Fixing The Biggest Fault in Sun Sniper Pro Camera Strap

I bought a Sun Sniper Pro (SSP) camera strap a while back and since found that even though it is comfortable to use and many times over better than conventional camera straps it has one main fault - the shoulder pad slides on to your back after a while of repeated usage.

I solved this problem by acquiring a Blackrapid BRAD-strap which is an additional under your armpit extra strap for the Blackrapid camera straps, but happens to also fit the Sun Sniper Pro camera strap. It is a snug fit and when inserting on to the SSP-strap the integral steel wire is a bit in the way, but once you get the strap into the slots it works & fits perfectly. No more sliding!

So you can get the best of both worlds:
- the less clunky ball-bearing SSP camera connector and
- the Blackrapid BRAD-strapped shoulder pad.

HOWTO: Using Larger Than 2TB Drives on Areca ARC-1220 Raid Controller

I got my hands on a Western Digital 3TB Caviar Green drive (WD30EZRS) and promptly put it through some tests on my home server.

The Areca ARC-1220 raid controller detects the drive fine as a 3TB drive with the newest firmware (Firmware v1.49, Boot ROM v1.49).

After booting up my Ubuntu 11.10 Server 64-bit (oneiric) I tried to format & mount the drive in my usual fashion with fdisk /dev/mapper/areca-lv1 and mke2fs /dev/mapper/areca-lv1 and ended up with a 2TB partition. Fail.

So I Googled a bit and found this excellent article on making GPT partition tables for >2TB drives. I will reproduce the steps required to get the partition up and running here for convenience. Substitute /dev/sdb with your raid controller device node like /dev/mapper/areca-lv1 in my case:

To create a partition start GNU parted as follows:

# parted /dev/sdb

Output:

GNU Parted 2.3
Using /dev/sdb

Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands.
(parted)

Creates a new GPT disklabel i.e. partition table:

(parted) mklabel gpt

Sample outputs:

Warning: The existing disk label on /dev/sdb will be destroyed and all data on this disk will be lost. Do you want to continue?
Yes/No? yes
(parted)

Next, set the default unit to TB, enter:

(parted) unit TB

To create a 3TB partition size, enter:

(parted) mkpart primary 0 0

OR

(parted) mkpart primary 0.00TB 3.00TB

To print the current partitions, enter:

(parted) print

Sample outputs:

Model: ATA ST33000651AS (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 3.00TB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt

Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
 1 0.00TB 3.00TB 3.00TB ext4 primary

Quit and save the changes, enter:

(parted) quit

Sample outputs:

Information: You may need to update /etc/fstab.
Use the mkfs.ext3 or mkfs.ext4 command to format the file system, enter:

# mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdb1

OR

# mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdb1

Sample outputs:

mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdb1

mke2fs 1.41.12 (17-May-2010)
Filesystem label=
OS type: Linux
Block size=4096 (log=2)
Fragment size=4096 (log=2)
Stride=0 blocks, Stripe width=0 blocks
183148544 inodes, 732566272 blocks
36628313 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user
First data block=0
Maximum filesystem blocks=4294967296
22357 block groups
32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group
8192 inodes per group

Superblock backups stored on blocks:

32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208, 4096000, 7962624, 11239424, 20480000, 23887872, 71663616, 78675968, 102400000, 214990848, 512000000, 550731776, 644972544

Writing inode tables: done
Creating journal (32768 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done
This filesystem will be automatically checked every 31 mounts or
180 days, whichever comes first. Use tune2fs -c or -i to override.

Type the following commands to mount /dev/sdb1, enter:

# mkdir /data
# mount /dev/sdb1 /data
# df -H

Sample outputs:

Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdc1 16G 819M 14G 6% /
tmpfs 1.6G 0 1.6G 0% /lib/init/rw
udev 1.6G 123k 1.6G 1% /dev
tmpfs 1.6G 0 1.6G 0% /dev/shm
/dev/sdb1 3.0T 211M 2.9T 1% /data

Make sure you replace /dev/sdb1 with actual RAID or Disk name or Block Ethernet device such as /dev/etherd/e0.0. Do not forget to update /etc/fstab, if necessary. Also note that booting from a GPT volume requires support in your BIOS / firmware. This is not supported on non-EFI platforms. I suggest you boot server from another disk such as IDE / SATA / SSD disk and store data on /data.