 minimum, but you can have as few as 2 disks isntalled) and that is the Drobo 5N. At the time of writing this, it is listed at $489.00 USD. That is a little beyond our wanted price range. However, the Drobo units seem to have a better versatility with drive expansions. You can slowly remove 4 TB drives and upgrade them to 8 TB drives, and it will do some magical work in there to expand your useable data as you add larger drives. It will let you mix and match models, speeds, and capacities! Now, they seem to keep their magic drive manipulation methods a secret (or I have not researched it recently enough) so I have no idea how that stuff works, which worries me in the event of a data disaster when you have to try to recover it all. Although, they are pretty confident that their hardware is SUPER reliable and solid! Just make sure you replace those failed disks! Also I have to say, I really love the way you do not have to isntall your drives into sleds to put them into the Drobo! Synology has a nice set of 4 disk machines. The lowest priced ones are the Synology DS416j and the Synology DS416slim - the major difference here is that the "slim" model uses 2.5" laptop sized drives. The price for both of them are currently $289.00 USD for the j model (takes full 3.5" hard drives) and $289.99 USD for the slim model. The problem with the slim model is that the smaller drives are much more expensive in comparison to the full sized drives. So, I would recommend the Synology DS416j model for a better price to disk storage ratio. And as much a some may be tempted to get the slim model and fill it full of SSD, you are not looking for performance when it comes to a centralized storage device. You are not likely to make use of the higher transfer rates. It is better to go with a slower unit that can handle a higher capacity. This unit also has a Gigabit network port and USB 3.0 port along with a slower USB 2 port as well. Looks like the drives are in sleds hidden by the rear panel. The QNAP systems have a "Home" set of products, and as of the time of writing this, the QNAP TS-431+ is the lower priced 4-bay unit for $260 USD. This unit has dual Gigabit Ethernet ports and 3 USB 3.0 ports - which is actually beating out the Synology! I like the fact that there are drive trays on the front so you can pop them out as needed without opening the unit up. I did a geenral run-down on the unit and it seems to have all of the fancy things one would want. File storage, DLNA, and various ways to store things on it and access them. I could not find a general maximum capacity, but their compatibility listing shows 10 TB drives so one would have to guess that if you fill it with 4 of those, it should be able to handle it. So, for this adventure it would definately look like the QNAP is a clear win, with the Synology coming in at a close 2nd place, and the Drobo being a bit steep. I would rather buy an extra drive with that extra money. So, now we need to fill the box with disks and build an array! So, accoridng to recent drive studies by BackBlaze, their "Hard Drive Failure Rates by Manufacturer" graph shows that HGST drives are the best. Coming in second is Toshiba, and 3rd is Western Digital until 2016, when Seagate somehow made vast improvements. Well, looking at the "Hard Drive Failure Rates for Q1 2016" shows us that of the 4 TB selection, only Seagate had failures on that capacity. Since we are kicking off with the smaller, more conservatively priced 4 TB disks, this leaves us with the following reliable drive models: HGST HMS5C4040BLE640, Toshiba MD04ABA400V and Western Digital WD40EFRX - all listing 0% failure rates, although the Western Digitals had a very small quantity of drives in the running for the stats, so it is a bit less trustworthy. The HGST drives had a whopping 3,091 drives, Toshiba had 146 and Western Digital only had 46 in rotation during the time testing period. This is how I look for what I should buy in terms of reliability. The next factor is the price. HGST drives are curretly running for $223 USD, the Toshiba is going for $367.01 USD and the Western Digital is going for $145.99 USD per drive. This kind of reflects the fact that the closer you get to perfection, the more you pay. Exponentially. I myself have had great results with Western Digital, and would rather save the $77 USD per drive. For every 2 drives I buy, I would have saved enough to purchase a 3rd drive. Also, I checked the Newer Q3 2016 Stats from BackBlaze, and some of those HGST drives failed where none of the Toshiba or Western Digitals failed. However, Toshiba is clearly way beyond what I would pay and so it looks like Western Digital might be the most reliable - in addition to the "Red" drives of theirs (the model in the report) are made for NAS purpose, so this should be a perfect match. Feel free to use a different size disk. I went through my process of comparing 4 TB drives for reliability and then using price to bring it a little closer to the realm of possibility for one's pocket book (4 of trhose Western Digital 4 TB drives is going to be $583.96 USD plus any taxes, VAT or shipping charges you may end up with on top of that). Some of those hard drives are older models and not in production any more. The Toshiba and HGST ones specifically. Looks like the Western Digital drive is still active and good though. You may notice that I was quick to knock the Drobo and the Seagate drives out of the running. Frankly, the Drobo is way too expensive for what we are shooting for here and I worry more when they do not list things like what RAID levels it is doing and how it is making your disks protect your data when they are not using common technologies. I hear others say great things about them, but I need to know before I trust. As for Seagate, they had a strong run of some bad reliability. I am still hesitant to purchase one of their drives because of issues they have had in the recent past. Frankly, I would not purchase Toshiba drives either because they are scarce and I am not very familiar with them (maybe had one in a laptop at some point, but can't recall using one otherwise) and familiarity with using something really sways one strongly when making a descision. If you have plenty of money to throw at things, shoot for the Drobo 5N and some nice HGST 8 TB drives if you like! I would be OK with HGST drives because HGST is owned by Western Digital and I have used their drives and am very familiar with them. They have served me well for over a decade. I have linked some items below for information. I included Amazon links to the items because that is a popular and common place I purchase things from and use Amazon for price reference. It may not be the best price available in the world, but it is darn close and a good representation of an expected price. I do recommend shopping at other places you trust and checking for sales or better prices if you can find them. I also linked product pages. They say things like, "Do not use in RAID" for hard drives and other cool details that may be a deal breaker for you. Also I tried to include the specifications pages. I really go straight to those and compare details when I shop. It lets me get the finer details like power consumption, maximum capabilities, and other things. What if you want to NFS share your files and one of these units does not support NFS? You would want to know and cross it off your list. Anyhow, I hope this was helpful and for the record, I would probably get the QNAP TS-431+ and 4 of those Western Digital WD40EFRX drives today if I was ready to put one together! Find Prices or Buy Items Here: Amazon: Synology DS416j \| QNAP TS-431+ \| Drobo 5N \| HGST HMS5C4040BLE640 \| Toshiba MD04ABA400V \| Western Digital WD40EFRX Product Pages: Synology DS416j \| QNAP TS-431+ \| Drobo 5N \| HGST HMS5C4040BLE640 (EOL) \| Toshiba MD04ABA400V \| Western Digital WD40EFRX Specification Pages: Synology DS416j \| QNAP TS-431+ \| Drobo 5N \| HGST HMS5C4040BLE640 \| Toshiba MD04ABA400V (UnKnown) \| Western Digital WD40EFRX (PDF)

