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So, you've (I've) filled up your (my) NAS host - this was going to happen... You also probably (I definitely) haven't archived a full backup somewhere safe and offsite in some time! In that time, the most efficient size/cost ratio disks have probably increased in size massively.
It is time to procure 2 new bigger disks, and when they arrive, and are tested to be cool... shutdown the NAS host, and carefully shove them in...
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Posted by doug on Nov 24, 2012
This is old; I did this when I got new NAS hardware and wanted to use the then new 'gptzfsboot' code which allows for ZFS root without messing about with UFS partitions on each mirror member disk ( to work around FreeBSD's bootloader not supporting ZFS ).
One of the prime motivators was the idea of being able to upgrade the disks in my NAS when they filled up without having to mess about. I wanted to be able to buy a new pair of bigger disks, add them in, create a 4-way mirror, let it sync, remove the old disks, leaving a bigger mirror and importantly, a bootable archivable pair of disks.
At the rate disk size gets bigger, this has proved to be a good strategy.
I bought an HP Microserver for this; FreeBSD works very well on it - it has 4 drive bays (needed for this strategy), and with offers at the time was 100GBP not including upgrading the memory to its maximum, or HDDs. Still though, very cheap, so I bought 2 for chassis redundancy.
Anyway, I wouldn't have bothered blogging it, it's well covered online; but I had some nice tweaks on the source HOWTO I based this install on, and more importantly the disk upgrade process ( which will be the next post... ) had a few sub-optimal moments, which I thought were worth sharing. Do please email me if I'm wrong!
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Posted by doug on Nov 24, 2012
My Linksys WRT54GS running OpenWRT has been faultless, however, it was running an old release (White Russian) and needed upgrading for a newer kernel with proper IPV6 support.
Rather than gleefully upgrading and risking breaking my housenet's ability to see the internet, I decided to proceed cautiously, and buy a new router, with a view to setting it up as a new shiny drop-in replacement. A good opportunity to upgrade hardware for, amongst other things, N wireless. After searching for recommends, settled on the Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH, and placed an order with Amazon.
Yet again, I failed to notice that I'd selected a US vendor, and waited for ages for it to arrive. Grr. At self. When it did turn up, I immediately ignored the DD-WRT pre-install, carefully chose my OpenWRT firmware, flashed it, and bricked it...
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Posted by doug on Oct 09, 2011
oh dear, this post seems to confirm the recent rumours... so I along with others will be watching to see how IllumOS and OpenIndiana progress...
Posted by doug on Aug 13, 2010
hey kids! so i hit an error that i couldn't google ( hence this article... ) whilst migrating a debian cyrus-imapd mail service from an old sluggish box running 'sarge' to a new shiny box running 'lenny'...
why lenny? as is somewhat usual with debian, to get support in the packaged kernel for new SATA controllers...
the setup is cyrus-imapd-2.2, exim4, sasl auth, etc all from lenny debs... here is the error:
cyrus/lmtp[PID]: FATAL: Internal error: assertion failed:
duplicate.c: 146: (len == sizeof(time_t)) || (len == sizeof(time_t) + sizeof(unsigned long))
switched exim to use lmtpunix socket instead (just in case)...
cyrus/lmtpunix[PID]: FATAL: Internal error: assertion failed:
duplicate.c: 146: (len == sizeof(time_t)) || (len == sizeof(time_t) + sizeof(unsigned long))
hmm.
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Posted by doug on Mar 02, 2008
