what did you learn today? (part 2)

[Fuller]

If two users are editing the same file on different servers it does funky things sometimes.

 

[Ardax]

ronelson[/url]":20jzv9st]

Search for identically named content next time. I'll be surprised if you don't find it.

In what world do you live in where the user actually knows the names of the files or folders? I have easily spent four hours searching through backups for "FolderName" thinking it got deleted months ago and noone noticed only to find its actually called "SomethingEntirelyUnrelated (2)".

hawkbox already said that he's recovering from Shadow Copies. The names are in front of him.

 

[PaveHawk-]

Entegy[/url]":69s88x4p]Hitting the 255 character limit of Explorer in a single folder name.

I got multiple folders, each with the maximum character limit used, so that when you read the path in explorer it looks like a full paragraph.

Some of my clients are fucking morons.

 

[Technarch]

w00key[/url]":26goftvx]RAM is cheap. DDR3-1333 16GB Reg ECC is €140 per stick (not even no-name, part# from compatibility list), I remember paying this much for a stick of 2 or 4GB FBDIMM. The best part of this upgrade is that it pays itself in a few months of power (over)usage by decomissioning a few old PE 1950's.

I remember getting chewed out and written up for losing a 256MB DIMM out of a set of 8 for a Sun E4000. It was like losing a $500 bill. We used to joke that Sun RAM was worth more than gold and possibly as much as uncut diamonds, by weight.

 

[Barmaglot]

32GB LRDIMMs are still ~$1k though

 

[afidel]

Technarch[/url]":175jntrg]

w00key[/url]":175jntrg]RAM is cheap. DDR3-1333 16GB Reg ECC is €140 per stick (not even no-name, part# from compatibility list), I remember paying this much for a stick of 2 or 4GB FBDIMM. The best part of this upgrade is that it pays itself in a few months of power (over)usage by decomissioning a few old PE 1950's.

I remember getting chewed out and written up for losing a 256MB DIMM out of a set of 8 for a Sun E4000. It was like losing a $500 bill. We used to joke that Sun RAM was worth more than gold and possibly as much as uncut diamonds, by weight.

Yep, which is one of the reasons that we jumped on the fist Opteron, affordable large memory systems was a godsend at the time, we could buy a rack full of Opterons with max memory for what four slow U60 workstations with the same memory layout cost.

 

[nshank]

Today I learned that just because the company image for my laptop sucks ass, doesn't mean the random crashing isn't a hardware problem.

Furthermore, I learned that diagnostics are almost useless for testing the system as a whole.

 

[Demoulous]

afidel[/url]":4ccepjrb]

Technarch[/url]":4ccepjrb]

w00key[/url]":4ccepjrb]RAM is cheap. DDR3-1333 16GB Reg ECC is €140 per stick (not even no-name, part# from compatibility list), I remember paying this much for a stick of 2 or 4GB FBDIMM. The best part of this upgrade is that it pays itself in a few months of power (over)usage by decomissioning a few old PE 1950's.

I remember getting chewed out and written up for losing a 256MB DIMM out of a set of 8 for a Sun E4000. It was like losing a $500 bill. We used to joke that Sun RAM was worth more than gold and possibly as much as uncut diamonds, by weight.

Yep, which is one of the reasons that we jumped on the fist Opteron, affordable large memory systems was a godsend at the time, we could buy a rack full of Opterons with max memory for what four slow U60 workstations with the same memory layout cost.

Back when the first opterons came out we desperately needed loads of fast compute for our simulations and like you we were using SUN back then. So when the opterons came along I was not only able to get a load of them for much less than the equiv SUN hardware, but also able to overclock them for even better performance. So we ended up with 30x in house built servers with AMD Athlon FX51 cpus clocked 2.4ghz and very tight timings on the 4GB of ECC CL2 ram (while also being rock solid and generating zero errors). This resulted in us being able to get our simulations completed in a third of the time it took on the SUN hardware.

 

[Rick25]

Entegy[/url]":wuxq10nh]Hitting the 255 character limit of Explorer in a single folder name.

I'd really wish they'd fix that. It's also a issue if you're trying to do a Shadow Copy restore and you can't because the path is now too deep since they tack on the date/time of the snapshot.

 

[speedye1]

Rick25[/url]":1cs98zj8]

Entegy[/url]":1cs98zj8]Hitting the 255 character limit of Explorer in a single folder name.

I'd really wish they'd fix that. It's also a issue if you're trying to do a Shadow Copy restore and you can't because the path is now too deep since they tack on the date/time of the snapshot.

Also an issue if you are using a mapped drive to a dfs link which lets them add more characters, then try to access through the full dfs link = fail.

