Home Systems

As a recovering tech addict, I still ahve a fair amount of elaborate setups around the house.  Especially given that I don't upgrade until I have to for something (and I don't play video games, so that cuts down on the upgrading a lot!).  We use Mac and Windows "front-ends" with a FreeBSD server as the back-end.  This way, if something bad happens to one of the laptops or the "big iron" PC, it is just a matter of reinstalling the OS and applications and configuring.  Very little or no data should be lost, as that is all stored on the Unix server (which has RAID-1 mirroring, plus removable snapshot drives that cycle through the fire safe).

The systems I currently run at home:

• arachne2 (homebrew RAID server, P4(631)/3GHz [EM64T, G965 chipset]: FreeBSD/amd64) — finally had to build a replacement for my trusty old home server, as it had maxed out on disks and started to have erratic hardware issues (it was 7 years old).  My current trusty file and sandbox server, it is the master copy for all the websites I manage.  RAID-1 plus removable (USB) snapshot drives gives me better backup and recovery than most small businesses (and maybe even some large ones!)
• acorn (homebrew P4(631)/3GHz [EM64T, G31 chipset]: WinXP Pro) — Liked the massive performance improvements with my new RAID server so much, I upgraded my increasingly flaky primary box a month later.  A friend had a capture card lying around, too, so I can finally digitize my old VHS tapes (prom, college graduation, home movies, etc. — deal was I digitize some of his, such as the Jeep ads he is in).
• G4 PowerBook (Apple G4 PowerBook: MacOS X) — my wife's new laptop, bought with a nice discount when the local Apple Store was clearing out its floor models for the new Intel Macs
• lachesis (WinBook XL P233MMX: FreeBSD) — still running great, despite its encounters through the years with beer, yogurt, walls, driveways, etc. Just wish I could find a way for it to support more RAM.
• rutan (Dell Inspiron 8000 (with a Latitude C800 motherboard), Win2k) — gorgeous screen, when it works, but the rest of the machine is a piece of junk!  At least we found a good ue for a laptop that can't move, finally.  We sue this as our digital entertainment center, with VLC and a couple of large USB drives providing tons of digital videos.
• falcon (homebrew P2/350: Win2k) ("falcon" — as in Millenium Falcon, because it is a hodgepodge of pieces from as far back as 1984, but it works).  Only takes one minute even, from cold start to logged in!
• flotsam (SGI 4D/25TG: IRIX — well, once I find replacement OS install tapes... anyone have a copy of IRIX 4.0.5F lying around?)