NAS & Backups

2017-01-17

       This article is a little off topic but being into technology and the like, I feel I should do an article on an important piece of a network and how I like to run things. Maybe people will disagree and show me a better way and I will learn, or maybe others will pick up a couple good ideas. In general, I like to keep things separate. Instead of building a single computer that holds a lot of storage (usually using slower, low performance drives) and also trying to have some high performance disks, a fast processor, lots of RAM, great video card and everything else - I try to separate it out. I thought about it at one point and came to the conclusion that I should separate things out a little. I should build a very powerful and high performance machine, and then have a second machine with all of the storage so I can back up my "primary use" machine to a box that is reliable and I do not constantly work on. This kees the backup data more reliable and I can work more on my active machine without worrying so much.

       Wait a minute, this means I have to build a second computer to simply house my data? Well, yes ... but I tend to be able to build a less expensive computer that I mostly fill with drives. Although, this has also been quite expensive. And now that a friend of mine has decided to set up a proper network system in his house (fast wired network between all of the important areas, with a WiFi for mobile units and a strong central storage unit for backups and general data storage) we decided to shoot for something a little less stern in the wallet. So, here is the general idea: We have network TVs, Laptops, Cellphones and Computers. To begin with, we need to map out the computers. Computers and stationary devices should be connected with a strong, wired Ethernet backbone. Then a WiFi access point or router should be placed in a good central location to feed the mobile devices, which tend to include the Laptops and Cellphones. I believe there is a tablet in there too. We want to make sure that no matter where one is on the property, it can reach the wireless with decent strength. Then we need the Central storage for holding all of the pictures and backups and data that you are not using cosntantly and want to store for long periods of time. In addition to this, we will be shooting for a good dedicated Firewall and Router or a combiantion of both. We feel that having a dedicated Router/Firewall coming off of your DSL/Cable/Fiber modem is a good choice and one should have the Wireless Access Point or Router farther down the line so that you can manage them separately (Remember: You will likely have guests connecting to the wireless).