 

[kperrier]

TIL (well, it was reinforced) that I work with a bunch of "letter of the law" types and it does not matter that what policy says is 100% ineffective, by God we are going to follow procedure anyway. God forbid that we actually do anything that works around here.

We have had 5 or 6 senior people leave in the last 3 to 4 months. That has me thinking "What are they seeing that I am not?"

A co-worker has been at the RedHat Summit all week. Unfortunately his manager has had him put in just about 40 hours of work from Boston in the evenings, so the organization will get little to no value for the money we spent to send him there.

I think I need to polish off the old resume, update it and post it to be shredded by the Boardroom.

 

[Arbelac]

kperrier[/url]":mu4ye0d7] I work with a bunch of "letter of the law" types and it does not matter that what policy says is 100% ineffective, by God we are going to follow procedure anyway.

You are seeing what they are seeing; they've just acted on it.

I think I need to polish off the old resume, update it and post it to be shredded by the Boardroom.

Good plan.

 

[Danger Mouse]

...that upgrading old OEMed Samsung SSDs can be a real barrel of laughs.

Finally got it working with the method here:

http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-a ... 421/page/7

boot with device in, run command, remove and reinsert device. Run next command, remove and reinsert device. Run final command and remove and reinsert device.

Then blammo, all should be fine.

I'm thinking the Samsung app or datafile could probably be edited/hexedited to see the model as a proper Samsung model, but it's done. It took a bit of time mucking around before I found that one.

256GB MLC SSD, still very fast, but slower than a Crucial M4.

This little exercise was a technical vacation of sorts, because I'm really really really really really burned out.

 

[Danger Mouse]

...that when you're 100% positive, dead sure, etc etc that it's not a typo in the script, it's a freaking typo in the script. Why? because the name of the executable changed slightly (dropped a word in the name of the executable) in the newer point release

 

[theevilsharpie]

Danger Mouse[/url]":3v4tciwd]...that when you're 100% positive, dead sure, etc etc that it's not a typo in the script, it's a freaking typo in the script. Why? because the name of the executable changed slightly (dropped a word in the name of the executable) in the newer point release

Who the hell renames an executable as part of a point release (which I assume means a maintenance release)?

 

[hawkbox]

theevilsharpie[/url]":2hmt2mwn]

Danger Mouse[/url]":2hmt2mwn]...that when you're 100% positive, dead sure, etc etc that it's not a typo in the script, it's a freaking typo in the script. Why? because the name of the executable changed slightly (dropped a word in the name of the executable) in the newer point release

Who the hell renames an executable as part of a point release (which I assume means a maintenance release)?

I built a SQL box that I named XXQSL02 and didn't notice the spelling error until I was almost ready to go live with it. :facepalm:

 

[theevilsharpie]

hawkbox[/url]":2gsg70au]

theevilsharpie[/url]":2gsg70au]

Danger Mouse[/url]":2gsg70au]...that when you're 100% positive, dead sure, etc etc that it's not a typo in the script, it's a freaking typo in the script. Why? because the name of the executable changed slightly (dropped a word in the name of the executable) in the newer point release

Who the hell renames an executable as part of a point release (which I assume means a maintenance release)?

I built a SQL box that I named XXQSL02 and didn't notice the spelling error until I was almost ready to go live with it. :facepalm:

I'm sure all of us are guilty of dumb mistakes like that, but you'd have to be bold or stupid to make such a substantial change to a software product as what DM described.

Of course, having read so many of DM's stories, you really have to wonder if his vendors aren't just trolling him at this point :devious:

 

[Danger Mouse]

theevilsharpie[/url]":tz3affho]

hawkbox[/url]":tz3affho]

theevilsharpie[/url]":tz3affho]

Danger Mouse[/url]":tz3affho]...that when you're 100% positive, dead sure, etc etc that it's not a typo in the script, it's a freaking typo in the script. Why? because the name of the executable changed slightly (dropped a word in the name of the executable) in the newer point release

Who the hell renames an executable as part of a point release (which I assume means a maintenance release)?

I built a SQL box that I named XXQSL02 and didn't notice the spelling error until I was almost ready to go live with it. :facepalm:

I'm sure all of us are guilty of dumb mistakes like that, but you'd have to be bold or stupid to make such a substantial change to a software product as what DM described.

Of course, having read so many of DM's stories, you really have to wonder if his vendors aren't just trolling him at this point :devious:

Along those same lines, connecting a Cisco 2950 to a Cisco 4506 via a straight through cable, should result in Auto-mdix, correct? 100mbt on one end, but gigabit on the other.

