Given how big disks have become, many admins are moving away from RAID 5. Now they are seeing the value of RAID 6. For example, RAID 6 (still reliable for most enterprise/NAS setups). Erasure Coding (Ceph, TrueNAS Scale) → more scalable fault tolerance. RAID 5 is effectively obsolete for any array using today’s large disks.

Like others have mentioned

www.xbyte.com is one choice.

The other one is:

www.savemyserver.com

@Oksana Thank you for the article. Hopefully i am able to deploy this soon.

Flashing a BIOS with a diskette drive. We moved over to a whole new system.

I will stick to black and white printing to save costs. If a color printer is absolutely necessary, we can make it available for limited use..

@scottalanmiller Having remote backups in another part of the world (geo-redundant backups) is a solid disaster recovery strategy. It helps protect against data loss from natural disasters, regional outages, or local ransomware attacks. But remote backups are only as secure as the passwords and encryption protecting them.

Here is something i found:

1. Ensure LUKS Drive is Configured
   If the drive isn’t encrypted yet, you can encrypt it with LUKS:

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sudo cryptsetup luksFormat /dev/sdX
Replace /dev/sdX with the appropriate drive/partition. Be cautious—this step will erase all data on the drive.

2. Add the Drive to /etc/crypttab
   Edit the /etc/crypttab file to configure the system to unlock the drive at boot.

Open the file:

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sudo nano /etc/crypttab
Add an entry for the encrypted drive:

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cryptname /dev/sdX none luks
cryptname: A name for the decrypted device (used later in /etc/fstab).
/dev/sdX: Path to the encrypted device.
none: Use none for a passphrase prompt at boot or specify a path to a key file.
luks: Indicates LUKS encryption.
Example:

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cryptdrive /dev/sdb1 none luks
3. Add the Decrypted Device to /etc/fstab
To automatically mount the decrypted drive after unlocking:

Edit /etc/fstab:

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sudo nano /etc/fstab
Add an entry for the decrypted drive:

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/dev/mapper/cryptname /mnt/mountpoint ext4 defaults 0 2
Replace:

/dev/mapper/cryptname with the mapped device from /etc/crypttab.
/mnt/mountpoint with your desired mount point.
ext4 with your file system type.
4. Generate an Initramfs
If the root file system or a critical drive is encrypted, you’ll need to update the initramfs to include decryption tools.

Update the initramfs:

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sudo update-initramfs -u
Verify that the cryptsetup package is installed in your initramfs configuration.

5. Test Boot Behavior
   Reboot the system and observe the decryption process:

If you specified none in /etc/crypttab, you should be prompted for a passphrase at boot.
If a key file was used, the drive should decrypt automatically.
6. Using a Key File for Automatic Decryption
To avoid entering a passphrase at boot, use a key file:

Generate a key file:

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sudo dd if=/dev/urandom of=/root/luks-keyfile bs=4096 count=1
Set permissions:

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sudo chmod 600 /root/luks-keyfile
Add the key file to the LUKS header:

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sudo cryptsetup luksAddKey /dev/sdX /root/luks-keyfile
Update /etc/crypttab:

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cryptname /dev/sdX /root/luks-keyfile luks
Update the initramfs:

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sudo update-initramfs -u
Reboot to test automatic decryption.

7. Troubleshooting
   Device not found during boot: Ensure the correct device path is used in /etc/crypttab.
   Passphrase prompt not appearing: Verify cryptsetup is installed and included in initramfs.
   Boot hangs or fails: Boot into a live session, comment out entries in /etc/fstab or /etc/crypttab, and investigate.

You can also try whois.sc

@travisdh1 I have never done so it will interesting setting one up.

Never had the privilege to deal with Datapower on Linux. Though it looks very interesting.

Maybe flashing the raid card firmware back to its original state you can see the drives. You can pick up the firmware on dell support and drivers site.

@ronneyb you may want to follow these steps:

Backup:

1. Log in to the Proxmox web interface.

2. Select the node or server you want to backup.

3. Click on the "Backup" button.

4. Choose the type of backup you want to create, either full backup or incremental backup.

5. Select the backup storage location.

6. Click on the "Backup Now" button to start the backup process.

Restore:

1. Log in to the Proxmox web interface.

2. Select the node or server where you want to restore the backup.

3. Click on the "Restore" button.

4. Choose the backup file to restore.

5. Choose the restore options, including backup type, target storage location, and network configuration.

6. Click on the "Restore Now" button to start the restore process.

7. After the restore process is complete, restart the Proxmox node or server.

Note: It is essential to follow the backup and restore process carefully to avoid data loss or system failure. Always test the backup and restore process before performing it on a production system.

You can also try Chrome remote extensions.

@dbeato Like others have posted they do have web admin portal. I find it so easy to navigate on that portal. Very easy and not so troublesome like some ESXI interfaces.

@scottalanmiller Imagine that was an unassigned character that brought the whole system to a stand still. Just Saying on the other side i did get free coffee and pastry on Starbucks that day.

@Oksana that is why i love Proxmox user friendly and ease of transitions.

@CCWTech Wow I will see with my check on my hypervisor. Let me see if i can do this thanks for the heads up.

So we did not have social media for a while. The world didn't end is okay to take a break from seen what other people are doing with their lives.

Maybe VLC might be a good option since it plays almost al media type files.

I do not know if this matters maybe you should look into an FTP that caters between Linux and Macs poossibly.