Re: [gentoo-user] Hard drive pricing and the near future
SMR drive prices are hopefully dropping. A couple of months ago I bought a couple of used Hitachi 4 GB drives, for my raid setup. Being raid I got recertified drives on ebay. They were about $65, up from about $50 for the same drives a couple of years ago. Larger new drives are hopefully coming down (I'd still like to have proper backup when I can afford it) RE: the SATA power connection change, it's stupid but easy to fix. Just cut the orange wire going to the drive power connector. I don't think anyone uses 3.3V on hard drives (the orange wire), and letting it float works with the rather damaged change to the spec. Of course, only do this on the drive connectors. Doesn't cause a problem on older drives. Alternately, you can use a "Molex" to sata power connector, since the 4 pin Molex connectors don't have a 3.3V line the adapters always leave it unconnected. Might be preferable if your' system has some of the older connectors and you are nervous about cutting wires though in the case of the drives it's absolutely OK. As these drive power connector are usually daisy chained it's best to cut the orange wire on all the SATA power connectors. --"Fascism begins the moment a ruling class, fearing the people may use their political democracy to gain economic democracy, begins to destroy political democracy in order to retain its power of exploitation and special privilege." Tommy Douglas Oct 5, 2021, 17:32 by rdalek1...@gmail.com: > Howdy all, > > I still have quite a bit of drive storage but I've read that prices on > drives are on the rise. Thing is, I don't track them much. I'm looking > at buying a 8TB drive and I've researched to make sure I'm getting a > PMR/CMR drive. I'm avoiding a SMR since it doesn't perform as well in > my use case. I tend to stick with Seagate, WD and other major makers. > > If anyone reading this does track the pricing of drives, are they on the > rise, stable, dropping or what? Is this a good time to expand while it > is more cost effective? I shop around on ebay, Amazon and others before > buying. I'm not opposed to buying used since I can sometimes find one > that was pulled and sometimes has only a few hours of use. I found one > once that only had like 10 hours on it. Still got it too. > > One reason I'm wanting to do this now is price. However, in a year or > so, I'm getting fiber internet, dang fast at that. It's starts at 200Mb > but still over a 100 times faster than current connection. It goes all > the way up to 1Gb. God help us all. ROFL > > Thoughts?? > > Dale > > :-) :-) >
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard drive pricing and the near future
Matt Connell wrote: > On Tue, 2021-10-05 at 18:32 -0500, Dale wrote: >> If anyone reading this does track the pricing of drives, are they on >> the rise, stable, dropping or what? > I can't speak to trends, but I've used this site in the past to keep an > eye out for a deal when it comes up. It only indexes Amazon prices, > but its usually a good bellweather for how things look in general. > > https://diskprices.com/ > > > > That's a nifty site. Wish it would allow me to select brands but this is a really good starting point. Thanks much. Dale :-) :-)
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard drive pricing and the near future
On Tue, 2021-10-05 at 18:32 -0500, Dale wrote: > If anyone reading this does track the pricing of drives, are they on > the rise, stable, dropping or what? I can't speak to trends, but I've used this site in the past to keep an eye out for a deal when it comes up. It only indexes Amazon prices, but its usually a good bellweather for how things look in general. https://diskprices.com/
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard drive pricing and the near future
Rich Freeman wrote: > On Tue, Oct 5, 2021 at 7:32 PM Dale wrote: >> If anyone reading this does track the pricing of drives, are they on the >> rise, stable, dropping or what? Is this a good time to expand while it >> is more cost effective? I shop around on ebay, Amazon and others before >> buying. I'm not opposed to buying used since I can sometimes find one >> that was pulled and sometimes has only a few hours of use. I found one >> once that only had like 10 hours on it. Still got it too. > Dropping I would say. For a while the supply was interrupted, most > likely due to Chia. Fortunately the price of Chia dropped and it > became the network had gotten so large that payback was going to be > very slow except for a few weeks in the beginning. I suspect that > people with a lot of storage might be farming Chia with their spare > storage, but I doubt anybody is buying pallets of hard drives just to > farm it. > > If you aren't in a hurry or picky about the model I suggest setting up > searches on slickdeals. Then be sure to check online to see if the > drive is known to be SMR. When I buy a drive I do a bit of > benchmarking just to make sure - I think just running more than one > pass on badblocks would probably catch it (granted the access is all > sequential, but the drive has no way of knowing that and so on each > pass it would have to do two passes to consolidate writes). > > Usually the best prices are on USB3 10+TB hard drives. The good 3.5" > drives tend to be more expensive since they're targeted at commercial > use. You can generally shuck the drive out of a USB3 enclosure if you > want to, but if your PSU isn't compatible you have to do a bit of > workarounds because they use the latest SATA power standard and some > genius decided not to make that backwards-compatible with the SATA > power found all over the place. Usually that is only used in > enterprise drives and the USB3 enclosures often use surplus enterprise > disks (so you're getting a really good value with them). If you keep > it in the enclosure you don't have to worry about it. I've found > about half my PSUs work fine them, and half require polyamide tape > games to work. > I may give it a bit and see what they do then. My /home is at 65% so I got time, especially while on this whimpy DSL. I recently discovered torrents and its advantages and now my DSL stays busy. I only pause it when I need the internet for something else. When fiber gets here, oh dear. You the one who introduced me to SMR. I bought one and started a thread about why my external drive had this bumpy feel long after my backups were done. You posted about SMR and how they work. For the backup drive, I don't mind much but if I had known before I bought it, I would have avoided it. I let the drive sit until the bumpy feel goes away after I do my backups, which at times takes a while. Now I try to avoid them and research before hitting the buy button. I've looked into buying external drives and removing them for internal use. It seems to be a little risky given the power problem. At one point I thought I found a adapter, maybe a China made thing, that plugs into the drive and then regular power supply cables plug into the adapter. I never bought one since I think it may be best to just buy drives made for going in my puter case and hooking directly to my cables. I've read where you can save quite a bit of money doing that tho. May give this a bit more time. See what the prices do. Thanks for the info. Dale :-) :-)
