1982-1983: First computer purchased
IBM XT: $2100
IBM DOS 2.15
IBM 8 bit 4.77 Mhz CPU
256 kiloytes of RAM
Two 5.25″ full height floppy drives
Monochrome graphics adapter and monitor
Epson Daisy Wheel Printer
1984: First Hard Drive
Seagate 8 bit MFM ST01 controller
Seagate ST4096 MFM 80 Megabyte Hard Drive
I used Spinrite to set the error tables. This hard drive was before IDE drives were invented and sold. The largest partition in DOS was 32 Megabytes when I first installed the drive. I had three partitions on it
1986: First SCSI drive was a Seagate 85MB SCSI-I with a Buslogic controller
2006: Tyan Thunder K8WE
2008: Supermicro X7DWA-N
2008: Current SAS RAID configuration
LSI Logic 8708EM2 PCIe 8x SAS RAID controller
128 MB battery cache
Two Seagate 15K.7 Cheetah RAID 1 hard drives
Two Seagate 10K.6 Cheetah RAID 1 hard drives
1.097 Gigabytes per second cached reads
850 megabytes per second cached writes
Retired after I installed Windows 10
https://www.scsiraidguru.com/index.php/40-years-in-a-datacenter/r-i-p-sas-raid/
My first internet Service Provider was Netcom. I was mckennma@ix.netcom.com in the 1980s. I had a 300 bits per second modem. I have probably built 300+ gaming rigs and servers in 30+ years.
I have a Roku Ultra now. Dr. Who has a channel on Pluto.
In 2018, we moved and now have WOW! 500 / 50 and AT&T 25 / 25.
In 2022, AT&T spent the summer digging up the neighborhood and finally installed Gigabit Fiber. The fiber goes into the modem. 1020 Up / 1020 Down 2ms latency.
We switched to Americast around 1991 for our first cable internet connection and cable TV.
Motherboards / CPU used
IBM XT w/4.77 MHz CPU
Clone AT w/12 MHz CPU
Tyan Tomcat IIID with dual Intel 133 MHz CPUs
Tyan Tomcat IVD with dual Intel 266 MHz CPUs
Tyan Thunder K8W with dual Amd 180-240 Opterons
Tyan Thunder K8WE with dual Amd 240-280 Opterons
Supermicro X7DWA-N with dual Intel E5430 Xeons
Gigabyte P67A-UD4-B3 with single Intel i7 2600K
Chassis
Word Doc: Upgrade to Cooler
master Stacker Chassis
Current Operating Systems
Main Workstation: Windows 11 64-bit
Web Server: Ubuntu 22.04 Linux
Tape backup: Windows XP Pro x64 with VEEAM 11a
Operating Systems Used
IBM DOS 2.15
Microsoft DOS 3.1 to 6.22
SUSE Linux
Redhat Fedora Core 7 Linux
Ubuntu 12.04 to 22.04 Linux
CentOS 7 64-bit for WordPress
IBM OS/2 and OS/2 Warp
Microsoft Windows 3.1 to 11
Why am I called SCSIraidGURU
I was gaming with Team ATI many years ago. One of our team members ATI Guy worked for ATI. He was a lead engineer. He gave me the AKA “SCSIraidURU”, when he saw a picture of my rig with 18 SCSI drives in two chassis. I would also spend much of my time helping members build better rigs for gaming. All three monster rigs The white 5 bay chassis held 18 hard drives across two chassis.
My favorite power supply brand was PC Power and Cooling
I have recommended customed wired PC Power and Cooling power supplies for years. The ones I buy are single rail and high end. My current 1kv-SR 1000W single rail was $600. It cost me $60 for the custom wiring on it. My 1000W power supply can drive my ATI 6970 graphics adapter, Intel i7, and all the SAS drives I can fill the chassis with. It is 80A @ 12V and 83% efficient. They make a 1200W that does 100A @ 12V.
PC Power and Cooling have even larger power supplies that I can go to that run 20A!
Power supplies: the most important component in a high end rig
PC Power and Cooling Turbo Master 1350W
Which Proc do I prefer AMD or Intel?
I have used IBM, Intel and AMD workstation and server grade processors on my builds. I have used both ATI and Nvidia graphics adapters on my builds. I don’t favor any one company anymore for CPUs and graphics adapters.
Current CPU: Intel i7 10700K Current Graphics Adapter: 1050ti. Upgrading the graphics adapter soon. During Covid, they only had a 1050Ti for under $400.