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RIP to my 8-port Unifi switch after years and years of Texas outdoor temps
- not_your_vase 3y agoDo you remember the time when Ars Technica didn't only publish reposts from the Verge, Logitech press-releases, and covid articles but actually posted hands-on technical and sysadmin tutorials (like the original of this switch from many years ago), and did hands-on reviews instead of generating it with a template? Pepperidge farm remembers (but only very vaguely, it was a long time ago).
- dporter 3y agoYour comment made me nostalgic so I went to John Siracusa's last macOS review from 2014 (10.10 Yosemite)[1]. Copied and pasted into Microsoft Word, it is 84 pages long, almost 27,000 words, and averages about one image per page. Quality and length are obviously not the same thing, but I can't imagine any online news outlet publishing something like that now. 1: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/10/os-x-10-10/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/10/os-x-10-10/
- kccqzy 3y agoSuch quality work takes time and effort. Ultimately I think Siracusa gave up just because how much time it was taking away from other work. And Ars articles remain free to read.
- coldpie 3y agoHere is their macOS 14 review[1] published one month ago. I don't know how many pages it is in Word, but on their website it's 21 pages long. [1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/09/macos-14-sonoma-the-ars-technica-review/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/09/macos-14-sonoma-the-...
- addicted 3y agoIm pretty sure Siracusa’s review was not standard fare for Ars or really any publication whether formal or not. His reviews were an exception and the fact that they don’t host his reviews anymore doesn’t say anything about how Ars has changed (especially because Siracusa himself doesn’t do the reviews probably because the new OS’s aren’t interesting enough). But those reviews were awesome. Since I never upgraded my OSX until x.1 at least but usually only after x.2, the real reason I enjoyed OSX release day was because it meant a great evening spent reading John’s review.
- coldpie 3y agoI could be crazy, but isn't the linked article exactly that? They also did a long series about how Ars itself is hosted[1] just a couple months ago. [1] Part 1 of 4 here https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/07/ars-on-aws-01/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/07/ars-o...
- not_your_vase 3y agoI remember, I was quite surprised to see that on the front page. But I stopped reading it back then, because the first paragraph had something along the lines of "we love to run our own infra, so when the opportunity came to switch to cloud, we couldn't be more excited". I stared at the screen for about 2 minutes, and then closed the tab. And yes, the linked article is exactly that, you are not crazy. One small thing: it's from 7 years ago.
- coldpie 3y ago> One small thing: it's from 7 years ago. What article are you talking about? The one linked from this discussion thread is from last Friday. The one I linked in my comment is from 3 months ago.
- not_your_vase 3y agoOh, sorry then. In this case I take back the `you are not crazy` part :D The main linked article is most definitely not a hands-on nor technical article, at least by my definition (which may or may not worth crap). Just an eulogy for a dead switch, because the writer ran out of topics, and the Verge writers were sleeping. I was referring to the article that was linked inside the Ars article, a detailed hands on article about home networking, something which I was missing since Ars found out about Covid, and let the tech writers go.
- coldpie 3y agoAh fair enough :) I guess to me the linked article ("RIP to my...") is not a "repost from the Verge, Logitech press-release, [or] covid article" and is a "hands-on technical [article]", if a little on the fluffy side. So I thought you might've enjoyed the article. But, I guess not. I am also not a fan of Ars's health writer, but I enjoy most of the rest of their content.
- dualboot 3y agoI remember when Ars Technica was a forum with a token website attached.
- reiichiroh 3y agoA spin off of dr damage’s tech report
- syntaxing 3y agoIt’s such a shame what Ubiquiti has become these past 3-5 years. Their product used to be fun and reliable. Nowadays, just feels like corporate greed and just another Cisco. I eventually switched out all my Ubiquiti stuff due to it.
- alexose 3y agoOut of curiosity, what brand(s) did you switch to?
- tekla 3y agoI switched from Unifi to Aruba
- markus92 3y agoSo what's the go to brand for decent networking gear nowadays?
- accrual 3y agoIt's not for everybody, but I run OpenBSD on an APU2 from PCEngines. The hardware is EOL but it's handy to be able to run my setup on virtual any modern commodity hardware, as long as I can fit a couple NICs inside. A couple years ago my parent's DSL line was accidentally severed, but our neighbors agreed to let us bridge through their WiFi. I setup an old Pentium MMX 200MHz box with a PCI NIC and PCI wireless card and got them online again. It was more of a fun exercise and an effort to put something between our network and theirs, but it was even fast enough for Netflix.
- paulmd 3y agoany murmurs if PC Engines are thinking about a replacement platform yet? Maybe something like the N100/N300 series? I see quite a few firewall appliances with those. Or maybe the space is too saturated these days with competitors from aliexpress/etc.
- PaulHoule 3y agoI've got one those switches.
- elromulous 3y agoI can't really get into my parents attic rn to grab a photo, but very similar install. I've had a Netgear* switch running up there non-stop since roughly 2000! Have never had to reboot it. Granted, power outages have rebooted it, and I have no way of actually checking its up-time. *Those were the days when Netgear products were solid
- accrual 3y agoThat's pretty cool. Is it a managed switch? I feel unmanaged switches have an advantage for being relatively simple with no user facing config or startup/backup images. They're basically just an ASIC with supporting hardware to look up numbers in a table and transmit out the resulting port - it could last decades.
