Bargain LTSpice/Lab laptop

<https://www.walmart.com/ip/Fujitsu-Lifebook-U745-Ultrabook-Refurbished-14-Intel-Core-i7-5600U-2-6-GHz-512-SSD-12-GB-Ram/116957071>

Last of the Japanese/German-made business-class machines; several years 
old now but AFAIK they're well-built and not a PITA to work on, and even 
a refurb should be good for a few more years of service...

On Monday, January 24, 2022 at 1:26:11 AM UTC-5, bitrex wrote:
> <https://www.walmart.com/ip/Fujitsu-Lifebook-U745-Ultrabook-Refurbished-14-Intel-Core-i7-5600U-2-6-GHz-512-SSD-12-GB-Ram/116957071> 
> 
> Last of the Japanese/German-made business-class machines; several years 
> old now but AFAIK they're well-built and not a PITA to work on, and even 
> a refurb should be good for a few more years of service...

I bought a 17" new laptop with just 12 GB of RAM as a second computer when my first died and I needed something right away to copy data to off the old hard drive.  It was very light and nice to use in a portable setting.  But the combination of 12 GB RAM and the rotating hard drive was just too slow.  I ended up getting another 17" inch machine with 1 TB flash drive and 16 GB of RAM expecting to have to upgrade to 32 GB... but it runs very well, even when the 16 GB is maxed out.  That has to be due to the flash drive being so much faster than a rotating drive.  I've never bothered to upgrade it.  Maybe if I were running simulations a lot that would show up... or I could just close a browser or two.  They are the real memory hogs these day. 

The new machine is not as light as the other one, but still much lighter than my Dell Precision gut buster.  I ended up returning the 12 GB machine when I found the RAM was not upgradable. 

-- 

Rick C.

- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

On 1/24/2022 3:28 PM, Rick C wrote:
> On Monday, January 24, 2022 at 1:26:11 AM UTC-5, bitrex wrote:
>> <https://www.walmart.com/ip/Fujitsu-Lifebook-U745-Ultrabook-Refurbished-14-Intel-Core-i7-5600U-2-6-GHz-512-SSD-12-GB-Ram/116957071>
>>
>> Last of the Japanese/German-made business-class machines; several years
>> old now but AFAIK they're well-built and not a PITA to work on, and even
>> a refurb should be good for a few more years of service...
> 
> I bought a 17" new laptop with just 12 GB of RAM as a second computer when my first died and I needed something right away to copy data to off the old hard drive.  It was very light and nice to use in a portable setting.  But the combination of 12 GB RAM and the rotating hard drive was just too slow.  I ended up getting another 17" inch machine with 1 TB flash drive and 16 GB of RAM expecting to have to upgrade to 32 GB... but it runs very well, even when the 16 GB is maxed out.  That has to be due to the flash drive being so much faster than a rotating drive.  I've never bothered to upgrade it.  Maybe if I were running simulations a lot that would show up... or I could just close a browser or two.  They are the real memory hogs these day.
> 
> The new machine is not as light as the other one, but still much lighter than my Dell Precision gut buster.  I ended up returning the 12 GB machine when I found the RAM was not upgradable.
> 

I run 32 GB on my main desktop since I upgraded to Ryzen 5 this year, 
which seems adequate for just about anything I throw at it.

I'd be surprised if that Fujitsu can't be upgraded to at least 16.

Another nice deal for mass storage/backups of work files are these 
surplus Dell H700 hardware RAID controllers, if you have a spare 4x or 
wider PCIe slot you get 8 channels of RAID 0/1 per card, the used to be 
in servers probably but they work fine OOTB with Windows 10/11 and the 
modern Linux distros I've tried, and you don't have to muck with the OS 
software RAID or the motherboard's software RAID.

Yes a RAID array isn't a backup but I don't see any reason not to have 
your on-site backup in RAID 1.

