Filling Up

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This weekend I noticed that my FreeNAS box (named Soteria) was getting filled up. It didn’t take me long to figure out what was happening: Time Machine was filling up with changes made to my VMs. Each time I would open up a VM, it would make small changes and so the entire VM storage file would need to be uploaded via Time Machine when I got home.

At over 10 GB a crack, it doesn’t take long to fill up 750 GB of space (especially when Laura’s hard drive is filling up as well with images).

So I was left with what I should do to alleviate the problem and came up with the quickest, most barbaric one possible: remove the current ZFS dataset and set up a new one. It was not quite as easy as I thought.

Removing the dataset from ZFS through the FreeNAS web GUI didn’t work, so I updated to the latest released beta for FreeNAS 8.2.0 and tried again. Success was close at hand. I created another dataset and thought I had everything setup until Time Machine failed on the first attempted backup.

Rule of the day? Don’t forget to to set up your backup user as the owner of the dataset you are going to be using.

After that small change everything worked wonderfully.

While this is only a temporary solution, it worked for now. I have Time Machine working like usual and should buy me enough time to gather together some more storage space so that I can push the entire system over 2 TB total and then I’ll make the following changes:

  • a separate ZFS dataset and user for each device
  • MOAR RAM
  • switch to the 64-bit installation (this really goes along with the prior one)

Everything else should be just fine, but the RAM is one of the areas I would really like to bump up along with (obviously) the disk storage. With 2 TB drives now sitting around $120/drive, things are looking better.

Rationale

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If you are making decisions for a business or organization, please provide your “underlings” the rationale behind the decisions you are making.

Making a decision and just stating “because” (or doing so by not stating your rationale) kills morale and provides no clear direction for your organization. Decisions seem arbitrary and when they are seemingly “pulled out of the air” it breeds discontent and, maybe worse, apathy for both you and your organization.

That doesn’t sound good.

So please, just take a moment to clearly communicate the rationale for the decisions you are making so that everyone, including you, can benefit.

Announcing the New Ulm Wiki Project

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I am pretty happy to announce the start of the New Ulm Wiki Project.

At last night’s NUGeeks meeting I discussed getting something going with this because I had been thinking about it for a while. We are running the latest LocalWiki beta on my own virtual server and now I am looking for people who are willing to help with the project.

It is no big secret that I love New Ulm and I love what the city has to offer and I hope that through this project we will be able to catalog what is here for both the people of New Ulm (and the surrounding areas) as well as those who might be coming to visit or are just interested in the area.

If you want to help out, please email me and let me know. Otherwise, it IS a wiki, to please feel free to submit changes and edits to the site directly.

IT as a Partnership

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During last night’s NUGeeks meeting, the topic of IT as a partnership came up again. Even though it is disheartening to hear how often IT workers (and whole departments) are seen as nothing more than a cost center for an organization, I still hold out for the day when IT is seen as a valuable part of the business as a whole and a partner in moving things ahead in the organization.

There is a wealth of information stored up in your IT department and most of the people who are there would be more than willing to sit in and give you advice and feedback on how technology might be better leveraged to help you achieve whatever goals you are aiming for. This could be something that is seen as mundane, but helps keep data more consistent and useful or it could be something as large as a huge technology overhaul that the person has been thinking about for a long time.

The people who are in your organization are a valuable asset that should be used as much as possible. While there is a lot to be gained from outside perspective, those who are working closely with the data and the people of your organization have a perspective that no outside vendor or expert will ever have. Why not use that?