       I am going to focus on the Central Storage. This has been a costly item in the past for me because I build a full computer and get a case where I can isntall several 3.5" internal desktop type drives. These tend to be pretty cheap and large in capacity. This time, we are trying to avoid such a power hog of a machine and get something that is essentially just a RAID controller and an enclosure full of hard drives. The popular companies out there that provide this style of box are "QNAP", "Synology" and "Drobo" - all of which minimize the computer around your disks and try to provide you with reliability in some form for your disk space. I am also going for a more conservative 4 disk system. The plan is to be able to put 4 disks in it, expandable to 8 TB drives. Kicking it off with 4 TB drives for now, but I want room for expansion.

       Drobo has one device that has a low number of disks (5 minimum, but you can have as few as 2 disks isntalled) and that is the Drobo 5N. At the time of writing this, it is listed at $489.00 USD. That is a little beyond our wanted price range. However, the Drobo units seem to have a better versatility with drive expansions. You can slowly remove 4 TB drives and upgrade them to 8 TB drives, and it will do some magical work in there to expand your useable data as you add larger drives. It will let you mix and match models, speeds, and capacities! Now, they seem to keep their magic drive manipulation methods a secret (or I have not researched it recently enough) so I have no idea how that stuff works, which worries me in the event of a data disaster when you have to try to recover it all. Although, they are pretty confident that their hardware is SUPER reliable and solid! Just make sure you replace those failed disks! Also I have to say, I really love the way you do not have to isntall your drives into sleds to put them into the Drobo!

       Synology has a nice set of 4 disk machines. The lowest priced ones are the Synology DS416j and the Synology DS416slim - the major difference here is that the "slim" model uses 2.5" laptop sized drives. The price for both of them are currently $289.00 USD for the j model (takes full 3.5" hard drives) and $289.99 USD for the slim model. The problem with the slim model is that the smaller drives are much more expensive in comparison to the full sized drives. So, I would recommend the Synology DS416j model for a better price to disk storage ratio. And as much a some may be tempted to get the slim model and fill it full of SSD, you are not looking for performance when it comes to a centralized storage device. You are not likely to make use of the higher transfer rates. It is better to go with a slower unit that can handle a higher capacity. This unit also has a Gigabit network port and USB 3.0 port along with a slower USB 2 port as well. Looks like the drives are in sleds hidden by the rear panel.

       The QNAP systems have a "Home" set of products, and as of the time of writing this, the QNAP TS-431+ is the lower priced 4-bay unit for $260 USD. This unit has dual Gigabit Ethernet ports and 3 USB 3.0 ports - which is actually beating out the Synology! I like the fact that there are drive trays on the front so you can pop them out as needed without opening the unit up. I did a geenral run-down on the unit and it seems to have all of the fancy things one would want. File storage, DLNA, and various ways to store things on it and access them. I could not find a general maximum capacity, but their compatibility listing shows 10 TB drives so one would have to guess that if you fill it with 4 of those, it should be able to handle it.

       So, for this adventure it would definately look like the QNAP is a clear win, with the Synology coming in at a close 2nd place, and the Drobo being a bit steep. I would rather buy an extra drive with that extra money. So, now we need to fill the box with disks and build an array! So, accoridng to recent drive studies by BackBlaze, their "Hard Drive Failure Rates by Manufacturer" graph shows that HGST drives are the best. Coming in second is Toshiba, and 3rd is Western Digital until 2016, when Seagate somehow made vast improvements. Well, looking at the "Hard Drive Failure Rates for Q1 2016" shows us that of the 4 TB selection, only Seagate had failures on that capacity. Since we are kicking off with the smaller, more conservatively priced 4 TB disks, this leaves us with the following reliable drive models: HGST HMS5C4040BLE640, Toshiba MD04ABA400V and Western Digital WD40EFRX - all listing 0% failure rates, although the Western Digitals had a very small quantity of drives in the running for the stats, so it is a bit less trustworthy. The HGST drives had a whopping 3,091 drives, Toshiba had 146 and Western Digital only had 46 in rotation during the time testing period. This is how I look for what I should buy in terms of reliability. The next factor is the price. HGST drives are curretly running for $223 USD, the Toshiba is going for $367.01 USD and the Western Digital is going for $145.99 USD per drive. This kind of reflects the fact that the closer you get to perfection, the more you pay. Exponentially. I myself have had great results with Western Digital, and would rather save the $77 USD per drive. For every 2 drives I buy, I would have saved enough to purchase a 3rd drive. Also, I checked the Newer Q3 2016 Stats from BackBlaze, and some of those HGST drives failed where none of the Toshiba or Western Digitals failed. However, Toshiba is clearly way beyond what I would pay and so it looks like Western Digital might be the most reliable - in addition to the "Red" drives of theirs (the model in the report) are made for NAS purpose, so this should be a perfect match. Feel free to use a different size disk. I went through my process of comparing 4 TB drives for reliability and then using price to bring it a little closer to the realm of possibility for one's pocket book (4 of trhose Western Digital 4 TB drives is going to be $583.96 USD plus any taxes, VAT or shipping charges you may end up with on top of that).

