Frankenstein Nostalgia

I'll bet the title has at least SOME people scratching their electronic heads. Which is fine with me - Chaos, Confusion, Disorder, and my work here is done...

But seriously, I'm having a severe wistful moment. Allow me to elaborate:
The first computer I ever built, was constructed completely out of spare parts. I added about $200 of upgrades, but the bare bones that made it run was cobbled together from stuff I got for free. I dubbed it "Frankenstein" which I know isn't literally correct, but too bad. (It's worth mentioning that I sold Frankenstein to a coffee shop for $200 profit. :) ) Now, let's fast forward back to the present: I have 3 computers in the same room as me that I've built in a similar fashion, including Frankenstein II, but all of them pale in comparison to the machine that is currently building itself on the desk. That's right, the Media Server.

Now wait, didn't I already have that running???
Ah yes, I did. I had it working quite nicely actually - however, it's now bigger, badder, and better than ever! While most of the original hardware is the same, there are some major differences:

1) The Case: one of the major drawbacks of the original machine was that the case it was in was a cheap thing I picked up for $10, and with the fans I put into it to keep it from melting on me, it was pretty damn loud. Not anymore - whisper silent, much more room, and just plain good-looking.




2) The Storage: the old machine had about 850GB of storage provided by 4 hard drives in a JBOD configuration. (JBOD = Jumbo Bunch Of Disks. It also = heart break if one of them fails). Now? Five hard drives, with 4 in a RAID 5 configuration (it's cool, trust me) with just about double the storage of the JBOD. That's right, we're talking more than 1.5 TB. Be afraid.



Also noteworthy: Because of the way it works, the 4 drives in RAID 5 need to be "built" into the right configuration. (Remember, I said it's "building itself"...?). I started this building process almost 2 hours ago. Current status = 30%. Must. Be. Patient...!




3) The RAID Controller: OK, I already mentioned the storage, but this little piece of silicone is what makes it work - a PCI SATA RAID controller. And no, I won't expand that alphabet soup of acronyms there. You're not special enough :-P
Anywho, I need to shower much thanks on my buddy Simon: he had this lying around as a spare part, and let me have it :-D.

Current status: 31%

Well, I can't afford to keep watching this thing till it finishes, so it's bedtime for me. Klara's probably going to kill me after reading this, because I said I wasn't going to have a late night... But I think I'll be alright, at least until after the house is painted :-P

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Update: 01/10/08, 10:00 AM

The server lives again! And after a bit of downloading for a driver, and some small tweaks, the massive drive is recognized - in fact, before I left for work, I started transferring across my DVD library. Ah, so much joy.