Gosh; my computer room's too quiet with three; a Dell Latitude E6530 laptop, my mother's Dell Dimension 4600 (15 years old), and my Del PowerEdge T110 server with Server 2008 R2, though I think I'm going to upgrade it to Server 2012. It needs to be louder in here! Unlike most people on this list probably, I am not bothered, but enthralled by the noise of computer equipment; the more noise from servers and equipment, the better I can work, and the better I feel.
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ken Schaefer Sent: Wednesday, March 13, 2013 7:50 PM To: ozDotNet Subject: RE: [OT] Home setup My three servers are: 2 x Micro-servers (1 x N36L + 1 x N40L) 1 x EX495 (HP Home Server) These are pretty quiet, and also don't generate much heat (I was using them when I was living in Singapore). I replaced a single Dell 1400SC server with the above, and they have more capability whilst being quieter and cooler. I have the VMs setup in a way that I can turn off one of the Microservers without impacting much functionality in case it's a really hot day etc. The rest of the PCs are scattered around the place e.g. a Mac Mini runs Windows Media Centre, both my wife and I have a main laptop, we have a shared desktop, a HP Slate 500 tablet etc. We don't have them all on at the same time, but even if they were, laptops aren't particularly noisy :) http://www.adopenstatic.com/temp/homenetwork2.jpg is my current physical setup. I think the other thing that reduces overhead is that I've writen a decent amount of documentation (design docs, end user guides etc.). Also, things are setup in a corporate rather than SOHO manner e.g. access to everything is by AD identity (e.g. 801.1x for wireless through to print queues, mailboxes, scanning etc.), which centralises/minimises identity management overhead. So, if we have someone staying with us for a week, I create an AD account and put that account in some groups (depending on what they need access to). They can read the end user services guide to work out what they need to do to get access to something. Since our machines are domain joined, they can use any free computer in the place. When they leave, I just delete/disable their account. In the event a machine goes bad for some reason, I can re-image it from the backups on the WHS2011. Now, I don't have teenage kids, so I don't have to deal with the issues that this might throw into the mix :) Cheers Ken From: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Grant Molloy Sent: Thursday, 14 March 2013 9:45 AM To: ozDotNet Subject: RE: [OT] Home setup Ken, Out of interest how loud is your computer room (based on 7pc's and 3 servers?) On Mar 14, 2013 8:05 AM, "Ken Schaefer" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: The absolute "lowest maintenance" solution just involves turning everything off. Unfortunately that usually fails other tests (having certain functionality available for use). Without understanding where your time is going, I think it'd be hard to guess what remediation measures to take. I don't think there's anything intrinsically wrong with the setup you have today. But obviously there is a need to cut down on the time/effort you're spending - just need to understand what you're spending time on. Cheers Ken From: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> [mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>] On Behalf Of Grant Molloy Sent: Wednesday, 13 March 2013 4:22 PM To: ozDotNet Subject: RE: [OT] Home setup There's no 'major's issue, but it feels like there is always something that needs to be done with os. I do use WU/MU, but in recent times I've had a few failures which have cost me lots of time to fix. Virus/malware not issue as regular scans and daily update checks. PC and server have auto backups setup. I have noticed a nice amount of dust on front of cases and CPU heatsinks with too much dust, but that's not a biggie... Maybe I should have asked for the 'lowest maintenance' solution.
