https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/categories/hardware.htmlHugoen-ie2026 Tiernan OTooleFri, 10 Jul 2026 23:30:52 +0100https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2025/08/08/new-video-series-retro-corner.htmlFri, 08 Aug 2025 15:02:08 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2025/08/08/new-video-series-retro-corner.htmlA few days back i started a new series on YouTube, named “Retro Corner”. The plan is to get some old hardware up and running (Starting with the IBM ThinkPad R51e in video 1) and then continue on with some other machines (I have a couple of old Mac Laptops coming in the next video) and Networking (Dial Up, ISDN and, well. more on that soon.). So, If you are interested, please Subscribe and check out the videos. And any videos you want to see on the channel, please leave a comment.https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2023/07/11/some-random-links-for-prime-day-2023.htmlTue, 11 Jul 2023 15:02:41 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2023/07/11/some-random-links-for-prime-day-2023.htmlWell, it’s Prime Day 2023, so I have been busy ordering some stuff, and, well, given everyone and their mother is doing posts on Prime Day stuff, I thought I would add my list of interesting things, including some of the things I bought. PS: all links are affiliate links and were found in the UK Store, but links are using GeniusLink to redirect you to the best store for you… Some items in the UK store might not be found in the US or other stores…https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2023/04/17/day-61-of-100daysofhomelab-swapping-disks-in-a-hetzner-dedicated-machine.htmlMon, 17 Apr 2023 13:22:47 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2023/04/17/day-61-of-100daysofhomelab-swapping-disks-in-a-hetzner-dedicated-machine.htmlIt’s been a while… So, for Day 61 of #100daysofhomelab, I thought I should write up how to swap a disk in a Hetzner Dedicated Machine. I have a dedicated server I rent from Hetzner in Germany. It has an Xeon E5-1650 V2 processor (6 cores, 12 threads, 3.5Gz base, 3.9Gz turbo), 128Gb RAM, and a pretty impressive 15 6Tb HDD. All drives are hooked to a Mega RAID controller, but because I am running ProxMox, I left it in JBOD mode and set up the 15 drives in RAIDZ-2. All 15 drives are in a single pool (probably not ideal, but it works for me). Now and again, I get a message from ProxMox telling me about bad blocks… and every time it happens, I have to remember what to do to find the bad drive, report it to Hetzner, wait for them to replace the drive and then add it back to the pool… Today, it happened, so I thought I better document it, to help future me, and hopefully someone else out there…https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2023/03/18/day-57-of-100daysofhomelab.htmlSat, 18 Mar 2023 00:27:11 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2023/03/18/day-57-of-100daysofhomelab.htmlDay 57 of #100daysofhomelab and its a link dump for today:https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2023/03/15/day-56-of-100daysofhomelab.htmlWed, 15 Mar 2023 22:57:54 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2023/03/15/day-56-of-100daysofhomelab.htmlDay 56 of #100daysofhomelab and I managed to fix some stuff with my TrueNAS box. There was lots of messing when it came to permissions, but it works now. Some speeds are below. Not quite getting the speeds I was expecting, but there I have not tweaked anything, yet… This is going from my MacBook Pro with a 10Gb adapter. The reads are quite good, but the writes… well, the HDDs are FASTER than the NVMe… No idea why… I did get a new card to add another 4 NVMe drives in… We’ll see what happens when that gets built.https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2023/03/10/day-53-of-100daysofhomelab.htmlFri, 10 Mar 2023 22:12:39 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2023/03/10/day-53-of-100daysofhomelab.htmlDay 53 of #100daysofhomelab and It’s been a busy week… ish… I’ve been battling with Vertigo on and off this week, so haven’t don’t a lot. I did, however, fix some issues with the network, set up a proper failover WAN connection using SmoothWAN and my Quad 2.5Gb Box, and have started making major changes to GodBoxV3.https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2023/01/16/day-14-of-100daysofhomelab.htmlMon, 