<https://www.amazon.com/Dell-Controller-Standard-Profile-J9MR2/dp/B01J4744L0/>

On 1/24/2022 3:39 PM, bitrex wrote:
> On 1/24/2022 3:28 PM, Rick C wrote:
>> On Monday, January 24, 2022 at 1:26:11 AM UTC-5, bitrex wrote:
>>> <https://www.walmart.com/ip/Fujitsu-Lifebook-U745-Ultrabook-Refurbished-14-Intel-Core-i7-5600U-2-6-GHz-512-SSD-12-GB-Ram/116957071> 
>>>
>>>
>>> Last of the Japanese/German-made business-class machines; several years
>>> old now but AFAIK they're well-built and not a PITA to work on, and even
>>> a refurb should be good for a few more years of service...
>>
>> I bought a 17" new laptop with just 12 GB of RAM as a second computer 
>> when my first died and I needed something right away to copy data to 
>> off the old hard drive.&nbsp; It was very light and nice to use in a 
>> portable setting.&nbsp; But the combination of 12 GB RAM and the rotating 
>> hard drive was just too slow.&nbsp; I ended up getting another 17" inch 
>> machine with 1 TB flash drive and 16 GB of RAM expecting to have to 
>> upgrade to 32 GB... but it runs very well, even when the 16 GB is 
>> maxed out.&nbsp; That has to be due to the flash drive being so much faster 
>> than a rotating drive.&nbsp; I've never bothered to upgrade it.&nbsp; Maybe if I 
>> were running simulations a lot that would show up... or I could just 
>> close a browser or two.&nbsp; They are the real memory hogs these day.
>>
>> The new machine is not as light as the other one, but still much 
>> lighter than my Dell Precision gut buster.&nbsp; I ended up returning the 
>> 12 GB machine when I found the RAM was not upgradable.
>>
> 
> I run 32 GB on my main desktop since I upgraded to Ryzen 5 this year, 
> which seems adequate for just about anything I throw at it.
> 
> I'd be surprised if that Fujitsu can't be upgraded to at least 16.
> 
> Another nice deal for mass storage/backups of work files are these 
> surplus Dell H700 hardware RAID controllers, if you have a spare 4x or 
> wider PCIe slot you get 8 channels of RAID 0/1 per card, the used to be 
> in servers probably but they work fine OOTB with Windows 10/11 and the 
> modern Linux distros I've tried, and you don't have to muck with the OS 
> software RAID or the motherboard's software RAID.
> 
> Yes a RAID array isn't a backup 

Isn't a stand-alone backup "policy", rather

Rick C <gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote in
news:685c2c10-c084-4d06-8f00-bf47fae4ee30n@googlegroups.com: 

> That has to be due to the flash drive being so much faster than a
> rotating drive.  

  Could easily be processor related as well.  Make a bigger user 
defined swap space on it.  It would probably run faster under Ubuntu 
(any Linux) as well.

  I have a now three year old 17" Lenovo P71 as my main PC.

  It has an SSD as well as a spinning drive in it but is powered by a
graphics workstation class Xeon and Quadro graphics pushing a 4k 
display and would push several more via the thrunderbolt I/O ports.  
And it is only 16GB RAM.  It will likely be the last full PC machine I 
own.  For $3500 for a $5000 machine it ought to last for years.  No 
disappointments for me.

  It is my 3D CAD workstation and has Windows 10 Pro Workstation on it.
I keep it fooly upgraded and have never had a problem and it benchmarks 
pretty dag nab fast too.  And I also have the docking station for it 
which was another $250.  Could never be more pleased.  The only 
drawback is that it weighs a ton and it is nearly impossible to find a 
backpack that will fit it.  I know now why college kids stay below 17" 
form factor machines.

On 24/01/2022 21:39, bitrex wrote:
> 
> Another nice deal for mass storage/backups of work files are these
> surplus Dell H700 hardware RAID controllers, if you have a spare 4x or
> wider PCIe slot you get 8 channels of RAID 0/1 per card, the used to be
> in servers probably but they work fine OOTB with Windows 10/11 and the
> modern Linux distros I've tried, and you don't have to muck with the OS
> software RAID or the motherboard's software RAID.
> 
> Yes a RAID array isn't a backup but I don't see any reason not to have
> your on-site backup in RAID 1.
> 

You use RAID for three purposes, which may be combined - to get higher
speeds (for your particular usage), to get more space (compared to a
single drive), or to get reliability and better up-time in the face of
drive failures.

Yes, you should use RAID on your backups - whether it be a server with
disk space for copies of data, or "manual RAID1" by making multiple
backups to separate USB flash drives.  But don't imagine RAID is
connected with "backup" in any way.


From my experience with RAID, I strongly recommend you dump these kind
of hardware RAID controllers.  Unless you are going for serious
top-shelf equipment with battery backup, guaranteed response time by
recovery engineers with spare parts and that kind of thing, use Linux
software raid.  It is far more flexible, faster, more reliable and -
most importantly - much easier to recover in the case of hardware failure.

