Geeky! Cool! Word!

April 4, 2003 1:40 PM

Question for the class: Why would you want to make a RAID array from floppy disk drives? Answer: because you can if you have a Mac, that is
posted by WolfDaddy (29 comments total)

so awesome. i love low tech geekery.

[this is good]
posted by fishfucker at 1:46 PM on April 4, 2003

Okay, question: What is a RAID drive and what is it used for?
I wish I was a geek
posted by elwoodwiles at 1:54 PM on April 4, 2003

This is supposed to conotate the punk rock and alternative nature of my wacky USB FDD antics.

You gotta love a geek with a sense of humor.
posted by Holden at 1:55 PM on April 4, 2003

elwoodwiles: Webopedia can help your LGQ (low geekery quotient)
posted by WolfDaddy at 1:57 PM on April 4, 2003

This is more of a Slashdot kind of post, but I think there's always room for a little geek humor here.

elwoodwiles A RAID is where you use software to make multiple drives function as one drive, splitting the read/write duties among them. It's usually only used in industries that need really fast hard disks - like video editing.
posted by stevis at 1:59 PM on April 4, 2003

Thanks WolfDaddy, looks like Webopedia could help me sort through some of those Meta conversations.
posted by elwoodwiles at 1:59 PM on April 4, 2003

Very cool. I love people who do things like this because they can.
posted by riffola at 2:12 PM on April 4, 2003

I like this, very much. And at last I have a retort to those who sneer from their dank PC corners that my little Mac and its kind are good only for designers and other "arty" types like me, and lack the essential geekiness of their oversized and ugly beige boxes. This, of course, aside from my usual argument, which is that it lets me get on with my work instead of messing around with utterly pointless geek one-upmanship like this. *whistles*. Really cool though.
posted by zygoticmynci at 2:22 PM on April 4, 2003

FloppyDiscConstructionFilter.
posted by Yelling At Nothing at 2:23 PM on April 4, 2003

"I need to expand the FDD RAID to have 127 USB devices and be the fastest and best USB FDD RAID in the world!!!"

Gimme a break, if the thrill of getting a Sony Smartcard RAID to work isn't enough for this guy, it would seem that he's really just after the glory and fame that creating the biggest, fastest USB FDD RAID in the world would surely bring him. Geez, have some humility, Prometheus! A gift to humanity like the FDD RAID is so much bigger than one man!
posted by jlynford2 at 2:25 PM on April 4, 2003

The seek time on that thing must be amazing. I bet I could smoke a smoke a cigarette in the time it takes to load a file...
posted by SweetJesus at 2:27 PM on April 4, 2003

This kicks ass. Nice find WolfDaddy.

elwoodwiles A RAID is where you use software to make multiple drives function as one drive, splitting the read/write duties among them. It's usually only used in industries that need really fast hard disks - like video editing.

Slight revision:

1) RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks) isn't always software, there are many hardware based solutions (and hardware solutions are much preferred).

2) Certain RAID configurations also provide an added layer of data redundancy, not just speed. Most servers out there are running a RAID for just this reason.
posted by stigg at 2:29 PM on April 4, 2003

You can smoke a ciggie in 16-32 seconds? What happened to the simple pleasures, the flavors and armoas of cigarettes? Of smoking with those you love? SweetJesus, take some time out to stop and smell the nicotene with me. ~wink~
posted by WolfDaddy at 2:31 PM on April 4, 2003

aromas, I mean. armoas are something you have to fight in Zelda games, I believe.
posted by WolfDaddy at 2:33 PM on April 4, 2003

You can smoke a ciggie in 16-32 seconds?

You just need to breath really deeply. Taking a lot of practice bong hits helps...
posted by SweetJesus at 2:36 PM on April 4, 2003

via Boing Boing
posted by matteo at 3:03 PM on April 4, 2003

is this Boing Boing something I need a Boing Boing to know about, matteo?
posted by WolfDaddy at 3:09 PM on April 4, 2003

Q: What about the performance hit with RAID5 arrays, maybe we could try RAID0 and do better backups.

A: Its a floppy, dummy.

> via Boing Boing

Can we cut that out please? I know I saw this well before it got posted to BB. Just because your homepage is BB doesn't mean it deserves special credit. Man, haven't we gotten over the BS "stealing links" mentality? (excellent blog btw and it is one of my phoenix homepages too)
posted by skallas at 4:02 PM on April 4, 2003

Man, haven't we gotten over the BS "stealing links" mentality?

A large part of the rationale for giving credit is to turn other people on to the site where you found the link. Just because you know about BoingBoing doesn't mean everyone else does.
posted by MrBaliHai at 4:40 PM on April 4, 2003

I like the general assumption that seems to be that I couldn't have found this link myself, without assistance from Boing Boing or your momma.
posted by WolfDaddy at 4:50 PM on April 4, 2003

You better give credit to my momma, homes.
posted by MrBaliHai at 5:17 PM on April 4, 2003

> via Boing Boing

Can we cut that out please?

Actually, it turned up as a comment on Slashdot this week. Boing Boing just picked up on it. If you really want to see the twoliner it began in, find it yourself. You see, we live in a world where everything is a reinterpretation of reciprocation of a recreation of a duplication of a replication of something that was barely even there in the first place.

You could spend (read: waste) your life doing a kind of semiotic etymology of everything you contact in it. Even moreso on the internet, where to server something up again you don't even need to microwave it. So why bother? Might as well just enjoy the interaction on the level you face it at, rather than some distilled abstraction that is as much of a pallid imitation as what you encountered, anyway.
posted by armoured-ant at 5:41 PM on April 4, 2003

server=serve

I've been in front of a computer too long. Where's the bourbon?
posted by armoured-ant at 5:42 PM on April 4, 2003

OK, I know this was just meant as a geek feat, but could one actually read those diskettes in a different RAID of floppies? I mean, transfer them to someone else with the same setup who could then read them?
posted by TimeFactor at 6:06 PM on April 4, 2003

via MeFi

Not that there's anything wrong with that.
posted by jewishbuddha at 6:12 PM on April 4, 2003

I give up and offer everyone free oral sex. That'll shut me up for awhile.
posted by WolfDaddy at 6:23 PM on April 4, 2003

Great link WolfDaddy, from a die-hard, they can pry it from my cold dead fingers, type of Mac user!

I'll pass on your offer, generous as it is.
posted by Plunge at 6:34 PM on April 4, 2003

via MeFi

Eh. It's cool. I'm scared of the front page anyway.

On the other hand, he did the ~wink~, for which peace can be no answer.

What I want to see? A RAID using Commodore 1541 drives. You could break windows with that shit.
posted by furiousthought at 9:25 PM on April 4, 2003

Somebody still listens to Devo?
posted by HTuttle at 12:27 AM on April 5, 2003