16 Jan 2023 20:29:38 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2023/01/16/day-14-of-100daysofhomelab.htmlDay 14 of #100daysofhomelab and I have been thinking about future upgrades if I had the money… So, I have my CloudShed in the back garden. Currently, I only have an HP Micro Server and a (not currently in production) Dell R720, along with a Ubiquiti Edge Switch 48 Lite. Between the Shed and the house is a fibre link purchased through FS.com, with 6 pairs. Currently, only 1 pair is in use, giving me a 10Gb/s between the house and shed, and with the easy option to upgrade to 20Gb. But I have been thinking bigger.https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2023/01/06/day-4-of-100daysofhomelab.htmlFri, 06 Jan 2023 21:41:17 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2023/01/06/day-4-of-100daysofhomelab.htmlDay 4 of #100daysofhomelab and I am still reading the docs I posted yesterday on Kubernetes. I hope to get something sorted this weekend… On a different note, I posted a new YouTube video on the iODD ST400, linked below. This is a follow-up to my iODD Mini review I did a couple of years back. Hopefully, I will have a second video with some speed tests and a better walk in the next few days… hopefully.https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2022/04/25/unifi-network-update-7-1-61.htmlMon, 25 Apr 2022 21:58:58 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2022/04/25/unifi-network-update-7-1-61.htmlA few weeks back, Ubiquiti released a pre-release update for the Unifi Network Controller, version 7.1.61. It got installed on my UDM and I noticed a few interesting bits that you might find handy… First, you will need to be signed up for Unifi Early Access before you can download or even read the release notes, but this is just a quick update based on my findings so far.https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2022/03/16/raspberry-pi-in-a-car-part-2.htmlWed, 16 Mar 2022 19:37:36 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2022/03/16/raspberry-pi-in-a-car-part-2.htmlFor the last few weeks, I have been running a Raspberry Pi in my car, along with a small UPS and a Wifi Access point, allowing me to download videos from my dash cam and back them up to my NAS in the house. But I have had some teething issues, and I am currently thinking my way through some fixes… While trying to figure out how to fix part 1, I came up with an idea: I have an older Mikrotik RB951G that can be powered via a 12v adapter for the car. I am going to use that, along with a Huawei 4G dongle to act as an internet connection. The onboard Wifi will be in client mode, so when it’s near the house, it will connect to the main network and send traffic through that to the internet (or internal NAS) and when away, use the LTE modem. Then, using the Wifi dongle on the Raspberry Pi, use that as a Wifi AP.https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2022/02/25/running-a-raspberry-pi-in-a-car-and-backing-up-dashcam-footage.htmlThu, 24 Feb 2022 23:45:39 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2022/02/25/running-a-raspberry-pi-in-a-car-and-backing-up-dashcam-footage.htmlA few months back (well, November 2020) I wrote about connecting to my car with Zerotier. In this post, I mentioned using a TP-Link router running OpenWRT and a Huawei LTE dongle to connect to the internet, which allowed me to then connect to my Blackvue Dashcam and watch remotely. But it had some issues I wanted to fix:https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2021/11/07/ubiquiti-udm-pro-fail-over-to-speedify.htmlSun, 07 Nov 2021 21:46:59 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2021/11/07/ubiquiti-udm-pro-fail-over-to-speedify.htmlSo, this has been a blog post in the making for a while now but never got around to fully writing it up, so here goes nothing… I run a UDM Pro in the house. It has 2 WAN Links: 1 1Gb link and 1 10Gb Link. I also run AS204994, my own ASN with its own Transit and Peering connections, mostly in Europe. There is a VM in the house which acts as a connection to AS204994, which gives me a full connection to the Internet through my own ASN. More details on my AS204994 blog are here.https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2020/10/13/apple-event-october-2020.htmlTue, 13 Oct 2020 17:14:00 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2020/10/13/apple-event-october-2020.html[NOTE] This