[WIP] Universal Storage

[Daishi]

Hi guys

Just letting you know that I've just had a severe issue with my computer. My motherboard has just fried itself. Its still under warranty, but that means i have to disassemble it and its ungainly heatsinks from the CPU, which I'm a bit warey of. No idea how long it will take to repair, and other components may be damaged (i hope not) - so it may be a while until you see further updates. Paul has the latest fuel tank so that's safe at least.

My Universal Storage files are also safe on a non-OS drive, so they should be fine too, but because this is a mainboard failure i can't be sure. My recent backup was a while back, i totally didn't see this coming. Always presumed the odd crashes i got were RAM issues.

So dev on my side has been paused, I'm sorry to say

[NoMrBond]

Dang, good luck getting that sorted Daishi

A prior failure like this is why I now leave Dropbox syncing my whole Unity Assets/Models/Materials directories

[YANFRET]

Hi guys

Just letting you know that I've just had a severe issue with my computer. My motherboard has just fried itself. Its still under warranty, but that means i have to disassemble it and its ungainly heatsinks from the CPU, which I'm a bit warey of. No idea how long it will take to repair, and other components may be damaged (i hope not) - so it may be a while until you see further updates. Paul has the latest fuel tank so that's safe at least.

My Universal Storage files are also safe on a non-OS drive, so they should be fine too, but because this is a mainboard failure i can't be sure. My recent backup was a while back, i totally didn't see this coming. Always presumed the odd crashes i got were RAM issues.

So dev on my side has been paused, I'm sorry to say

Be sure to cross check with another PSU before unseating your heat sink eh

[Chris_Pi]

Well, That sucks. I'm just getting back up after an unscheduled computer upgrade myself. I hope it wasn't contagious.

[Daishi]

Be sure to cross check with another PSU before unseating your heat sink eh

Gave Asus a ring, and they dont want to know me. Only way to get a RMA is through the original builder, where they have to do checks and confirm its state before its shipped on. Which is a pain because the builders warranty expired last year, and they'll charge me for the service. So rang them, and it turns out they're happy enough to remove the cpu\heatsink and check the psu and the ram for me at the same time. So that should cover all the bases, and stop me stressing (for $50 an hour >.<)

Well, That sucks. I'm just getting back up after an unscheduled computer upgrade myself. I hope it wasn't contagious.

Hah nah, its just my rotten luck My phone was defective when I got it, as was my first computer, and now this one. Next time I'm not buying top-end anymore, far too much stress when something goes wrong.

Dang, good luck getting that sorted Daishi

A prior failure like this is why I now leave Dropbox syncing my whole Unity Assets/Models/Materials directories

Hindsights a wonderful thing :/ Always figured id see a failure coming a mile off, and having my work on a seperate drive would prevent any damage if the OS corrupted (as it had done before). Buut never expected a motherboard to fail on me. Simple reboot after playing a game and it was dead. I'll never trust a computer again

[Railgunner2160]

That's why my family never buys a prebuilt PC, we homebuild ours. Saves us money for equivalent specs or for the same price better specs, Plus we can figure out issues without going through 50 different hoops involving manufacturers. If a motherboard fries we just send it back if it's in warranty and if it's not we replace the part. very easy to to homebuilts....

[Paul Kingtiger]

That's why my family never buys a prebuilt PC, we homebuild ours

Yep, I've been home building mine for years, and with youtube tutorial videos it's even easier. But, the first one is always a bit scary, it's taking the plunge to give it a try, then once you've done it once it's easy.

[PringleMan]

Yep, I've been home building mine for years, and with youtube tutorial videos it's even easier. But, the first one is always a bit scary, it's taking the plunge to give it a try, then once you've done it once it's easy.

Indeed. In my case I was concerned that I was going to get a connector wrong on my PSU, but they when I actually started building computers and realized they basically use a different form factor for each output type (most of the time), I just giggled and went to town. It is especially easy these days because they try to design as much as they can to be as plug and play as possible excepting some driver installation.

[Daishi]

Indeed. In my case I was concerned that I was going to get a connector wrong on my PSU, but they when I actually started building computers and realized they basically use a different form factor for each output type (most of the time), I just giggled and went to town. It is especially easy these days because they try to design as much as they can to be as plug and play as possible excepting some driver installation.