       Some of those hard drives are older models and not in production any more. The Toshiba and HGST ones specifically. Looks like the Western Digital drive is still active and good though. You may notice that I was quick to knock the Drobo and the Seagate drives out of the running. Frankly, the Drobo is way too expensive for what we are shooting for here and I worry more when they do not list things like what RAID levels it is doing and how it is making your disks protect your data when they are not using common technologies. I hear others say great things about them, but I need to know before I trust. As for Seagate, they had a strong run of some bad reliability. I am still hesitant to purchase one of their drives because of issues they have had in the recent past. Frankly, I would not purchase Toshiba drives either because they are scarce and I am not very familiar with them (maybe had one in a laptop at some point, but can't recall using one otherwise) and familiarity with using something really sways one strongly when making a descision. If you have plenty of money to throw at things, shoot for the Drobo 5N and some nice HGST 8 TB drives if you like! I would be OK with HGST drives because HGST is owned by Western Digital and I have used their drives and am very familiar with them. They have served me well for over a decade.

       I have linked some items below for information. I included Amazon links to the items because that is a popular and common place I purchase things from and use Amazon for price reference. It may not be the best price available in the world, but it is darn close and a good representation of an expected price. I do recommend shopping at other places you trust and checking for sales or better prices if you can find them. I also linked product pages. They say things like, "Do not use in RAID" for hard drives and other cool details that may be a deal breaker for you. Also I tried to include the specifications pages. I really go straight to those and compare details when I shop. It lets me get the finer details like power consumption, maximum capabilities, and other things. What if you want to NFS share your files and one of these units does not support NFS? You would want to know and cross it off your list. Anyhow, I hope this was helpful and for the record, I would probably get the QNAP TS-431+ and 4 of those Western Digital WD40EFRX drives today if I was ready to put one together!

Find Prices or Buy Items Here:
Amazon: Synology DS416j | QNAP TS-431+ | Drobo 5N | HGST HMS5C4040BLE640 | Toshiba MD04ABA400V | Western Digital WD40EFRX

Product Pages:
Synology DS416j | QNAP TS-431+ | Drobo 5N | HGST HMS5C4040BLE640 (EOL) | Toshiba MD04ABA400V | Western Digital WD40EFRX

Specification Pages:
Synology DS416j | QNAP TS-431+ | Drobo 5N | HGST HMS5C4040BLE640 | Toshiba MD04ABA400V (UnKnown) | Western Digital WD40EFRX (PDF)

Yooka-Laylee	2017-01-14
On May 02, 2015 I helped fund a Kickstarter for Yooka-Laylee. I had learned about this new game from my brother and Ars Technica. I had remembered playing the old Banjo-Kazooie, Donkey Kong and many other games made by Rare. They were quite the epic Nintendo developer. Alas, Microsoft had bought them and they were supposed to be making games for the X-Box 360 and onward. Unfortunately, things did not pan out well and mistakes were made, and we pretty much never got any new releases from the Rare team shortly after that. But that is another story. So, I backed for a pretty big package, "EXCLUSIVE INSERT COIN T-SHIRT + PC BOXED DELUXE EDITION!" was the name of the listing. I really just wanted the physical PC copy and to help them out at more than just a few bucks. Getting a SoundTrack and a "physical retro manual and art book" are awesome bonuses, in addition to a t-shirt! The scheduled release for this game was October, 2016. So here we are on January 14, 2017. No, I still don't have my physical copy of the game, but what I *do* have is an early-release playable demo on Steam, and a hard release date! Yooka-Laylee is scheduled to be released on April 11, 2017 for the PC, Mac, Linux, X-Box One & PS4! There were some issues with the Wii-U release, but they are working on a release for the Nintendo Switch that is coming out soon. Being a Kickstarter supporter, I gained access to the Yooka-Laylee Toybox early access demo! I gave it a go and played it a decent amount. I am playing on a PC, so I tried to use the keybaord & mouse to get through it, but it just didn't feel right to me. I seem to prefer Keyboard/Mouse for some games like Saints Row: The Third, but it just feels more natural to use a controller for Yooka-Laylee. I have a feeling that since the team making this game has a lot of members from the original Rare team and they have been making console games for everything I remember of their games, they likely have a much more natural feel for building out controller inputs for console controllers. I get the feeling that it was designed for the game controller and then Keyboard/Mouse mappings were applied afterwards. Or I just suck at working a keyboard and mouse. Anyhow, I use a wonderful Microsoft X-Box One Controller that I have connected to my PC for such games. I have tried a few other controllers (very few) but I keep coming back to the X-Box controller. They did well with the original X-Box controller, made it great with the X-Box 360 controller, and have kept it the same since. Using a controller, it feels quite natural to play and really holds the same feel as the original Nitnendo 64 games I remember playing. Very smooth and the physics work almost exactly how you would expect. The graphics are ... well, it is a rough demo preview that has really basic graphics. I have seen the video previews on the Playtonic Games YouTube Channel - and they look awesome! That whole cartoonish and candy look is slathered all over! But a matte look instead of the overly candy glossy look. The characters are isntantly loveable and I really like how this is looking! Classic Rare style games! I am very much looking forward to this game! I hope it is everything I am expecting it to be and more! I am also very excited to see this team of developers building new games again. I look forward to many more - I really want them to make some "Conker's Bad Fur Day" style games. That game had a great vibe that I really have not seen in any other game - a mix of the candy coated graphics and the adult themes! That really brought it together for me. Pre-Order Yooka-Laylee now! Amazon: X-Box One/PS4 \| PC/Linux/Mac: Steam \| DRM-Free PC/Linux/Mac: GOG