post was done entirely on iPhone XS Max and a iPad Pro. Photos taken on the iPhone. Some edited on iPhone, some on the iPad. I have edited some text on the iPad with the keyboard, but if i missed anything, all was written mostly live, so apologies… Will add extra links to places like Engadget, etc, below. Homepod mini. $99 available 16 November. The feature of intercom sounds good… When they mentioned the list of extra service, Spotify was very missing… [NOTE] I missed some stuff on this cause I was in a late meeting… This does look cool though.https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2020/10/11/nexdock-touch-videos.htmlSat, 10 Oct 2020 23:01:00 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2020/10/11/nexdock-touch-videos.htmlA few months back, I pre ordered a Nexdock Touch. The Nexdock Touch is a laptop without the laptop components… its essentially a screen (1920×1080 touch) with a keyboard, battery, touch pad, a 3 USB C ports (one for charging, one for phones only and one for connecting other devices) a Full USB A port (for plugging in other stuff, more on that in a sec), a Micro SD Card and a full HDMI port. Interestingly, the HDMI port is not for output, like you would think it is, but for input.https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2019/04/18/network-update-info-april-2019.htmlThu, 18 Apr 2019 17:00:00 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2019/04/18/network-update-info-april-2019.htmlSo, this post has been a long time coming! A load of different things to talk about, so lets get started! GodBox V3 So, for a long time, I have been thinking about GodBoxV3, the replacement to GodBoxV2. And when planning this, i had some ideas of what it should be: Minimum of 2×16 cores (double godboxv2) About the same RAM, if not more FAST STORAGE! Is able to run my twin 30" 4K monitors Would like 10Gb/s NICs Well, It finally happened! I got the machine, built it and, well, its impressive! How did i do with specs? Well…https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2018/07/02/playing-with-amds-epyc.htmlMon, 02 Jul 2018 21:00:00 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2018/07/02/playing-with-amds-epyc.htmlSo, a few days back I got an email from Packet.net about a promotion they and AMD where running. Essentially, they gave me some credit for their service (I am an existing customer) to play with one of their c2.medium machines. A c2.medium comes with an AMD EPYC 7401P which consists of 24 physical cores clocked at 2Gz with an all core boost at 2.8Gz and a max clock of 3Gz, 48 threads, 64GB ECC Memory, 2x120GB SSDs for boot and 2x480GB SSDs for main storage. It also has a 20Gb network link (2x10gb bonded) and can run pretty much any OS you can think of (Windows is not on the list officially, but you can boot off your own ISO, so you could probably get it on there. might not be supported, but it might be possible). All this for $1 per hour! And did i mention they are bare metal machines?https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2018/03/06/blogging-on-an-ipad-pro.htmlTue, 06 Mar 2018 08:00:00 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2018/03/06/blogging-on-an-ipad-pro.htmlSo, a few months back I bought myself an iPad Pro. I got a 10.5" with 64GB Storage and the Smart Keyboard. Since then, i have been mostly using it for playing around: watching YouTube, Netflix, surfing on the couch, etc. but i started to wonder how “Pro” this was…so i went and did some testing, and in the end nearly all of this post is being written on it… first, the good stuff:https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2016/09/14/cloud-desktop-becoming-a-reality.htmlWed, 14 Sep 2016 00:00:00 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2016/09/14/cloud-desktop-becoming-a-reality.htmlI have talked about the theory of the “Cloud desktop” twice on my older blog (Rackspace’s Hosted Virtual Desktop and More on the desktop in the cloud) way back since 2011. Since then, a few things have changed: Amazon have released AWS Workspaces, which is a cloud based desktop using Teradici’s PCoIP technology Both EC2 and Azure now have GPU enabled VMs to spin up and use NVidia have released NVidia Grid cards, specifically for the “cloud” or “remote” desktop services. Windows Continuum now allows you to use your Windows Phone with