- elromulous 3y agoExactly - it's unmanaged. So more like an actual "appliance".
- accrual 3y agoI wonder if putting the switch behind a UPS or more substantial surge protector/line filtering would help it last even longer. The batteries in a UPS at those temps might give up before the switch does.
- whalesalad 3y agoI have one of these with like 9,945 years of uptime. Rock solid piece of gear.
- sokoloff 3y ago> All it took to wire up my garage were some cheap gigabit SFP transceivers (pretty sure I used these ones right here), 40 meters of aqua-clad multimode fiber, and a $75 appointment with a contractor to actually run the fiber. I'm puzzled as to why someone writing for ArsTechnica would need the contractor to run the fiber. Any idea? They already said they didn't want to pay to run a conduit and I can't imagine a contractor doing anything at all that involves both a shovel and a fiber run for $75, even 8 years ago.
- klondike_ 3y agoThe contractor probably only terminated the fiber. The tools to do fiber termination and splicing are much more expensive than $75
- sokoloff 3y agoAlright, maybe. I assumed a pre-terminated, off-the-shelf cable, but you could be right.
- bombcar 3y agoEven now the fiber installers around here don't terminate, they just run a (potentially very long) already terminated cable and then shove it into the ground (blade into the dirt, press a bit, shove cable in).
- bradfa 3y agoI got a fiber Internet connection installed recently, the contractor ran a 300 foot long cable from across the street. When he finally had it all routed, tested it was good, then somehow he broke the end of the fiber when connecting to the ONT. The solution was not to splice on a new end but to instead remove and re-run the entire 300 foot cable with a new unbroken one. I'm very glad I wasn't doing this myself.
- bombcar 3y ago
- nicholashead 3y agoMeanwhile, I've had two USW-Lite-16-POE's fail just outside their two year warranty period, alongside a CloudKey and other equipment from them. It's just junk and they don't stand behind it. I'm transitioning away from them as best I can. The only thing I have left is my gateway and some APs.
- gurchik 3y agoThe hard drive on my Cloudkey Gen2 Plus failed less than a year after I bought it. I don’t blame Ubiquiti for a hard drive failure. I blame them for designing the device to be fanless but constantly hot to the touch (44 degrees as I’m writing this, with two 120mm fans right next to it). Countless support posts complaining about poor hard drive lifespan in that kind of environment, but never a response from Ubiquiti or a redesign.
- ericcholis 3y agoI put a heatsink and fan on the outside of mine. Didn't trust the "passive" cooling
- jabroni_salad 3y agoIf you still want to use SOHO equipment, I like Aruba instant-on a lot. Their APs are just as good as Ubiquiti's and you don't need a separate doodad to control them, the first one you set up can control the others.
- jensenbox 3y agoI am hearing a several people saying "they are moving away from Ubiquiti" but none say exactly what they are moving to or in past tense what they moved to. What are you all moving to?
- newhotelowner 3y agoAnother another location HP Aruba instant on.
- newhotelowner 3y agoWe moved everything from ubiquity to Rakus and Netgear. My ubiquity switch died right after the warranty expired and same thing with the cloud key. Not only that, every single update crashed my cloud key and had to reset it
- hedora 3y agoI have an outdoor shaded box with a USW Flex in it. That one box kills them quickly. I doubt it gets over 110-120F, so the root cause is a bit of a mystery. Any suggestions for a more robust model? The box has a long PoE run and then it redistributes out the PoE to 3-4 other PoE devices. The wattage is well within spec, but they usually drop to 100MBit from 1GBit a few months before permanently failing, so there could be some sort of signal integrity problem or over-driving of the phy, etc. I'm kind of considering trying a Flex Mini, since at least they're cheaper. (The box is waterproof.)
- xethos 3y agoMaybe I'm wrong, so confirm by opening your previously-killed equipment and looking for corrosion, but: > The box is waterproof to me just means any water (or humidity) that's in the box when you seal it, stays in the box. Maybe add a dessicant that you can replace every few months?
- woleium 3y agoUsed to do this with a tin can full of potassium permanganate (potassium manganate 7 in newspeak). Just heat it till it’s white then put it back after it’s turned purple from absorbing water (I.e. recycle it) Not even sure if you can buy it now, it’s useful for nefarious things. Used to be in survival kits, it’s a fire starter, disinfectant and mouthwash too.
- tekeous 3y agoThis is why I use Mikrotik. I swear they’re the last brand standing that is actually built tough. Affordable too.
- dddw 3y agoMikrotik is indeed awesome
- moribvndvs 3y agoStill got my USW-8-150 laying literally my feet. Dirt and dust everywhere, I accidentally kick it all the time. I should feel bad for having my network equipment heaped in a pile under my desk but hasn’t bothered it one bit. I was always nervous about it because it runs really warm but really it’s been fine.