Re: [gentoo-user] Hard drive pricing and the near future
On Tue, Oct 5, 2021 at 7:32 PM Dale wrote: > > If anyone reading this does track the pricing of drives, are they on the > rise, stable, dropping or what? Is this a good time to expand while it > is more cost effective? I shop around on ebay, Amazon and others before > buying. I'm not opposed to buying used since I can sometimes find one > that was pulled and sometimes has only a few hours of use. I found one > once that only had like 10 hours on it. Still got it too. Dropping I would say. For a while the supply was interrupted, most likely due to Chia. Fortunately the price of Chia dropped and it became the network had gotten so large that payback was going to be very slow except for a few weeks in the beginning. I suspect that people with a lot of storage might be farming Chia with their spare storage, but I doubt anybody is buying pallets of hard drives just to farm it. If you aren't in a hurry or picky about the model I suggest setting up searches on slickdeals. Then be sure to check online to see if the drive is known to be SMR. When I buy a drive I do a bit of benchmarking just to make sure - I think just running more than one pass on badblocks would probably catch it (granted the access is all sequential, but the drive has no way of knowing that and so on each pass it would have to do two passes to consolidate writes). Usually the best prices are on USB3 10+TB hard drives. The good 3.5" drives tend to be more expensive since they're targeted at commercial use. You can generally shuck the drive out of a USB3 enclosure if you want to, but if your PSU isn't compatible you have to do a bit of workarounds because they use the latest SATA power standard and some genius decided not to make that backwards-compatible with the SATA power found all over the place. Usually that is only used in enterprise drives and the USB3 enclosures often use surplus enterprise disks (so you're getting a really good value with them). If you keep it in the enclosure you don't have to worry about it. I've found about half my PSUs work fine them, and half require polyamide tape games to work. -- Rich
[gentoo-user] Hard drive pricing and the near future
Howdy all, I still have quite a bit of drive storage but I've read that prices on drives are on the rise. Thing is, I don't track them much. I'm looking at buying a 8TB drive and I've researched to make sure I'm getting a PMR/CMR drive. I'm avoiding a SMR since it doesn't perform as well in my use case. I tend to stick with Seagate, WD and other major makers. If anyone reading this does track the pricing of drives, are they on the rise, stable, dropping or what? Is this a good time to expand while it is more cost effective? I shop around on ebay, Amazon and others before buying. I'm not opposed to buying used since I can sometimes find one that was pulled and sometimes has only a few hours of use. I found one once that only had like 10 hours on it. Still got it too. One reason I'm wanting to do this now is price. However, in a year or so, I'm getting fiber internet, dang fast at that. It's starts at 200Mb but still over a 100 times faster than current connection. It goes all the way up to 1Gb. God help us all. ROFL Thoughts?? Dale :-) :-)
Re: [gentoo-user] 2021-08-24-eudev-retirement
Jack wrote: > On 2021.10.05 15:32, the...@sys-concept.com wrote: >> I have "eudev" installed but I think it will be obsolete as of >> Jan.1/22 according to news: 2021-08-24-eudev-retirement >> >> Does converting from: sys-fs/eudev >> to: sys-fs/udev >> >> is as simple as: emerge -C sys-fs/eudev >> emerge sys-fs/udev > Have you read the news item? It's not quite that literal about what > to do, but does imply that should work. However, on 15 Sep there was > a post on the gentoo-dev list with a link to > https://github.com/eudev-project/eudev (see README.md) which says that > there is a new team taking up maintenance of eudev, so it is not > abandoned, and so it is not clear whether eudev will actually be > dropped or not. > > When I switched from udev to eudev, it was as simple as uninstalling udev and installing eudev. I'd think as you do the reverse would work now as well but as you point out, it may not. I'd recommend going to a console to do this and logging out of any GUIs as well. Of course restarting udev afterwards as well. I also saw the post about new maintainers. I'm hopeful that it will keep being maintained even tho it can be a headache for devs at times. Thing is, I've read a lot of distros use eudev and avoid the systemd version as much as possible, even tho eudev still has the same code from my understanding. Still, I'd rather stick with what works for me. Maybe we will know pretty soon what the status of this will be. Dale :-) :-)
Re: [gentoo-user] 2021-08-24-eudev-retirement
On 2021.10.05 15:32, the...@sys-concept.com wrote: I have "eudev" installed but I think it will be obsolete as of Jan.1/22 according to news: 2021-08-24-eudev-retirement Does converting from: sys-fs/eudev to: sys-fs/udev is as simple as: emerge -C sys-fs/eudev emerge sys-fs/udev Have you read the news item? It's not quite that literal about what to do, but does imply that should work. However, on 15 Sep there was a post on the gentoo-dev list with a link to https://github.com/eudev-project/eudev (see README.md) which says that there is a new team taking up maintenance of eudev, so it is not abandoned, and so it is not clear whether eudev will actually be dropped or not.