a keyboard, monitor and mouse, allowing you to replace your desktop. basically, plug your continuum enabled phone into a docking station, and use it as a Windows Desktop. Email, Browsing, Office Apps, etc. anything that supports UWP. and now VMWare has just released a Windows UWP app that works with Continuum With all the increased bandwidth for mobile devices (4 and 5G, expanding wifi, etc) the idea of having your desktop live in the cloud is getting nearer… interesting times, my friend… interesting times…https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2016/06/20/meraki-and-ubiquiti-networks-gear-update.htmlMon, 20 Jun 2016 00:00:00 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2016/06/20/meraki-and-ubiquiti-networks-gear-update.htmlIn part 6 of my Double Internet Series I mentioned i was running a Meraki MX64 in the network, and said i would write up about it. I am taking this opportunity to also write up about the Ubiquiti networks gear in the house also. First on the list is my older Ubiquiti Edgerouter POE. It currently in the process of being decommissioned, or used for something else. It was the main edge router for the network: it had both internet connections connected, and did routing, firewalls, etc, but with the Proliant taking over as a router, it is not required as much any more. Its still on, mainly because its still a DHCP server, but not much else. There are 2 Meraki MS220-8 switches next. GodBox1 and Godbox2 both connect in here, and are bonded, as is everything else on the network. The MS220-8 has 8 GigE ports, but also has 2 SFP ports. I bought 4 SFP Ethernet adapters and have a short calbe running between the switches. That uplink is also bonded. All going well so far! All Meraki hardware can be managed though the Meraki dashboard. check out their site for more details and examples of how to use it. I bought one of the MS220’s from eBay a few months back, and loved it. Then i realized that you can get your hands on free gear, the MX64, an MS220 and a Wi-Fi Access point if you attend their webinars. Terms and conditions apply, but check them out! I have 2 Ubiquiti UniFi APs, one in the front of the house, one in the back. They are connected to one of the MS220’s, but dont work with its POE (maybe the EdgeRouter could do that, since its POE.) so there are injectors for them. Anyway, the network ports on there are VLANed to the MX64 (more on that later) and the default traffic is going to a management VLAN. The MX64 has a static internal IP on my DMZ network, and uses the Proliant as an upstream connection. Upstream on the Hetzner server, all traffic coming from the MX64 ip uses one of my /29 ip block. all traffic to that ip is also forwarded directly to the MX64. I has 2 small, unmanaged switches (a cheap 8 port Linksys and a 8 port TP Link) which are used for separate things: the Linksys has 4 Raspberry Pi’s, which run a GlusterFS cluster, plugged into it and the TP Link connects to my printers. I also have a Mikrotik CRS226-24G-2S+IN which has 2 10Gbit SFP+ Ports, and plan on using this for higher speed networking soon, aswell as a Cisco 48 port 3560 which also has 4 SFP ports (GigE) and may come in handy for something soon. So, thats the network currently. any questions, please leave a comment.https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2015/09/16/network-and-homelab-v-next-part-4.htmlWed, 16 Sep 2015 14:15:00 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2015/09/16/network-and-homelab-v-next-part-4.htmlSo, after some messing, tweaking, and thinking, I have made some progress with the home lab… or at least broken some stuff… I mentioned previously that i had a Ubiqititi networks EdgeRouter POE in the home lab. Originally, the plan was to use a Virtual PFSense box for my core router… Given the power usage of the current PfSense Box (I have 2 MPower Pro’s watching power in the lab) I am now thinking of moving to just the EdgeRouter for, well, edge routing… below is the usage of the ProLiant for the last 12 hours or so:https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2015/08/23/windows-server-2012-r2-returning-to-the-godboxv2.htmlSun, 23 Aug 2015 20:00:00 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2015/08/23/windows-server-2012-r2-returning-to-the-godboxv2.htmlAfter a few months of running Sabayon Linux on the GodboxV2, i am going back to Windows Server. Back