I have a simple question. If I am creating a new raid 10 array using enterprise SSD's, Do I still need the battery backup on the raid card? Does it change if I use an SSD that has the capacitors for power loss prevention?

I would argue that most people see the monitor as "the computer", at least the end users themselves. If the computer boots into something like windows, that is a PC regardless of it's physical form. People that do not understand what VDI actually is will assume that whatever physical box is plugged in is "the PC", they are just black boxes to them. How would they know the difference between a thick client box that boot into local windows 10, and a black box that boots straight into a windows 10 VDI? All the user can see is the physical appearance, and PC's come in all manner of physical appearances these days, thick and thin.

@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@Dashrender said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@Donahue said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

yuck

It was quick to prepare.

so? were you out of time?

Just needed some coffee.

And I hate to waste it.

that is just sunk cost mentality.

I mentioned this in another thread, but I currently have a file server which is a 2012R2 VM sharing roughly 6TB of data. I am looking into replacing this with something more modern, so far I am checking out Nextcloud.

But having read most of the threads on ML dealing with nextcloud, and especially reading about experiences such as @guyinpv had here and here, I think we need to take a hard look at how we share files now, and why we do it the way we do it, and maybe find other methods and philosophies that we could implement for a better overall experience.

In a lot of ways, I can relate to @guyinpv, as his setup sounds a lot like mine. We currently have our VM, with a single share that is applied as a mapped drive using GPO. Inside this share is a number of root level folders, basically one for each department. Inside each of these are the typical level of nested subfolders and files. All of the first couple levels of folders from the share root were created by me, and users are locked out of being able to make changes until they are a few layers deep into their department.

Based on my research and conversations I have had, I think we have a very narrow idea of what a file share should be like, because all we know is how windows operates. As far as we treat the system, there is no one that "owns" any of the files, even though windows records an owner. No one has any sort of personal or private files that they "share" with other users. The files exist in the share that we created, and both users likely have equal permissions to said file.

I would like to expand my horizons, because I don't feel like I fully understand how other companies might use something like NC. If we are to take full advantage of what NC offers, it may require a fundamental shift in thinking by us and I want to get started on that now.

How do other people use NC? Specifically, how are folder structures or other structures, and how does that relate to user accounts? What does the anatomy of a cloud based solution look like when done well? I think I would like to use the sync client in windows, but I have only just started to play around with an online demo.

@Donahue said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@DustinB3403 said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@Donahue said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

I tried to talk someone out of the IPOD on :hot_pepper:

But they still bought it, right?

They had everything bought before they even started the thread. They don't know how they were going to setup the networking portion yet, but they still already bought the hardware, because you know, its magically redundant.

I've made the mistake of jumping the gun and buying hardware before I knew how I was going to use it all, and ended up having to try and make lemonade out of lemons, so I cant really cast the first stone.

I thought of a good analogy on the way into work this morning, about the difference between redundant compute nodes and redundant storage. In the classic IPOD scheme, the compute nodes are like cars and the the SAN is like the driver. All the value is in the driver and the car is just a means to an end. You can crash a car and replace it rather easily. In a pinch, just about any car would do. But if driver dies, there is no point to the car, so the driver is obviously the most important part of the equation. Obviously the analogy breaks down because you can't have redundant persons IRL, but you get the point.

I currently use teamviewer, but version 9 which is a bit outdated. I use this every day to support my users, especially the ones at our second facility. I have considered just updating to the latest version of teamviewer, but I wanted to know what you guys are using for similar tasks. I need to be able to log into computers and take control of the keyboard and mouse without the user's permission, or more specifically, I don't want the users to have to grant me permissions to remote in or take control. So far I remote into windows boxes only, but we may start to branch out into linux at some point. I also need to be able to connect from iOS or Android (having the ability to remote into iOS or Android would be a big plus). The last part that I want is to have a nice convenient list of computers with pre configured connections so that I can just click on that computer and jump right in.

I just got my new host from xByte.

@scottalanmiller, I read the first 10 posts or so like it was your ships log after you shipwrecked on a deserted island, and you were preserving the record for whoever found your body.