Yeah, noticed the same with all the maintenance I did on this thing (replacing cabling, hdds, ram), so probably will end up making my own in the future. This thing was designed for future proofing and stability for high end 3D work - so it had pretty expensive parts I was not confident to touch with no experience. Hence my decision to quote the system and get someone else to build the thing under warranty

During university I was living in the capital so the store was right down the road, but because I've had to move back home to look after my parents, it requires all this shipping. Not ideal but at least its getting sorted. Being shipped off today, will have to talk to he couriers about damage insurance.

[Chris_Pi]

Also, If the board supports it (or you install a card) Raid 0 is your best friend. A drive melts down and it's just 15 minutes plugging in the new one and a couple hours slow access as the array rebuilds. Next week, when you have time to pick up a drive and do it. Runs fine with one dead, just needs fixing sometime before the second quits.

[NoMrBond]

Also, If the board supports it (or you install a card) Raid 0 is your best friend. A drive melts down and it's just 15 minutes plugging in the new one and a couple hours slow access as the array rebuilds. Next week, when you have time to pick up a drive and do it. Runs fine with one dead, just needs fixing sometime before the second quits.

RAID-0 is striping, do you mean RAID-1 (mirroring) for data security?

[Rockstar04]

Also, If the board supports it (or you install a card) Raid 0 is your best friend. A drive melts down and it's just 15 minutes plugging in the new one and a couple hours slow access as the array rebuilds. Next week, when you have time to pick up a drive and do it. Runs fine with one dead, just needs fixing sometime before the second quits.

RAID-0 is striping, do you mean RAID-1 (mirroring) for data security?

I'm sure he meant RAID-1. For sure when it comes to data integrity.

[Paul Kingtiger]

RAID-1 is overkill for most home applications where uptime is not really a factor. It's more cost effective to put that second HDD in a external USB caddy and take regular backups.

The downside is that if your PC drive goes down your computer will be out of action until you replace it, but the upside is that a faulty PSU or Mobo can't fry both your drives. Also if someone steals your PC they might not take your USB HDD. If you want to be ultra safe you can keep the USB drive at another location (Work) so a fire or flood won't destroy all your data.

Personally I backup my drive to a USB HDD and take backups of irreplaceable things like photos and important documents to a DVD, kept at the inlaws house.

[Quiana]

RAID-1 is overkill for most home applications where uptime is not really a factor. It's more cost effective to put that second HDD in a external USB caddy and take regular backups.

The downside is that if your PC drive goes down your computer will be out of action until you replace it, but the upside is that a faulty PSU or Mobo can't fry both your drives. Also if someone steals your PC they might not take your USB HDD. If you want to be ultra safe you can keep the USB drive at another location (Work) so a fire or flood won't destroy all your data.

Personally I backup my drive to a USB HDD and take backups of irreplaceable things like photos and important documents to a DVD, kept at the inlaws house.

Call me silly but I tend to use a two-drive setup inside. One's the primary OS/game drive (though in the future I'd go to a three-drive SSD OS setup) and the other is my 'storage'. I back up the crucial files from the storage into media as needed outside the PC, just in case the lesser-accessed storage drive finds failure. I'd recommend always putting in two drives into any machine you design for that reason.

After all, it's rather easy to put a new OS on a drive, keeping it isolated from work files/media/etc is what really makes it painless when the OS drive takes a dive.

[Chris_Pi]

I'm sure he meant RAID-1. For sure when it comes to data integrity.

Yes, Meant RAID-1. Keep seeing Volume 0, Raid 1 every boot. Must have stuck in my head. What can I say, Some days I count like Jeb flies rockets.

[Paul Kingtiger]

Call me silly but I tend to use a two-drive setup inside..

Me to, I have the OS and applications on a SSD (which isn't backed up) and data on a 2TB HDD, which does back up to a USB HDD.

[Daishi]

Me to, I have the OS and applications on a SSD (which isn't backed up) and data on a 2TB HDD, which does back up to a USB HDD.

Pretty much the same setup as me, plus an extra internal HDD with another OS just in case I need to access files if\when the primary OS corrupts. Of course its a totally useless system when the motherboard fails out of the blue...

Never really looked into RAID arrays properly, I always feel safer backing up things by my own hand.

Edited June 13, 2014 by Daishi

[Daishi]

Thought id do a bit of old school sketching. Going through the form factors of the future TAC parts, especially the water purifier. Most of the parts I've already made have unique shapes and can be identified from a distance, so trying to find the right fit for these new ones. Not too sure about the waste\ grey water container though.