around October of last year, i installed Windows 10 Preview on the GodBoxV2, and, well, there where issues with graphics drivers, etc. Then, some time after, i cant remember off hand when, i moved to Sabayon Linux. Its based on Gentoo but has a lot of the components pre-built. Gentoo is a “Build from scratch” sort of OS. You get a basic kernel and a basic set of components, but you build everything else from scratch… including rebuilding the kernel if you want. Sabayon, on the other hand has all that mostly prebuilt, though you can still use Gentoo’s Portage to build stuff yourself.https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2015/07/15/network-and-homelab-v-next-part-3.htmlWed, 15 Jul 2015 13:15:00 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2015/07/15/network-and-homelab-v-next-part-3.htmlSo, this part of my article set will be talking specifically about the router and wireless network. At the moment, my router is way overkill: Old HP Proliant ML110 G5 Intel Core2Quad Q6600 8 Gb RAM total of 12 Gigabit network cards (of which 4 are currently used…) 500Gb HDD I have been playing with some networking in the house and have managed to build some VLANs. The modems are connected both directly to the Router and to a dedicated switch port for a given VLAN. The plan for the upgrade, which i hope to complete sooner than the rest of the network is as follows:https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2015/06/23/network-and-homelab-v-next-part-2.htmlTue, 23 Jun 2015 09:30:00 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2015/06/23/network-and-homelab-v-next-part-2.htmlSo, in my last post i talked about the requirements for the home lab, and in this post, im going to talk about a few more updates i have made in the last few weeks. First, the processors: in the first post, i talked about Xeon D or Xeon E3… Well, i missed one… The Xeon E5. I have 2 of these in GodBox 2, and you can get them into a microATX board. There does seem to be some limits with the microatx boards, but hopefully enough searching will find me what i am looking for. Ideally, i want it to take “normal” DDR3/4 memory (not SODIMMs like the ASRock one above) and also take enough of them to run 64 or 128Gb of ram (thinking 8 would do the job!). Also, i would like to have 4 GigE ports onboard and 1 management port. 4 onboard is not a hard requirement: If i can get one with 2 ports, i can always get a 4 port card for the PCI-Express slot… Finally, i would like it to have at least 6 SATA ports and possibly an MSATA port. Thinking Boot off MSATA (Windows Server 2016 Nano Server would be used), 2 SSDs and 4 HDDs. Using Storage Spaces, use the 2 SSDs as “Fast” storage for the pool.https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2015/06/14/network-and-homelab-v-next-part-1.htmlSun, 14 Jun 2015 15:05:00 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2015/06/14/network-and-homelab-v-next-part-1.htmlSo, its that time again… HomeLab upgrade time… Or at least the planning for it. I am in the process of rebuilding my home lab, which involves pull all old servers out of the rack and replacing them with new ones… It also means rewriting the network, possibly upgrading some existing gear and hopefully getting the whole lot done on a budget of some sort… So, why? Well, biggest reason for all this is currently heat and power usage. We use about 4-6x more electricity than the average house here in Ireland, which means our electricity bill is fairly high. It also means that the lab, which is also my office/bedroom, gets quite warm and uncomfortable during the summer month. There is an Air-Con unit in the room, and, well, that’s costing the most on electricity!https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2015/03/26/daily-carry-march-2015-edition.htmlThu, 26 Mar 2015 20:41:00 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2015/03/26/daily-carry-march-2015-edition.htmlA couple of years back, i did a post about my Daily Carry for college… Well, I have finished (ish) college, but i still cary a lot of weird and wonderful stuff… So, this is the update… The details are on my Daily Carry page, and, in theory, should always be up to date… Thats the theory anyway… 🙂https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2013/01/27/college-bag-contents.htmlSun, 27 Jan 2013 21:28:58 