What have you bought recently?


Got a Quest 2 the other day.. to replace my Rift S. Hand tracking is impressive..
I have an Amiga A1000 and a GPC MicroPC to get rid of now :/
 
Be warned they're addictive.
ME3k4zrf.webp
 
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just picked up a Synology DS418 NAS with 3 x 8TB HDD in it for $330 Aussie dollars and a GTX1070 for $250 Aussie dollars...
Remember that second hand HDD's tend to fail around the same time (when they are the same brand, and have had the same use-time). So if your data is precious, don't forget to also backup your data on the NAS. Also check which HDD's they are. there are harddisks for consumers (where the hdd is not a long running thing, and HDD's for servers). The ones for servers are slower, but tend to stay better when running continuously (something to do with the oil on the platter and centrifugal forces)
 
There should be nothing on the platters. If there were a liquid on there the floating head likely would get dragged down and crash into the platter. In my experience the only discs that spin slower are those that are defined for closed circuit TV applications.
 
they are WD red NAS drives. had very little use and all passed SMART testing..... i have several offline backups of the stuff i cant replace like photos etc as well as backups at family members houses 50 Kms away from me.
 
I've had three WD blue die on me after very short time. Never again. The reds have been great so far.
 
I've had three WD blue die on me after very short time. Never again. The reds have been great so far.
I always was a bit hesitant to buy WD, mostly due to the pile of failed drives I pulled out of systems in the early 2000s, just gave me the feeling of cheap and unreliable.
 
in the early 2000's when i was working for Compaq we had a run of failing drives i think they were Seagates. drives 20 years later are so much different to those drives in tollerences and obviously storage size. im not sure that a brand failing 20 years ago would relate to current products.
 
I got myself a 512GB micro sd-card for the Steam Deck, just in case I run out of disk space.
sdcard.jpg

The Steam Deck features the mode switch like on the Pandora, where you can switch between the simple game UI and the full desktop.
Games work great. Steam will indicate if they will work, but all games I tried work nicely (I tried orange-labeled ones, they feature small text or require manually invoking the keyboard).
The trackpads work fine but holding the unit and using the trackpads didnt feel that nice, especially if you play a shooter and you need to switch from joystick to trackpad quickly.
I also tried streaming from my PC to the Steam Deck, that worked fine, but running it natively looks more crisp. But if you didnt install the game having a quick game via streaming works fine, including the controls and haptic feedback.
 
There should be nothing on the platters. If there were a liquid on there the floating head likely would get dragged down and crash into the platter. In my experience the only discs that spin slower are those that are defined for closed circuit TV applications.
See the lubrication layer. PFPE falls under the Synthetic oils .


edit: Removed the part about chaff (which also occurs) because I wanted to keep it on the topic of the outerlayer of a harddisk only.

You can also use motor oil, as explained here: https://groups.google.com/g/comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc/c/v2ktyDp4Ixw
Should also work for SSD ;)
 
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See the lubrication layer. PFPE falls under the Synthetic oils .


edit: Removed the part about chaff (which also occurs) because I wanted to keep it on the topic of the outerlayer of a harddisk only.

You can also use motor oil, as explained here: https://groups.google.com/g/comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc/c/v2ktyDp4Ixw
Should also work for SSD ;)

PFPE might be a lubricant but it still isn't a liquid. If it's anything like PTFE which I have more experience of it's a powdered solid.
 
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