[diomedea]

Daishi, glad to see the mishap with your PC has not put you down. Nice drawings, serve to remind that an artist is such with or without tools.

Grey/Waste water container, IMHO, should be quite similar to a normal water one (certainly not a can or barrel-like), as the issues with storing a liquid while in space would be similar. And that brings me to think, probably those containers for water should also have some heating device if the water is to remain liquid.

[Tommygun]

Thought id do a bit of old school sketching. Going through the form factors of the future TAC parts, especially the water purifier. Most of the parts I've already made have unique shapes and can be identified from a distance, so trying to find the right fit for these new ones. Not too sure about the waste\ grey water container though.

Sketching?

Oh, I saw this done once by an experimental archaeologist on a cave wall.

Can't wait for the TAC parts.

I'm not sure if you guys have said anything on this or not, but when the TAC parts are empty, can a Kerbal on EVA pull them out and replace them with new ones?

[Daishi]

Daishi, glad to see the mishap with your PC has not put you down. Nice drawings, serve to remind that an artist is such with or without tools.

Grey/Waste water container, IMHO, should be quite similar to a normal water one (certainly not a can or barrel-like), as the issues with storing a liquid while in space would be similar. And that brings me to think, probably those containers for water should also have some heating device if the water is to remain liquid.

Good point - totally forgot about the sub-zero temps! And yep that makes sense re: the waste, will have to distinguish graywater tanks with textures and not geometry. Not too worried about the PC, if anything its relieving knowing that all the random bluescreens over 3 years probably had an actual cause, and that cause is about to get fixed I just hope its relatively cheap.

I'm not sure if you guys have said anything on this or not, but when the TAC parts are empty, can a Kerbal on EVA pull them out and replace them with new ones?

Absolutely! (It's probably faster than transferring a ton of resources with the right-click context menus anyway) The EVA-X would be great for that job, it's just a shame KAS limits you to attaching one thing at a time to your kerbal. Especially considering how much dV you'll lose lugging another 250kg+ around with your jetpack, you'll run out of your stock reserves fast. Makes me wonder if tethered EVAs could work with the grappling hook...

[DMagic]

OK, this is maybe a little nit-picky, but since you mentioned updating the octocore I'm wondering if you'll also be updating the quadcore. The new wedges clip through it in a few areas, though it's generally not noticeable unless you have an exposed end. There is also a little clipping on some of the door mechanisms (not really visible below, I'm just showing where it happens). An alternative to actually re-modelling the parts would be to just move one surface up or down by a millimeter or so.

[Daishi]

Thanks Dmagic - didn't think there were any more issues with those doors, but those other areas are on the cards to get fixed The quadcore is losing its "+" shape to better fit the new wedges so that will resolve a lot of issues (reducing polys and texturemaps as well). I've also fixed the "shimmering" on the seam where two wedges meet, and made the external metal texture a lot more smooth so they stack a bit more seamlessly. I was doing a lot of polishing on the new structure to get things perfect before incorporating it into all the current parts.

Edited June 15, 2014 by Daishi

[Chris_Pi]

As far as grey/waste water storage goes - Might make sense to keep a distinctive shape to keep them easier to tell apart. Might need larger-volume greywater tanks IRL anyways, and cylindrical tanks help with that. As far as keeping them liquid goes, some pretty thin MLI and a little electric heater may do. It might make sense to let some waste tanks freeze anyways to limit leakage problems in storage as long as you can still get stuff into them. An occasional thaw-out for transfer to reprocessing/garbage disposal might be reasonable. IIRC, some of the more-solid stuff has to be refrigerated anyways so that bags of ...stuff don't generate gas and eventually pop. A storage drum with a hatch in the back could be used for both if it had an expandable bladder for the liquid on the side away from the hatch.

[Daishi]

...

Argh, the inevitable discussion of poo-logistics is apon us!

Freezing makes perfect sense in regards to rupturing storage tanks with biogas, but im not sure about moving away from solid walled containers. Might have to give this tank a miss conceptually until I can experiment in 3D.

Water heaters would look cool though, especially having heating coils inside the tank that you can see through the plastic. Mucked around with semi-transparent materials in unity with a greenhouse experiment, so that would be totally achievable! Not sure MLI would fit in with US's aesthetic, even stock KSP only has it on two parts out of 170 something.

Edited June 15, 2014 by Daishi