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2013/01/27/college-bag-contents.htmlTomorrow, Monday the 28th January, 2013, will be the start of my final real Semester in College. I have been studying part time for the last 3 and a bit years, and tomorrow marks the begining of the end… Its the final REAL semester, meaning at the end of this i will have exams, but i wont be “finished” as such… I have a final semester from September to December where i hand up my final year project, which i plan on documenting here soon.https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2013/01/18/raspberry-pi-as-a-mobile-wifi-hotspot-part-1.htmlFri, 18 Jan 2013 06:57:16 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2013/01/18/raspberry-pi-as-a-mobile-wifi-hotspot-part-1.htmlI have been using an iPhone 4 as a wifi hotspot for a while now. It does not have a “phone” SIM in it, with calls and texts enabled, instead it has a 3G Data SIM from a dongle… It works OK, but there are a few issues i have with it… No easy way to see how much data is being used, unless you Jail Break, and then battery life goes away… not very hackable… other than Jail Break, and thats not hackable enough… not a lot of storage: 16Gb, and most of that is takin up by Music and Apps no background network daemons… more on that in a second… The Network Daemons i am thinking would be useful for a WiFi Hotspot would be Squid, WANProxy, SSH, PPTP or OpenVPN Client and possibly a downloader of some sort. What i am thinking is as follows:https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2012/10/03/handbrake-cluster.htmlWed, 03 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2012/10/03/handbrake-cluster.html[UPDATED] someone asked in the comments if there was an binary build for this file. there is now! http://handbrakecluster.codeplex.com now hosts the code and binaries, and will soon have help files and documentation. A few days back, i wrote a post titled Powershell + Handbrake + AppleTV + iTunes = Automatic TV. ish. In it i included a block of Powershell code to bulk convert TV shows from whatever format you had them in to a M4V format for the AppleTV. Well, as they say “If necessity is the mother of all invension, lazyness must be the father”. I have a lot of shows i wanted converted to the AppleTV, so i built something. Its called HandBrake Cluster and is written in .NET 4.5, uses MSMQ and Handbrake to do the processing. The workflow is as follows:https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2012/09/25/building-a-cross-compiler-for-your-raspberry-pi.htmlTue, 25 Sep 2012 00:00:00 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2012/09/25/building-a-cross-compiler-for-your-raspberry-pi.htmlMy main machine at home, known as “The GodBox” is a Dual Processor, Quad Core Xeon 5520 with 60Gb RAM, 2 300Gb 10,000 RPM Western Digital Velociraptor in RAID 0 for boot, 4X1Tb 7200RPM drives for storage, 2 more 300Gb 10,000 RPM drives for “scratch disk” and a couple high(ish) end graphics cards with 3 monitors plugged in. Hence the name, GodBox! Anyway, The Raspberry Pi, on the other hand, has a 700Mhz processor, 256Mb RAM and not much else. So, if you need to write code for your Pi, and you don’t want to wait a long time to compile, check out this tutorial on how to build a cross compiler for your raspberry pi which will allow you to build your apps on a different machine. I have a college project which the Raspberry Pi will be used for, and i am thinking this will be how i build code.https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2012/09/06/raspberry-pi-stuff.htmlThu, 06 Sep 2012 00:00:00 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2012/09/06/raspberry-pi-stuff.htmlA couple of months back, I got my hands on a Raspberry Pi, a tiny development board that can run a full copy of Linux, has an HDMI port, a couple of USB ports, Ethernet and a few other little bits and pieces. The full specs, from the Wikipedia Article, are as follows: Operating system: Linux (Debian GNU/Linux, Fedora, and Arch Linux ARM) Power: 2.5 W (model A), 3.5 W (model B) CPU: ARM1176JZF-S (armv6k) 700 MHz Storage capacity: SD card slot (SD or SDHC card) Memory: 256 MByte Graphics: Broadcom VideoCore IV There have been a few things i have wanted to play with it for but have not implemented all of them yet. still learning. but some interesting projects have come to my attention. here they are, in no particular order: