Comments on: Home Fileserver: Drive temps

By: Simon

Simon — Wed, 21 May 2008 16:45:25 +0000

Thanks, and glad you found the info useful. I spent a lot of time finding all this stuff out, so I’m happy for others to benefit from it. I found a lot of info on other bloggers’ sites to help me too.

And thanks again for the SunRay info — sounds good, and if I’m ‘allowed’ to obtain any more hardware, like a SunRay, I’ll be sure to write something about it. Cheers! I’ll take a peek on ebay now or craigslist

By: Meow

Meow — Wed, 21 May 2008 11:14:37 +0000

And thanx a lot for your blogg! Tons and tons of useful information. Godsend. I had problems setting up CIFS, but now I will try again with that. We all help each other. You give us tips. And we give tips back. Together we all prosper. This is the open community. The more we give, the more we get back. Easy.

Would be cool if you tried SunRays and blogged about them too. :o)

By: Simon

Simon — Tue, 20 May 2008 18:43:14 +0000

Well, they really do sound like cool devices. I had heard the name SunRay but so far I’ve never seen one. I’m off to Google to take a look. Four watts power consumption is incredibly low power, and for what most people use a computer for, it sounds quite sufficient, assuming you have a server to connect it to.

Thanks a lot for the tips!

By: Meow

Meow — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:00:51 +0000

But if SRSS is fixed so it can show video full screen, then I shall get a OH projector connected to SunRay so I can watch movies on the entire wall. A quad core with 8GB RAM should suffice for my entire household, and several discs in ZFS raid. And the movies on it, plus the MP3 collection. Sweeeeeet!

SunRay 2FS has dual Screen dvi, each 1920 x 1200.

(No I dont work at SUN, I am just a SUN fanboy, i like the best technology. Right now, it is SUN having the best technology).

By: Meow

Meow — Tue, 20 May 2008 10:48:50 +0000

Maybe you can lower the resolution on one SunRay down to 640×480 and then you have full video? Lower the bit plan from 24 bit to 12 bit?

The SunRay 2 is 0.380 kg, and the size of a video VHS cassette. You can have dozens of them in a drawer, if the need should arise, for dozens of new workstations to work on.

By: Meow

Meow — Tue, 20 May 2008 10:44:57 +0000

There are problems with watching video on them. The bandwidth is the problem. The SunRay 2 has a 100mbit NIC built in. If you watch video, 1024 x 768 at 24bits, then it is like 100MB/sec? That is too much, because the server sends bitmaps to the SunRay. But if you have a small windows, you can see flawless video. The greater you make the window, it will start to lag. I think ~640×480 video window is flawless.

However, SUN is modifying the server SunRay SRSS software so it can show video fullscreen. I dont know when it is scheduled to be released. filibeto.org has a mailing list for SunRay.

You just install SRSS software on the server, and answer like 4 questions, and you are done. Then you insert the SunRay into the hub and thats it. Dead simple. The SRSS software is free to download from sun.com.

Ive heard of a bank that swithed to SunRays, and they saved 94% of their energy bill.

One quad with some GB, and you can serve several SunRays doing heavy duty work. One machine with two quad cores and 16 GB RAM in the basement, and you can serve your whole neighbourhood. They can toss out all their computers, and have a SunRay from you. And several large discs with ZFS at your house, with quotas, and they can listen to music, see video (on small windows), surf, etc. 4 Watt each SunRay. You can not upgrade the SunRay, you upgrade the server instead, and all SunRays will be upgraded. To serve many SunRays, ive heard RAM is the most important. Maybe 300 MB RAM for each user, or so is sufficient. Each SunRay uses like 320kbit/sec bandwidth for normal use, which is less than Citrix. There is a blogg on Citrix vs Sunray bandwidth flash video, and SunRay wins. Citrix is unusable at 20kbit/sec - contrary to what citrix claims. See the blogg where they try first with 20kbit/sec on citrix.

There are lots of user storys on blogs on SunRay. I love them. No one can mess the server up anymore. It is Solaris. And ZFS gives them a quota. Totally safe and top notch security. SunRay can also use cards (like Visa card) and support hot desking. Pull it out, and into another SunRay and continue where you left off. SUN has like 19.000 SunRay deployed worldwide, and have 38 administrators for them in total. Where small work.

By: Simon

Simon — Mon, 19 May 2008 19:37:23 +0000

Sounds very interesting — I will check them out. Thanks for the tip! I suppose you can’t watch video on them, can you?

By: Meow

Meow — Mon, 19 May 2008 18:59:37 +0000

Have you considered using thin client SunRays connected to your server? They dont have any CPU nor RAM (that runs software). You can not upgrade them, impossible. They only transmit the mouse and keyboard data into the server, and the server sends back bitmaps to the SunRay. Totally secure.

You plug in a SunRay into the hub and 10 secs later you get a login screen. Thats it. Looks exactly like you are sitting in front of the server. Each SunRay 2, uses 4 Watt. No fans. One server in the basement + 4 SunRay + ZFS = veeeery nice. With Virtualbox on the server you can run WinXP too. An refurbished SunRay can be found on Ebay for 40 USD. I use SunRays at home, and it is soooo sweet. You can listen to your MP3 collection on your ZFS pool from each room.

There are lots of interesting blogs on SunRay from home users.