Get Your Free Subscription By Email:

Apple OS X 10.9 Mavericks is finally out now, and surprisingly unlike previous paid upgrades is absolutely free to upgrade this time. The tenth major release of Apple OS X, the desktop and server operating system for Mac computers is now available as a free update through the Mac App Store. Compatible with iMac (Mid 2007 or newer), MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminium, or Early 2009 or newer), MacBook Pro (Mid/Late 2007 or newer), MacBook Air (Late 2008 or newer), Mac mini (Early 2009 or newer), Mac Pro (Early 2008 or newer) and Xserve (Early 2009) the release brings 200+ new features to users. OS X Mavericks brings Maps and iBooks to the Mac, introduces Finder Tabs and Tags, enhances multidisplay support, and includes an all-new version of Safari. The latest release of the world’s most advanced desktop operating system also adds new core technologies that deliver breakthrough power efficiency and responsiveness. While the most recommended and easy method to download and install the new OS is via Apple Mac Appstore, for user's have limited/unreliable internet connectivity unofficial direct download of "Apple OS X 10.9" are posted at the end of this post.

hdparm is a powerful command-line utility for Linux and Windows operating systems to set and view ATA hard disk drive hardware parameters. The utility also allows users to test disk read/write performance with cached and buffered modes. The utility allows users to view and change SATA/IDE disk-drive hardware parameters like drive caches, sleep mode, power management, acoustic management, and DMA settings which are generally set to suboptimal conservative defaults to their optimal settings for best performance. Checkout the example output below for disk information command followed by disk performance test.

root@myserver:~#  hdparm -I /dev/sdc

/dev/sdc:

ATA device, with non-removable media
        Model Number:       WDC WD2002FYPS-02W3B0
        Serial Number:      WD-WCXXXXX64757
        Firmware Revision:  04.01G01
        Transport:          Serial, SATA 1.0a, SATA II Extensions, SATA Rev 2.5,                  SATA Rev 2.6
Standards:
        Supported: 8 7 6 5
        Likely used: 8
Configuration:
        Logical         max     current
        cylinders       16383   16383
        heads           16      16
        sectors/track   63      63
        --
        CHS current addressable sectors:   16514064
        LBA    user addressable sectors:  268435455
        LBA48  user addressable sectors: 3907029168
        Logical/Physical Sector size:           512 bytes
        device size with M = 1024*1024:     1907729 MBytes
        device size with M = 1000*1000:     2000398 MBytes (2000 GB)
        cache/buffer size  = unknown
        Nominal Media Rotation Rate: 5400
Capabilities:
        LBA, IORDY(can be disabled)
        Queue depth: 32
        Standby timer values: spec'd by Standard, with device specific minimum
        R/W multiple sector transfer: Max = 16  Current = 0
        Advanced power management level: 128
        Recommended acoustic management value: 128, current value: 254
        DMA: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 *udma6
             Cycle time: min=120ns recommended=120ns
        PIO: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
             Cycle time: no flow control=120ns  IORDY flow control=120ns
Commands/features:
        Enabled Supported:
           *    SMART feature set
                Security Mode feature set
           *    Power Management feature set
           *    Write cache
           *    Look-ahead
           *    Host Protected Area feature set
           *    WRITE_BUFFER command
           *    READ_BUFFER command
           *    NOP cmd
           *    DOWNLOAD_MICROCODE
           *    Advanced Power Management feature set
                Power-Up In Standby feature set
           *    SET_FEATURES required to spinup after power up
                SET_MAX security extension
           *    Automatic Acoustic Management feature set
           *    48-bit Address feature set
           *    Device Configuration Overlay feature set
           *    Mandatory FLUSH_CACHE
           *    FLUSH_CACHE_EXT
           *    SMART error logging
           *    SMART self-test
           *    General Purpose Logging feature set
           *    WRITE_{DMA|MULTIPLE}_FUA_EXT
           *    64-bit World wide name
           *    IDLE_IMMEDIATE with UNLOAD
           *    WRITE_UNCORRECTABLE_EXT command
           *    {READ,WRITE}_DMA_EXT_GPL commands
           *    Segmented DOWNLOAD_MICROCODE
           *    Gen1 signaling speed (1.5Gb/s)
           *    Gen2 signaling speed (3.0Gb/s)
           *    Native Command Queueing (NCQ)
           *    Phy event counters
           *    Idle-Unload when NCQ is active
           *    NCQ priority information
           *    DMA Setup Auto-Activate optimization
           *    Software settings preservation
           *    SMART Command Transport (SCT) feature set
           *    SCT Long Sector Access (AC1)
           *    SCT LBA Segment Access (AC2)
           *    SCT Error Recovery Control (AC3)
           *    SCT Features Control (AC4)
           *    SCT Data Tables (AC5)
                unknown 206[12] (vendor specific)
                unknown 206[13] (vendor specific)
Security:
        Master password revision code = 65534
                supported
        not     enabled
        not     locked
        not     frozen
        not     expired: security count
                supported: enhanced erase
        424min for SECURITY ERASE UNIT. 424min for ENHANCED SECURITY ERASE UNIT.                 
Logical Unit WWN Device Identifier: 50014ee25b269017
        NAA             : 5
        IEEE OUI        : 0014ee
        Unique ID       : 25b269017
Checksum: correct

root@myserver:~# hdparm -Tt /dev/sdc

/dev/sdc:
 Timing cached reads:   27130 MB in  2.00 seconds = 13583.27 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads: 312 MB in  3.02 seconds = 103.42 MB/sec

When it comes to perfect backup's, RAW disk-images are the choice for safest form of backup and restoration of fully functional operating-system installations. We have shared two methods of using the same to backup Raspberry Pi SD Card from Windows as well as Hot Backup's from RPi itself using Linux DD disk imaging utility. Once created we can also Mount these backup images with full read-write access for various tasks like Data recovery (For example imaging an corrupted disk and accessing the disk-image from another working computer to recover data).

OSFMount is a free Windows utility which allows you to do that, the software enables users to mount local disk image files in Windows with a drive letter which can be accessed like any other partition. The images can be mounted in read-only mode as well as write-enabled mode, OSFMount also supports creation of RAM disks (See What are RAM Disks and How they can be used to make use of non-addressable wasted RAM on Windows) which offers a huge speed boost over using disk-based images.

There are numerous web-services like Speedtest.net which allow users to simply open a web-browser and benchmark their internet connections upload and download throughput with ease. However, if you need something similar for your server which does not have an graphical interface here are a few options to check network throughput from terminal/console. One can simply check download speed by using something like the command below at the terminal,

wget --output-document=/dev/null http://speedtest.wdc01.softlayer.com/downloads/test500.zip

But for a thorough check with option for outputting beautiful shareable badge like the one on the right, we will use the "Speedtest" command-line utility as shown below.