3 ms·

It's 1-200Gb of live data, but about 1.5-2Tb of data that's currently sitting offline on DVDs which are a pain to access. I generate a fair amount of video data

It's 1-200Gb of live data, but about 1.5-2Tb of data that's currently sitting offline on DVDs which are a pain to access. I generate a fair amount of video data when training. Plus, as I said, future-proofing. I'm old enough to remember the "Who'd need more than 640k of RAM?" comment from the first time around...

Cushman 15y ago
Okay, at least in the ballpark then. But I think you missed the point— you're paying today for storage you won't use until God knows when. How do you justify that with HDD prices per GB dropping dramatically every few months? I understand not wanting the hassle of buying a new drive at some point in the future, but I've a hunch that this is the sort of "future proofing" that makes your system seem charmingly quaint a year from now.
- markdennehy 15y ago
  It's not the drives I'm future-proofing guys, it's the entire box. And "future-proofing" doesn't mean "I'll never need new hardware ever again", it means "I won't need to worry about the hardware in this box again". So I come back in two years, swap out the 2Tb drives in the RAID array for 4Tb drives and it costs me half what I'm paying for them now; but I don't have to go spending extra on a new PSU, case, etc - the stuff whose prices won't have fallen by much.
  - Cushman 15y ago
    I think that's what other commenters and me are getting at, though. The responsible way to not need to worry about the hardware in the box is to purchase only as much capability as you're going to to need in the time it takes before you want to replace it. But you're wildly overengineering for your needs; you could literally spend half as much on a system which isn't "future proof", and in two years replace the entire thing for half again what you paid. So my question, which seems to be the common one, remains, why?
    - markdennehy 15y ago
      (a) I don't agree that that's what I'm going to be spending money on in two years, or that costs will have fallen that far for the entire box (CPU, RAM, yes; physical box, PSU, no), or even that that money will be available (I'm in Ireland - check out the news on our economy :) Right now, whether it's better to keep euros in the bank or to spend them while they still have purchasing power buying things that will last and can be used seems like a terrifyingly close decision! (b) This box's destiny is to go sit in a room quietly and just work. Any time I spend on it after it's in that quiet room is time wasted, and I'm willing to spend a bit more (though not a huge amount more) now to save a lot more then. If I was a postgrad again and my time was low-cost and I wasn't hosting data I really worried about, sure, I'd pick the newest, shiniest toy and try to make it work and if it didn't, oh well, I learnt something; but that's not the case here, I just want a solid box I never have to worry about no matter what else we throw at it. This ain't the project car in the garage being endlessly worked on for fun, this is the family estate wagon that's used for the shopping and getting the kids to school, if that analogy makes any sense.
- markdennehy 15y ago
  (And I will have to buy new drives in the future. Hard drives fail, that's a fact of life - hence the RAID array, so that when they fail, I can just swap them out instead of having to spend a day reinstalling and recovering).
ordinary 15y ago
Future-proofing is a bit of a myth. You're spending a lot of money on a machine (and the electricity to run it) in order to have some tangible benefit a year or more down the line. But by that time, you can buy hardware that outperforms and costs less than what you bought now. Additionally, what you want in years to come might not even be the same thing that you want now. Two years ago, I sure couldn't predict what I'd like my machines to be able to handle today. "What? A web server? Whyever would I need that?" When it comes to hardware, buy what you need right now and no more. Let future-you worry about himself. Unrelated tangent: why is this text area so small, anyway?

Cushman 15y ago

Okay, at least in the ballpark then. But I think you missed the point— you're paying today for storage you won't use until God knows when. How do you justify that with HDD prices per GB dropping dramatically every few months? I understand not wanting the hassle of buying a new drive at some point in the future, but I've a hunch that this is the sort of "future proofing" that makes your system seem charmingly quaint a year from now.

markdennehy 15y ago
It's not the drives I'm future-proofing guys, it's the entire box. And "future-proofing" doesn't mean "I'll never need new hardware ever again", it means "I won't need to worry about the hardware in this box again". So I come back in two years, swap out the 2Tb drives in the RAID array for 4Tb drives and it costs me half what I'm paying for them now; but I don't have to go spending extra on a new PSU, case, etc - the stuff whose prices won't have fallen by much.
- Cushman 15y ago
  I think that's what other commenters and me are getting at, though. The responsible way to not need to worry about the hardware in the box is to purchase only as much capability as you're going to to need in the time it takes before you want to replace it. But you're wildly overengineering for your needs; you could literally spend half as much on a system which isn't "future proof", and in two years replace the entire thing for half again what you paid. So my question, which seems to be the common one, remains, why?
  - markdennehy 15y ago
    (a) I don't agree that that's what I'm going to be spending money on in two years, or that costs will have fallen that far for the entire box (CPU, RAM, yes; physical box, PSU, no), or even that that money will be available (I'm in Ireland - check out the news on our economy :) Right now, whether it's better to keep euros in the bank or to spend them while they still have purchasing power buying things that will last and can be used seems like a terrifyingly close decision! (b) This box's destiny is to go sit in a room quietly and just work. Any time I spend on it after it's in that quiet room is time wasted, and I'm willing to spend a bit more (though not a huge amount more) now to save a lot more then. If I was a postgrad again and my time was low-cost and I wasn't hosting data I really worried about, sure, I'd pick the newest, shiniest toy and try to make it work and if it didn't, oh well, I learnt something; but that's not the case here, I just want a solid box I never have to worry about no matter what else we throw at it. This ain't the project car in the garage being endlessly worked on for fun, this is the family estate wagon that's used for the shopping and getting the kids to school, if that analogy makes any sense.
markdennehy 15y ago
(And I will have to buy new drives in the future. Hard drives fail, that's a fact of life - hence the RAID array, so that when they fail, I can just swap them out instead of having to spend a day reinstalling and recovering).

ordinary 15y ago

Future-proofing is a bit of a myth. You're spending a lot of money on a machine (and the electricity to run it) in order to have some tangible benefit a year or more down the line. But by that time, you can buy hardware that outperforms and costs less than what you bought now. Additionally, what you want in years to come might not even be the same thing that you want now. Two years ago, I sure couldn't predict what I'd like my machines to be able to handle today. "What? A web server? Whyever would I need that?" When it comes to hardware, buy what you need right now and no more. Let future-you worry about himself. Unrelated tangent: why is this text area so small, anyway?