But, it doesn't. It results in the 2950 being unusable until either the appropriate change is made to the cable or a manual statement is added. And that manual config statement was added, but it didn't work. Crossover cable it is.

Mind you, connecting a 2950 (yes, old and EOL) to a 3750E results in the expected auto crossover functioning.

Then again, we've had far more issues with the copper gigE switch blades on a 4506 and 4507 than any of the individual 3750 switches.

Mind you, the asshats who did the purchasing, seem to have done an almost random sampling of Cisco Cataylst 3750 models (some E, some G, some no suffix, some with PoE and some not, but placed almost randomly, such that stacking becomes a tedious chore of matching LCD IOS versions)

 

[Danger Mouse]

hawkbox[/url]":zkccvdoc]

theevilsharpie[/url]":zkccvdoc]

Danger Mouse[/url]":zkccvdoc]...that when you're 100% positive, dead sure, etc etc that it's not a typo in the script, it's a freaking typo in the script. Why? because the name of the executable changed slightly (dropped a word in the name of the executable) in the newer point release

Who the hell renames an executable as part of a point release (which I assume means a maintenance release)?

I built a SQL box that I named XXQSL02 and didn't notice the spelling error until I was almost ready to go live with it. :facepalm:

I misspelled our company's name, back in 2000. Unfortunately, that spelling error lived on in the system images for a few years due to a rolling deployment. After Win2000 was retired in favor of XP, etc, that particular little thing was gone.

That took nearly 10 years to live down I point and laugh at myself for little mistakes like that.

I'm pretty good about that now, but it seems like my boss never fixed it on himself. There's all kinds of stupid misspellings in VM names, etc. Anything untouched by autocorrect has problems.

If someone makes a spelling checker plugin for vCenter, that may help avoid future hilariously mispelled VMs (worse than my dropping one letter out of my org's name, HAHAHAHAHA)

 

[sporkme]

smwht[/url]":1bmhdru8]Today I learned (well, this week anyways) Intel's DC S3700 SSDs are amazing. Average read latency of 235µs and write latency of 130µs while doing 35k read / 30k write IOPS. 99.99 percentile latencies around 2ms.

Now I'm curious how the new S3500s compare to the Samsung drives (830/840 pro) we've been buying for less write-intensive work.

I'm really looking forward to the price drop on the S3700s.

I'm going to assume they blow away the Samsungs:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6433/inte ... 0gb-review

And they have power loss protection and are rated for way more write cycles.

 

[Technarch]

YIL that Amazon EC2 does not maintain a consistent kernel base across zones. This causes "interesting" problems when one attempts to launch an AMI in a West region that was developed in an East region.

 

[w00key]

They finally released new SSD's? Damn, I think I've some parts to order.

While Googling, I came across this piece of turd: I love how Tom runs "benchmarks" on a 32GB data set on a system with 64GB RAM used as file cache. Yeah, that's really really really fast!


[edit] Is there any non HET-Flash version announced yet? Might be cheaper, then again, it's € 2,20/GB vs € 1,60 of the old Intel 320 series, the current cheapest server-ready drive with power loss data protection, the difference isn't that huge.

[edit #2] More reading brought up the DC SC3500, http://newsroom.intel.com/community/int ... ajor-boost. Yay. This ones goes for est $1.33/GB.

 

[smwht]

sporkme[/url]":3e49basw]

smwht[/url]":3e49basw]Today I learned (well, this week anyways) Intel's DC S3700 SSDs are amazing. Average read latency of 235µs and write latency of 130µs while doing 35k read / 30k write IOPS. 99.99 percentile latencies around 2ms.

Now I'm curious how the new S3500s compare to the Samsung drives (830/840 pro) we've been buying for less write-intensive work.

I'm really looking forward to the price drop on the S3700s.

I'm going to assume they blow away the Samsungs:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6433/inte ... 0gb-review

And they have power loss protection and are rated for way more write cycles.

FWIW the samsungs were around 15k/15k IOPS doing the same test, and around triple the latency. Not at all a scientific benchmark (single intel drive on an h310 in an r420 vs pair of samsung drives in lvm stripe on an h200 in an r410) but definitely a noticeable improvement. IIRC both controllers are SAS2008-based, but different firmware etc. may also play a role.

The main reason we got them was the endurance, we were going to exhaust the samsungs in about 6 months. The intels should handle at least 10x that for a bit more than 2x the price/gb

The S3500 looks interesting, because it should be roughly the same price as the samsung drives, but if it performs like the S3700 it'll probably be worth switching to for less write-intensive things.