Any RAID system (assuming you don't pick RAID0) can survive a disk
failure.  The important points are how you spot the problem (does your
system send you an email, or does it just put on an LED and quietly beep
to itself behind closed doors?), and how you can recover.  Your fancy
hardware RAID controller card is useless when you find you can't get a
replacement disk that is on the manufacturer's "approved" list from a
decade ago.  (With Linux, you can use /anything/ - real, virtual, local,
remote, flash, disk, whatever.)  And what do you do when the RAID card
dies (yes, that happens) ?  For many cards, the format is proprietary
and your data is gone unless you can find some second-hand replacement
in a reasonable time-scale.  (With Linux, plug the drives into a new
system.)

I have only twice lost data from RAID systems (and had to restore them
from backup).  Both times it was hardware RAID - good quality Dell and
IBM stuff.  Those are, oddly, the only two hardware RAID systems I have
used.  A 100% failure rate.

(BSD and probably most other *nix systems have perfectly good software
RAID too, if you don't like Linux.)

On Monday, January 24, 2022 at 5:11:25 PM UTC-5, DecadentLinux...@decadence.org wrote:
> Rick C <gnuarm.del...@gmail.com> wrote in 
> news:685c2c10-c084-4d06...@googlegroups.com:
> > That has to be due to the flash drive being so much faster than a 
> > rotating drive.
> Could easily be processor related as well. Make a bigger user 
> defined swap space on it. It would probably run faster under Ubuntu 
> (any Linux) as well. 
> 
> I have a now three year old 17" Lenovo P71 as my main PC. 
> 
> It has an SSD as well as a spinning drive in it but is powered by a 
> graphics workstation class Xeon and Quadro graphics pushing a 4k 
> display and would push several more via the thrunderbolt I/O ports. 
> And it is only 16GB RAM. It will likely be the last full PC machine I 
> own. For $3500 for a $5000 machine it ought to last for years. No 
> disappointments for me. 
> 
> It is my 3D CAD workstation and has Windows 10 Pro Workstation on it. 
> I keep it fooly upgraded and have never had a problem and it benchmarks 
> pretty dag nab fast too. And I also have the docking station for it 
> which was another $250. Could never be more pleased. The only 
> drawback is that it weighs a ton and it is nearly impossible to find a 
> backpack that will fit it. I know now why college kids stay below 17" 
> form factor machines.

I've had only 17" machines since day one of my laptops and always find an adequate bag for them.  I had a couple of fabric bags which held the machines well, but when I got the Dell monster it was a tight squeeze.  Then a guy was selling leather at Costco.  I bought a wallet and a brief bag (not hard sided so I can't call it a case).  It's not quite a computer  bag as it has no padding, not even for the corners.  Again, the Dell fit, but tightly.  Now that I have this thing (a Lenovo which I swore I would never buy again, but here I am) and could even fit the lesser 17 inch laptop in the bag at the same time!  It doesn't have as many nooks and crannies, but everything fits and the bag drops into the sizer at the airport for a "personal" bag.  

I've always been anxious about bags on airplanes.  I've seen too many cases of the ticket guys being jerks and making people pay for extra baggage or even requiring them to check bags that don't fit the outline.  I was boarding my most recent flight and the guy didn't like my plastic grocery store bag asking what was in it. I told him it was food for the flight and clothing.  I was going from 32 &deg;F to 82 &deg;F and had a bulky sweater and warm gloves I had already taken off before the flight.  The guy told me to put the clothes in the computer bag as if they would fit!!!  I pushed back explaining this was what I had to wear to get to the airport without having hypothermia.  He had to mull that over and let me board the plane.  WTF??!!!  

I saw another guy doing the same thing with a family who's children had plastic bags with souvenir stuffed animals or something.  Spirit wants $65 each for carry on at the gate.  He didn't even recommend that they stuff it all into a single bag.  Total jerk!  No wonder I don't like airlines. 

-- 

Rick C.