Yooka-Laylee

2017-01-14

       On May 02, 2015 I helped fund a Kickstarter for Yooka-Laylee. I had learned about this new game from my brother and Ars Technica. I had remembered playing the old Banjo-Kazooie, Donkey Kong and many other games made by Rare. They were quite the epic Nintendo developer. Alas, Microsoft had bought them and they were supposed to be making games for the X-Box 360 and onward. Unfortunately, things did not pan out well and mistakes were made, and we pretty much never got any new releases from the Rare team shortly after that. But that is another story. So, I backed for a pretty big package, "EXCLUSIVE INSERT COIN T-SHIRT + PC BOXED DELUXE EDITION!" was the name of the listing. I really just wanted the physical PC copy and to help them out at more than just a few bucks. Getting a SoundTrack and a "physical retro manual and art book" are awesome bonuses, in addition to a t-shirt! The scheduled release for this game was October, 2016.

       So here we are on January 14, 2017. No, I still don't have my physical copy of the game, but what I *do* have is an early-release playable demo on Steam, and a hard release date! Yooka-Laylee is scheduled to be released on April 11, 2017 for the PC, Mac, Linux, X-Box One & PS4! There were some issues with the Wii-U release, but they are working on a release for the Nintendo Switch that is coming out soon.

       Being a Kickstarter supporter, I gained access to the Yooka-Laylee Toybox early access demo! I gave it a go and played it a decent amount. I am playing on a PC, so I tried to use the keybaord & mouse to get through it, but it just didn't feel right to me. I seem to prefer Keyboard/Mouse for some games like Saints Row: The Third, but it just feels more natural to use a controller for Yooka-Laylee. I have a feeling that since the team making this game has a lot of members from the original Rare team and they have been making console games for everything I remember of their games, they likely have a much more natural feel for building out controller inputs for console controllers. I get the feeling that it was designed for the game controller and then Keyboard/Mouse mappings were applied afterwards. Or I just suck at working a keyboard and mouse. Anyhow, I use a wonderful Microsoft X-Box One Controller that I have connected to my PC for such games. I have tried a few other controllers (very few) but I keep coming back to the X-Box controller. They did well with the original X-Box controller, made it great with the X-Box 360 controller, and have kept it the same since. Using a controller, it feels quite natural to play and really holds the same feel as the original Nitnendo 64 games I remember playing. Very smooth and the physics work almost exactly how you would expect.

       The graphics are ... well, it is a rough demo preview that has really basic graphics. I have seen the video previews on the Playtonic Games YouTube Channel - and they look awesome! That whole cartoonish and candy look is slathered all over! But a matte look instead of the overly candy glossy look. The characters are isntantly loveable and I really like how this is looking! Classic Rare style games! I am very much looking forward to this game! I hope it is everything I am expecting it to be and more! I am also very excited to see this team of developers building new games again. I look forward to many more - I really want them to make some "Conker's Bad Fur Day" style games. That game had a great vibe that I really have not seen in any other game - a mix of the candy coated graphics and the adult themes! That really brought it together for me.

Pre-Order Yooka-Laylee now!
Amazon: X-Box One/PS4 | PC/Linux/Mac: Steam | DRM-Free PC/Linux/Mac: GOG