 

[Barmaglot]

I'm looking to deploy some SSDs into ESXi hosts for NetApp FlashAccel (as soon as v1.2 is released), and DC S3500 is definitely looking interesting. S3700 is too expensive, and its premium write performance would be wasted on a read cache device anyway.

 

[Cookie.Monster]

DBA for a test SQL server stopped by on Friday asking to see if we could clear up space on the system drive. Everything looked fine, until I noticed Cwindows\system32\config\software taking up 1.6 GB.

Turns out this can happen. Not sure how reliable the site is, but the scenario matched ours to a T.

 

[K0DE]

HP/3par just sent me a pair of boxing gloves...

 

[M. Jones]

Danger Mouse[/url]":243mrqsr]
Along those same lines, connecting a Cisco 2950 to a Cisco 4506 via a straight through cable, should result in Auto-mdix, correct? 100mbt on one end, but gigabit on the other.

Auto-detection is not reliable in 100BASE-TX, which is why 100BASE-TX is deprecated in our enterprise. It's difficult to convince vendors to invest in gigabit chipsets for PDUs and similar devices with minimal speed needs because they can't get over the lack of need for bandwidth.

 

[M. Jones]

sporkme[/url]":z7jr5uog]
I'm really looking forward to the price drop on the S3700s.

I'm going to assume they blow away the Samsungs:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6433/inte ... 0gb-review

And they have power loss protection and are rated for way more write cycles.

Sandisk's Ultra Plus line aren't as fast as 840s but have a layer of SLC flash to aggregate writes before they go to MLC. Consequently the manufacturer's rating is 80 terrabytes lifetime write on a 256GB drive. The 19nm flash allows the PCB inside the 2.5-inch enclosure is almost as small as an mSATA, if you have a need for a very small or lightweight drive. I was thinking it had a capacitor too, but I'm probably conflating it with one of Seagate's new higher-end models.

 

[Danger Mouse]

M. Jones[/url]":27j589zv]

Danger Mouse[/url]":27j589zv]
Along those same lines, connecting a Cisco 2950 to a Cisco 4506 via a straight through cable, should result in Auto-mdix, correct? 100mbt on one end, but gigabit on the other.

Auto-detection is not reliable in 100BASE-TX, which is why 100BASE-TX is deprecated in our enterprise. It's difficult to convince vendors to invest in gigabit chipsets for PDUs and similar devices with minimal speed needs because they can't get over the lack of need for bandwidth.

Yah, it's a well discussed thing in this forum and the previous thread. The point though, was that it worked just fine with a 3750 but not a 4506/4507. It's that kind of inconsistency that can be a bit annoying, and worthwhile knowing.

 

[Dqua]

K0DE[/url]":3ptsjlvv]HP/3par just sent me a pair of boxing gloves...

Is this like one of those branded stress squeeze balls but taken to the next level?

 

[Ardax]

Dqua[/url]":2tauwbrc]

K0DE[/url]":2tauwbrc]HP/3par just sent me a pair of boxing gloves...

Is this like one of those branded stress squeeze balls but taken to the next level?

More interestingly... no punching bag?

 

[afidel]

Ardax[/url]":26u3nol6]

Dqua[/url]":26u3nol6]

K0DE[/url]":26u3nol6]HP/3par just sent me a pair of boxing gloves...

Is this like one of those branded stress squeeze balls but taken to the next level?

More interestingly... no punching bag?

They expect EMC to provide that =)

 

[cwbecker]

Ardax[/url]":nblk8l4s]

Dqua[/url]":nblk8l4s]

K0DE[/url]":nblk8l4s]HP/3par just sent me a pair of boxing gloves...

Is this like one of those branded stress squeeze balls but taken to the next level?

More interestingly... no punching bag?

HP: Promoting percussive maintenance for over 50 years.

 

[sryan2k1]

We had a 24" monitor make a leap for freedom off a cart. It gets all pink and wiggly until you "fine tune it" with your fist on the left side. Then it's good for another hour or so.

Works well enough for testing.

 

[PaveHawk-]

sryan2k1[/url]":2y5hn925]We had a 24" monitor make a leap for freedom off a cart. It gets all pink and wiggly until you "fine tune it" with your fist on the left side. Then it's good for another hour or so.

Works well enough for testing.

How about your fist?

 

[Danger Mouse]

sryan2k1[/url]":37ilw6nm]We had a 24" monitor make a leap for freedom off a cart. It gets all pink and wiggly until you "fine tune it" with your fist on the left side. Then it's good for another hour or so.

Works well enough for testing.

Reminds of my old mechanic from 15 years back. I had just started working at a call center for outsourced ISP tech support. I couldn't afford the starter/alternator rebuild on my 1981 Honda Accord.

