April 2005 Archives

I used my old 60GB harddisk, which replaced by previously mentioned 160GB new disk, to made a RAID1 array with another 40GB harddisk. Actual capacity I can use is 40GB. 20GB is wasted.

Following is the technical explaination of RAID Level 1

Common Name(s): RAID 1; RAID 1 with Duplexing.

Technique(s) Used: Mirroring or Duplexing

Description: RAID 1 is usually implemented as mirroring; a drive has its data duplicated on two different drives using either a hardware RAID controller or software (generally via the operating system). If either drive fails, the other continues to function as a single drive until the failed drive is replaced. Conceptually simple, RAID 1 is popular for those who require fault tolerance and don't need top-notch read performance. A variant of RAID 1 is duplexing, which duplicates the controller card as well as the drive, providing tolerance against failures of either a drive or a controller. It is much less commonly seen than straight mirroring.
Illustration of a pair of mirrored hard disks, showing how the
files are duplicated on both drives. (The files are the same as
those in the RAID 0 illustration, except that to save space I have
reduced the scale here so one vertical pixel represents 2 kiB.)

Today, I bought a new hard driver, WD1600JB-00GVA0, made by Western Digital. Price is good, almost same as 120GB Seagate Hard Driver. I paid $120.00, tax included.

This is Western Digital High-Performance level EIDE product.

It's benefits:
Fast -- WD, the first to introduce an 8 MB buffer, has advanced the caching algorithms of this new and improved Caviar family of hard drives, resulting in next-generation high performance – performance that matches the speed of most 16 MB cache drives.

Cool-running – Heat is a major contributor to hard drive wear, and cool drive operating temperatures help increase long-term drive reliability. WD achieves the lowest operating temperature of any hard drive in it's class, including slower drives spinning at 5,400 RPM, by lowering the drives' power consumption through advanced design of electronics and firmware.

Quiet – Today's PCs, digital video recorders and gaming machines are increasingly operated in environments where noise is less tolerated. WD minimizes WD Caviar noise to levels virtually below the threshold of human hearing with its WhisperDrive™ technology, which features a highly efficient power driver design. And to cut seek noise, Soft Seek™ technology streamlines read/write seeking algorithms, resulting in the drive operating more efficiently when accessing and writing data.

Data Protection Enhancements
Data Lifeguard™ is an expanded set of data protection features that include shock protection, an environmental protection system, and embedded error detection and repair features that automatically find, isolate, and repair problem areas that may develop over the extended use of the hard drive. With these enhanced data reliability features, the drive can perform more accurate monitoring and error repair and deliver exceptional data security.
Data Lifeguard Tools™ is a set of software utilities that work in conjunction with the embedded Data Lifeguard features to make hard drive installation, drive management diagnostics, and repair simple and worry-free.
Shock Guard™ provides outstanding improvements in shock and vibration protection for WD Caviar SE drives. Shock Guard allows instantaneous data protection at high shock values to achieve leading shock specifications.

Let's see the performance as below:

When I am on the road to office in Montana SV6 this morning, ESSO's price made a new record, $1.059 per liter.

Short term price is shown as below:

Please see 3 year Historical Gas Price in Vancouver.

Data from Vancouver Gas Price

MSN Messenger 7 is released today, April 7, 2005.

I am waiting over four months. Now I can try to use it.

Download it.

I sent my TAX forms to CRA today.

Now I want to introduce some Canadian TAX Software.

www.cutetax.ca
Free without printing.

www.taxcel.ca
Unlimited Tax returens, $8 only.

www.mytaxexpress.com
Free download, free while income under $25,000. $6.08 per person.

www.genutax.ca
Once you purchase GenuTax, annual tax updates for future years are free. You will be able to prepare your tax returns for 2005, 2006, and beyond, at no additional charge.
The only risk is that GenuTax is closed.

www.taxtron.ca
Free under $30,000. $11.88 each.

I filled in the form and calculated return myself, use the Tax software as double check tool.
Know more about tax, you will save more.

It is so interesting to see my own Credit Score from the Free online tools.

BankRate.com

What is a FICO score?