+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

On 1/24/2022 5:48 PM, David Brown wrote:
> On 24/01/2022 21:39, bitrex wrote:
>>
>> Another nice deal for mass storage/backups of work files are these
>> surplus Dell H700 hardware RAID controllers, if you have a spare 4x or
>> wider PCIe slot you get 8 channels of RAID 0/1 per card, the used to be
>> in servers probably but they work fine OOTB with Windows 10/11 and the
>> modern Linux distros I've tried, and you don't have to muck with the OS
>> software RAID or the motherboard's software RAID.
>>
>> Yes a RAID array isn't a backup but I don't see any reason not to have
>> your on-site backup in RAID 1.
>>
> 
> You use RAID for three purposes, which may be combined - to get higher
> speeds (for your particular usage), to get more space (compared to a
> single drive), or to get reliability and better up-time in the face of
> drive failures.
> 
> Yes, you should use RAID on your backups - whether it be a server with
> disk space for copies of data, or "manual RAID1" by making multiple
> backups to separate USB flash drives.  But don't imagine RAID is
> connected with "backup" in any way.
> 
> 
>  From my experience with RAID, I strongly recommend you dump these kind
> of hardware RAID controllers.  Unless you are going for serious
> top-shelf equipment with battery backup, guaranteed response time by
> recovery engineers with spare parts and that kind of thing, use Linux
> software raid.  It is far more flexible, faster, more reliable and -
> most importantly - much easier to recover in the case of hardware failure.
> 
> Any RAID system (assuming you don't pick RAID0) can survive a disk
> failure.  The important points are how you spot the problem (does your
> system send you an email, or does it just put on an LED and quietly beep
> to itself behind closed doors?), and how you can recover.  Your fancy
> hardware RAID controller card is useless when you find you can't get a
> replacement disk that is on the manufacturer's "approved" list from a
> decade ago.  (With Linux, you can use /anything/ - real, virtual, local,
> remote, flash, disk, whatever.)  And what do you do when the RAID card
> dies (yes, that happens) ?  For many cards, the format is proprietary
> and your data is gone unless you can find some second-hand replacement
> in a reasonable time-scale.  (With Linux, plug the drives into a new
> system.)
> 
> I have only twice lost data from RAID systems (and had to restore them
> from backup).  Both times it was hardware RAID - good quality Dell and
> IBM stuff.  Those are, oddly, the only two hardware RAID systems I have
> used.  A 100% failure rate.
> 
> (BSD and probably most other *nix systems have perfectly good software
> RAID too, if you don't like Linux.)

I'm considering a hybrid scheme where the system partition is put on the 
HW controller in RAID 1, non-critical files but want fast access to like 
audio/video are on HW RAID 0, and the more critical long-term on-site 
mass storage that's not accessed too much is in some kind of software 
redundant-RAID equivalent, with changes synced to cloud backup service.

That way you can boot from something other than the dodgy motherboard 
software-RAID but you're not dead in the water if the OS drive fails, 
and can probably use the remaining drive to create a today-image of the 
system partition to restore from.

Worst-case you restore the system drive from your last image or from 
scratch if you have to, restoring the system drive from scratch isn't a 
crisis but it is seriously annoying, and most people don't do system 
drive images every day

On 1/24/2022 5:48 PM, David Brown wrote:


> Any RAID system (assuming you don't pick RAID0) can survive a disk
> failure.  The important points are how you spot the problem (does your
> system send you an email, or does it just put on an LED and quietly beep
> to itself behind closed doors?), and how you can recover.  Your fancy
> hardware RAID controller card is useless when you find you can't get a
> replacement disk that is on the manufacturer's "approved" list from a
> decade ago.  (With Linux, you can use /anything/ - real, virtual, local,
> remote, flash, disk, whatever.)  And what do you do when the RAID card
> dies (yes, that happens) ?  For many cards, the format is proprietary
> and your data is gone unless you can find some second-hand replacement
> in a reasonable time-scale.  (With Linux, plug the drives into a new
> system.)
> 
It's not the last word in backup, why should I have to do any of that I 
just go get new modern controller and drives and restore from my 
off-site backup...

On 1/24/2022 6:14 PM, bitrex wrote:
> It's not the last word in backup, why should I have to do any of that I just go 
> get new modern controller and drives and restore from my off-site backup...

Exactly.  If your drives are "suspect", then why are you still using them?
RAID is a complication that few folks really *need*.

If you are using it, then you should feel 100.0% confident in taking
a drive out of the array, deliberately scribbling on random sectors
and then reinstalling in the array to watch it recover.  A good exercise
to remind you what the process will be like when/if it happens for real.
(Just like doing an unnecessary "restore" from a backup).

RAID (5+) is especially tedious (and wasteful) with large arrays.
Each of my workstations has 5T spinning.  Should I add another ~8T just
to be sure that first 5T remains intact?  Or, should I have another
way of handling the (low probability) event of having to restore some
"corrupted" (or, accidentally deleted?) portion of the filesystem?

Image your system disk (and any media that host applications).
Then, backup your working files semi-regularly.

I've "lost" two drives in ~40 years:  one in a laptop that I
had configured as a 24/7/365 appliance (I'm guessing the drive
didn't like spinning up and down constantly; I may have been
able to prolong its life by NOT letting it spin down) and
another drive that developed problems in the boot record
(and was too small -- 160GB -- to bother trying to salvage).

[Note that I have ~200 drives deployed, here]