My Lebanese (as in, barely escaped from lebanon during some of the worst fighting in Lebanon) mechanic showed me WTF to do.

I would hammer my alternator on one exact spot, and run around and flip on the ignition. After awhile, I figured out that I should use my club on the ignition while I hammered the alternator, then run back and remove the club.

Worked pretty good for a few weeks while I got the cash together for the rebuild. During the rebuild, the mechanic discovered that it was built out of spare parts from 3 WRONG alternators, and used only the shell of the correct one.

 

[M. Jones]

Danger Mouse[/url]":34zx6ts2]During the rebuild, the mechanic discovered that it was built out of spare parts from 3 WRONG alternators, and used only the shell of the correct one.

When buying a used car it's extremely important to profile the owner in order to have an educated guess at the reliability and quality of maintenance and repair undertaken. Don't buy used cars from teenagers and other owners who will be tempted to skimp on maintenance for financial reasons, or who treat ownership as a mere exercise in RoI, or who don't value their reputation more than the last marginal dollar they can realise from a transaction.

 

[Danger Mouse]

M. Jones[/url]":1p2a10xn]

Danger Mouse[/url]":1p2a10xn]During the rebuild, the mechanic discovered that it was built out of spare parts from 3 WRONG alternators, and used only the shell of the correct one.

When buying a used car it's extremely important to profile the owner in order to have an educated guess at the reliability and quality of maintenance and repair undertaken. Don't buy used cars from teenagers and other owners who will be tempted to skimp on maintenance for financial reasons, or who treat ownership as a mere exercise in RoI, or who don't value their reputation more than the last marginal dollar they can realise from a transaction.

You can turn off the internal knowledgebase autoanswer. If I've got a question, I'll ask it.

Humorous anecdote is humorous anecdote.

 

[M. Jones]

Danger Mouse[/url]":18ce88be]
You can turn off the internal knowledgebase autoanswer. If I've got a question, I'll ask it.

That answer is more useful to other readers than my anecdote about buying a car from an aging biker, with L-O-V-E and H-A-T-E tattooed on his knuckles, that turned out to have spun crank bearings from an oil pump that had been clogged with pieces of a fractured timing gear. 1972 thick-block Chevrolet V8s used nylon timing gears to reduce engine noise that customers found objectionable, at severe cost. A decade and two later, many manufacturers outside the U.S. used timing belts for the same reason, although those timing belts need regular maintenance and on an interference engine their neglect and failure will result in catastrophic internal damage. American engines almost always used timing chains, and most modern designs use silent chains for timing which should last the life of the engine without maintenance.

Or the convertible jalopy I once bought from a teenager that looked like a great deal on paper. Atrocious maintenance history, destined to fail badly. Buy from owners who are not price-sensitive, and prepare to pay a small premium. Your mechanic knows which of her or his customers from whom you should buy cars. Otherwise, seek out cars owned by enthusiasts who can afford to maintain their indulgences, the elderly, and good neighbourhoods.

 

[Danger Mouse]

M. Jones[/url]":vue5njau]

Danger Mouse[/url]":vue5njau]
You can turn off the internal knowledgebase autoanswer. If I've got a question, I'll ask it.

That answer is more useful to other readers than my anecdote about buying a car from an aging biker, with L-O-V-E and H-A-T-E tattooed on his knuckles, that turned out to have spun crank bearings from an oil pump that had been clogged with pieces of a fractured timing gear. 1972 thick-block Chevrolet V8s used nylon timing gears to reduce engine noise that customers found objectionable, at severe cost. A decade and two later, many manufacturers outside the U.S. used timing belts for the same reason, although those timing belts need regular maintenance and on an interference engine their neglect and failure will result in catastrophic internal damage. American engines almost always used timing chains, and most modern designs use silent chains for timing which should last the life of the engine without maintenance.

Or the convertible jalopy I once bought from a teenager that looked like a great deal on paper. Atrocious maintenance history, destined to fail badly. Buy from owners who are not price-sensitive, and prepare to pay a small premium. Your mechanic knows which of her or his customers from whom you should buy cars. Otherwise, seek out cars owned by enthusiasts who can afford to maintain their indulgences, the elderly, and good neighbourhoods.

Given that most readers of this thread/forum are likely to be working professionals with more of a mid career or greater level, I'm going with the assumption that they already know how to buy a used car or other various sundry bits of every day life.

And if they don't, I'm sure they know how to look it up in google or post in the lounge or boardroom for advice.

I prefer giving the benefit of the doubt here. I save my ragehol for vendors and various unscrupulous types.