I’ve really been neglecting this site, but I just can’t help it. Ever since the painters finished with the house, I’ve been scrambling to get things back into place. I’ve also spent a lot of time outside the house working on the yard and landscaping…it’s a mess. My fish tanks have also required a lot of attention - especially my fantail goldfish tank, as of late. I had expected a mini-cycle, but was not prepared to deal with a full-blown take cycling. The ammonia levels have really been going through the roof as I underestimated how big those fish have gotten and the amount of waste they produce. I had to replace the bio-bags on my filters after transplanting them and it just ruined my good bacteria levels. pH is still low, so I think they’ll be OK so long as I don’t neglect checking the levels and doing some water changes. Oddly enough, the tank full of platys that had over 40 fish died is the one that had the mini-cycle and is doing terrificly now. I’ll probably move a few of them to Joseph’s new 10G tank this weekend. It’s been running for about a week and is probably ready for a few fish.
Anyway, I just placed my order with X10 and pretty much got everything that was on my preliminary list from last week. However, I did decide to add some additional wall switch modules (they were on sale 4-for-3, so I got 8) and the RCA Universal Home Control Kit with ActiveHome Pro. It was only $20 and will allow me to control everything by PC, so I figure it will be very handy from work and a near necessity once I start expanding. I just need to pick up a couple of timers for my fish tanks now so I don’t have to remember to turn out their lights every night. No sense in getting X10 for that though. I wouldn’t be able to install an X10 outlet now anyway (once I get pictures up, you’ll see why).
This weekend will mostly be spent getting the home theater rewired, moving my son’s room (LAN drop and surround speakers installed) and some touch up painting. There’s also a lot of odds-and-ends to take care of (door stops, installing blinds, unpacking leftover boxes from our move, cleaning, etc.). I want to get as much done as possible before my grandparents arrive next weekend…my parents are probably coming the weekend after them, so I’m not going to get to do a whole lot for the rest of the month (not complaining, it’s just fact).
I’m also all set to purchase unRAID first thing next month. The Seagates have dropped to $199 at Fry’s, so it’s an awesome time to have a TB-dedicated setup. I have decided to forgo the Pro version for the Plus version, however. Plus gives me support to 6 drives and I can’t get past four without getting a new SATA card and external enclosure - not to mention the drives. That’s a considerable amount of cash, which will take me a while to come up with. So I figure if I ever need to expand beyond 6 drives, I’ll just upgrade when the time comes. I need the $30 saved now more than I’ll need it later.
Adding that 4th drive will allow me to finally set up my data structure how I originally envisioned while freeing up some much needed space on the second data drive. It fills up fast considering it holds all my TV episodes, box sets/series and children’s movies. I’ll be splitting off the children’s movies, which is about 300GB by itself. That particular drive is almost at 75% capacity right now, so I need the space. My other disk is nearly at 60%, but doesn’t fill up nearly as fast since it’s mainly individual DVD titles, and I don’t buy that often. I have increased my encoding bitrates since moving to unRAID, however, so I’m going to have to keep a close eye on things. I’ll probably use the new disk as an overflow, if I need to. The children’s folder doesn’t grow very fast either. I’m glad unRAID is so flexible that I don’t have to worry about what to do…I can just throw disks in when I need and put data wherever - the shares will still show me what I want to see - how I want to see it!