[gentoo-user] 2021-08-24-eudev-retirement
I have "eudev" installed but I think it will be obsolete as of Jan.1/22 according to news: 2021-08-24-eudev-retirement Does converting from: sys-fs/eudev to: sys-fs/udev is as simple as: emerge -C sys-fs/eudev emerge sys-fs/udev
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: acrobat reader
On Wed, 2021-09-22 at 20:14 +, Grant Edwards wrote: > On 2021-09-22, Jack wrote: > > On 2021.09.22 15:06, the...@sys-concept.com wrote: > > > I have a pdf fillable form which I can only open in acrobat reader on > > > Windows. > > > > > > Which package do I use to read these form on Gentoo? > > > > You should be able to read them with any PDF reader. > > Nope. It uses Javascript and dynamic XFA content. None of the > third-party PDF readers support that. > > > > Not all readers > > will allow you to fill in the forms and save with the inserted data. I > > use Okular for that, but the dependencies may be a lot if you don't > > already run KDE. I wouldn't be surprised if the Gnome PDF reader > > (evince?) can also do it. > > none of evince, atril or pdfstudio support dynamic XFA. > Firefox 93 brags[1] of support for XFA PDFs... maybe this is a possible solution? 1: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/93.0/releasenotes/
Re: [gentoo-user] Package management, depclean and new installs
On Tue, 5 Oct 2021 04:17:32 +0200 (CEST), coa...@tuta.io wrote: > > was significantly faster than > > > > emerge -C gentoo-sources-version > > rm -fr /usr/src/linux-version > > > So what about other packages? Do you guys find it faster to > rm -rf $(equary f PACKAGE) && emerge -C PACKAGE? Is that slower cuz > equery is also called or could that cause unwanted files from other > packages to be wiped?maybe filters? Very few, if any, other packages install all their files in one directory. Nor do they install the sheer number of files % qlist \=sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-5.10.61 | wc -l 70655 But the real benefit is that you have to run rm -fr anyway to remove the object files etc. you are running the same commands either way, it is just the order that makes a difference. For any other package, I just let portage do its job. -- Neil Bothwick Electrocution, n.: Burning at the stake with all the modern improvements. pgpa0sOKjJcJ4.pgp Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Package management, depclean and new installs
On Tue, 5 Oct 2021 05:43:27 +0100, Wols Lists wrote: > > Yes, it would be. The first way, portage just scans the list of files > > and tries to delete what isn't there; the second way it actually has > > to delete real files. > > > I doubt that's the problem. After all, rm has to delete the files too. > > I guess portage scans the files and looks up whether it can delete them > or not. If you've deleted them already, that step no longer happens ... That's what I thought, it has to check whether each file has been modified before deleting it, then it deletes that one file. rm just chucks the whole lot in the bin. -- Neil Bothwick Half of being smart is knowing what you're dumb at. pgpGOtXdPSnCk.pgp Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Package management, depclean and new installs
> On Mon, 4 Oct 2021 18:02:55 -0500, Dale wrote:> rm -fr /usr/src/linux-version > emerge -C gentoo-sources-version > > was significantly faster than > > emerge -C gentoo-sources-version > rm -fr /usr/src/linux-version > So what about other packages? Do you guys find it faster to rm -rf $(equary f PACKAGE) && emerge -C PACKAGE? Is that slower cuz equery is also called or could that cause unwanted files from other packages to be wiped?maybe filters?