Just watching some nice youtube video's :)

I can give this answer from an SMB perspective. I feel like I am probably really close to the majority of SMB that try and deploy AD, specifically "because we already have it". In my implementation, we had two locations and two hosts initially, so it seemed a no brainer to use to DC's. However, I would guess that a lot of people that are setting up AD don't really know what AD even actually does. I have confused other things built into windows or NTFS with being AD simply because I manage the from my DC. I am talking about things like group policy, security groups, file permissions, etc. I would bet that the majority of SMB that deploy AD do so because they want to leverage these things and because owning windows servers gives them access to AD which is included.

With all that said, I know that AD's simplicity can be deceiving and there is a high chance that just because you have two DC, it doesn't mean that you have them configured correctly, I know that I don't.

How often does the real SMB actually have people that already know AD and what it actually does, and know that there are any other options in a windows ecosystem? I didn't even know I had a choice until recently.

@dbeato yeah, I should probably do that. I should be able to move everything over to my backup host and do it that way.

I've added some more disks (going from 5 to 7) and I am trying to figure out of I can expand the array without a reboot, using iDrac. It doesn't look like I can, it looks like I have to reboot and go into the setup to expand the VD. But before I do that, does anyone know if it can be done via iDrac while online? Or does anyone have any easy to understand documentation for adding OMSA?

I read about the Hololens2 yesterday, it seems promising. The $3500 price tag isn't ideal but if it worked might be worth it. But I don't know how far I could test or confirm that a system like this found function for us without just buying it and testing it. It may have to end up being one a speculation cost if it doesnt work out, but all of this stuff is completely new to us. I think we have applications for both VR and AR, depending on the circumstances, but I think that AR is probably the harder one to pull off.

@JaredBusch Ideally, AR

I am looking into the possibility for work. We make large industrial equipment and I want to see how feasible the technology is to be able to project our 3D cad models AR style. I've experimented with this some over the last few days and I can get it to work on my phone using .obj and .gITF files. I think the next step is to buy some goggles and see what I can do. Anyone use them for work or games?

@taurex said in Hyper V Tape passthrough possible?:

@Donahue said in Hyper V Tape passthrough possible?:

I've just installed on bare metal, but now I've run into an issue where backup tape jobs are not supported in my version of Veeam. I can backup files, but not VM's unless I upgrade to "enterprise" veeam

Why wouldn't you simply select the existing Veeam backup folders/files and archive them to tape? Here is an excerpt from the official Veeam guide: "When a backup to tape job runs, it does not create new backups: it locates already existing backups and copies them from backup repository to tape. You need to set the source of the tape job: jobs and/or backup repositories."

What that is describing is the "backup to tape" feature, which requires the next license up from the one I currently have. For now I have settled on just backing up the actual files located in the storage repository. I think it's mostly a matter of how veeam sees the files. The method available to me copies them as standard files and I would probably have to do more work manually when I go to restore, because veeam might not know which files belong to which backup jobs. The other option, which requires the better license, implies that veeam will continue to be aware of what the files are, and when I needed to restore, veeam would know what to do and how to do it, and it would require less effort on my part.

I have not tested a restore from tape yet though, so I might still have a few details incorrect.

I've just installed on bare metal, but now I've run into an issue where backup tape jobs are not supported in my version of Veeam. I can backup files, but not VM's unless I upgrade to "enterprise" veeam

we probably have about 8-10 TB of real data, and I want to be able to store EVERYTHING on the tapes. I have two online backup copies in two locations, so this is my third and offline copy. The main backups are to disk, and so the tape is just backing up the disk and I think there is going to be less of an issue with transfer rates. The host that has the veeam VM has no other VM's on it currently, it's only running this one instance. That's one reason just going bare metal on it makes some sense.

My plan right now is to run the backup every week and have like 5 tapes in rotation, one onsite and 4 at the bank. My disk backups should account for any archiving we need, tapes are really more for DR that for casual restores.

@taurex said in Hyper V Tape passthrough possible?:

Hey @Donahue. Have you looked at free Starwind Tape Redirector by any chance? It basically allows you to present a tape drive attached to the host as an ISCSI LUN to your Veeam B&R's Windows Server VM so the backup software would see it directly installed. Wouldn't this solve your problem?

I have, but you have to be running there VSAN too, which I don't have.

@wrx7m said in Hyper V Tape passthrough possible?:

What is the plan for off-site storage with tapes? A service like Iron Mountain or someone takes them home and puts them in a closet?

safe deposit box at the bank