2.5 Admins

Jim bought the worst laptop in the world, a quick update on SMR drives, learning the basics of ZFS, and updating air-gapped servers.   Plug Support the podcast on Patreon   News We bought Walmart’s $140 laptop so you wouldn’t have to Lawsuit vs. Western Digital wants to end any use of SMR in NAS drives Western Digital adds “Red Plus” branding for non-SMR hard drives   Free Consulting We were asked about the best ways to start with ZFS, and Shlomi asked about updating air-gapped Ubuntu machines with various VMs.         See our contact page for ways to get in touch.  

When the world will move to IPv6, WD SMR drives put to the test, raw vs qcow2 on ZFS, and erasing SSDs.   Plug Support the podcast on Patreon   News It could be ‘five to ten years’ before the world finally drags itself away from IPv4 We put Western Digital’s dreaded SMR Red drive to the test   Free consulting Michael asked for advice about whether to use raw or qcow2 on ZFS, and Joe had a question about giving SSDs away.           See our contact page for ways to get in touch.  

Zoom’s new encryption, podcasts in walled gardens, and servers as pets vs cattle.   Plug Support the podcast on Patreon   News Zoom to require users to upgrade to 5.0 after May 30th Zoom bought Keybase in early May Joe Rogan will move his podcast to Spotify   Free consulting Eduardo asked us to dive a little deeper into how to move from being an admin who treats their servers like pets to being an admin who treats their servers like cattle.     See our contact page for ways to get in touch.    

Why Apache is still relevant in 2020, and the differences between ZFS and Btrfs.   Plugs Allan’s BSDCan Homelab panel Allan on setns.live Support the podcast on Patreon   Apache vs Nginx Apache 101   Free Consulting Several people including Emil have asked us to discuss the differences between ZFS and Btrfs. Jim recently wrote a ZFS 101 article.     See our contact page for ways to get in touch.  

Our thoughts on DNS-over-HTTPS, whether Arm is about to take over, HDD advice, and automatic updates and reboots.   Plugs Help us keep the lights on by supporting us on Patreon. Watch Allan’s Homelab panel recording for BSDCan 2020 on May 5th, 2pm EDT (18:00 UTC) Check out Joe’s light-hearted podcast The New Show Jim will be speaking at Open Source 101 At Home   News Surreptitiously Swapping SMR into Hard Drive Lines Must Stop Canada’s .ca overlord rolls out free privacy-protecting DNS-over-HTTPS service for folks in Great White North Paul Vixie on DoH @ vBSDCon 2019 Paul Vixie: DNS Wars: Episode IV: A New Bypass @ EuroBSDCon 2019 The rumor that just won’t die: Apple to keep Intel at Arm’s length in 2021 with launch of ‘A14-powered laptops’ Making macOS run well on ARM processors isn’t the hard part What is ARM Morello ARM backs the CHERI project   Free Consulting Frank wrote in to ask advice on which HDDs to buy, and Jake was curious about automatic updates and reboots.    

In our first episode, Allan Jude, Jim Salter, and Joe Ressington discuss Amazon cutting affiliate rates, SMR hard drives, and setting up off-site backups on the cheap.   News Amazon reportedly planning drastic cuts to affiliate commission rates   Buyer beware—that 2TB-6TB “NAS” drive you’ve been eyeing might be SMR Seagate says Network Attached Storage and SMR don’t mix Western Digital admits 2TB-6TB WD Red NAS drives use shingled magnetic recording Seagate ‘submarines’ SMR into 3 Barracuda drives and a Desktop HDD Toshiba desktop disk drives have shingles too Western Digital implies WD Red NAS SMR drive users are responsible for overuse problems   Free Consulting Joe has ~2TB of data that should be backed up off-site. Jim and Allan discuss the best ways to do that on a low budget. Send your questions for Jim and Allan to show@ the show website domain: 2.5admins.com