CraigM

We have 4 contract-based units at our school, all Ricoh units. I love Ricoh machines and am actually in the process of getting proposals for a new contract to upgrade 3 of the machines, 1 of which is a Pro 8310S production machine we make incredibly heavy use of. That machine has done over 10 million clicks in its life so far and the company who supplied it is becoming increasingly frustrating to deal with. The other 3 units we have work super well. For smaller machines around the school we mostly have Samsung units, but we just purchased 5 Brother MFP units this morning so we can do some musical chair swapping of units and I can then retire some much older Samsung units. I'm trying to standardise on all Brother machines for the small desktop/MFP scenario - our existing Brother units work incredibly well.

Oh goodness me, this topic is so relevant to me. I have 7 Huawei D 15 laptops that we bought back in 2020. They came with the Realtek 8822CE card and goodness me did I develop a dislike for that card! Slow Wi-Fi network association, struggling to connect after the laptop wakes up from sleep and more. Later driver updates helped, but it still makes me twitch when I see them. Our grade 08 (Form 2 UK equivalent if I did my maths right) learners this year had to start using devices for e-textbooks, but it was a BYOD situation. I had a kid come to me since their laptop would not connect even though he was following the provided instructions perfectly. He had a nice enough laptop, but it was using some or another Realtek card that had like 5 year old drivers powering it. I found more up to date drivers and all of a sudden the laptop was now connecting and working. Why Windows Update also doesn't update the drivers on the devices when an updated driver exists on the Windows Update Catalogue site is beyond me.

We don't use traditional hardware RAID here anymore. Both of our current servers have a 500GB NVME boot disk. Main DC & file server then has 4 x 2TB SATA SSD and 2 x 4TB SATA HDD configured in Storage Spaces as a tiered mirror. Yeah we lose half the capacity, but our storage needs aren't extreme at this point. Our 2nd server that is hosting VM's has 2 x 2TB SATA SSD's in a Storage Space spanned volume. Software defined storage is the way pretty much the whole industry has decided to go. Hardware RAID isn't dead yet, but it's not going to get any better either.

A final update - yesterday I tried the download again since I saw Office 2019 had received an update on the 11th of March. This time everything just downloaded as it always did, so I can only conclude that the previous issue I had was a temporary Microsoft issue or oversight in those files being missing for that particular version. For now, one less problem yay!

OK an update - used a fresh XML from the OCT site and selected Office 2021 this time. What do you know, all files downloaded including the proofing tools etc. I wonder if this is just a temp bug on the MS servers or a case of no one caring about Office 2019 and they don't even know the files are missing?

Hi everyone, I'm having a bit of an odd one here. I'm attempting to download the latest version of Office 2019 using the Office Deployment Tool and an XML file created by Microsoft's online Office Configuration Tool (using that tool to rule out any potential issues with my own XML files) Office 2019 does download, but there seem to be some files missing in the Data folder after the process is done. I've tested on 2 different computers on 2 different internet connections and I get the same issue. Inside the Data folder, there is the usual V64.cab and V64_version_number.cab files. Inside the Version_number folder, there's only i640 and s640 cab files and stream.x64.x-none.dat files. Looking at an older version, in addition to those files there's also stream.x64.en-us.dat, stream.x64.af-za.proof.dat and a few more cab files. (The proof file is Afrikaans language proofing tools) If I try and install the latest version of 2019 using the downloaded files, the install fails as its missing the above dat and cab files. Copying those files from the older install set to the latest doesn't work as there is a version mismatch. Does anyone know if something's wrong with the Microsoft Office CDN or something? I've been remiss in not downloading updates more frequently over the last 18 months but I find it weird that there is this issue now. Time is limited, but I may try downloading Office 2021 and see what happens. I know 2019 goes out of support in October, but that shouldn't stop the files from being properly distributed. We don't have a license for 2021 or 2024 yet, so we have to use 2019 for the moment.

Yeah, it's definitely far too complicated for our school at least. Our IT needs are more than a small or possibly even medium sized business, but we are not a data center or large corporate doing super complicated things. Basically just need solid, mid-range kit that doesn't require a PHD to configure or cost the equivalent of a new car. I plan to be in IT the rest of my life and don't get me wrong, I will always try to learn to grow and improve, but I also have to be selective in that a lot of what's happening out in the big corporate world or otherwise, isn't exactly relevant to school level just yet. Of course every school is different and some can definitely do amazing things with the latest cutting edge stuff, but for many here in South Africa for example, just getting the absolute basics right is already a big thing. In a way, I think Ubiquiti have the right idea with their UniFi OS for central configuration and control, but there's been enough threads about the hardware and firmware gremlins that makes me too hesitant to consider jumping ship at this point, let alone replacing perfectly working and solid kit. I wonder if there's anywhere one can submit product suggestions and improvement ideas to Aruba for future development? I could file all sorts of requests

We looked at putting a UPS in every cabinet once upon a time, but it just became too cost ineffective to do so. Was looking at something like a 1500VA 1u rack mount unit per cab, but costs didn't make sense for us at the time, not to mention all the extra maintenance burdens that come with managing 13-15 UPS's. Our school however is about to have 2 inverters and 2 60kw/h batteries installed to keep us running during our scheduled 2 hour power cuts, so that will go a long way to at least making sure these devices don't bounce repeatedly every day. This may sound stupid, but I take every chance to show off our 5412 to anyone who comes near my server room It's just so pretty and big and unique and I can't help myself. It replaced a stack (physical, not software stacked) of 2610's and a 2900 that was the core switch. Honestly, the 5412 is probably going to remain in the core for at least the next 10-15 years due to the flexibility it offers.

I must agree, the 6100 series is a hell of a lot quieter than the 2540's, which in turn were a hell of a lot quieter than the 1 2610 PoE switch I used to run. I hate to think of it, but where some of my network cabinets are now, a quieter switch would make a positive impact. The background drone of the 2540's is annoying. I just wish pricing was still as good as when I got the 1st 6100. Doesn't help that South Africa's Rand has gone down all the way to the sewerage plant, never mind down the toilet I wasn't impressed with the waiting time for this 6100 we got, it took about 3 odd months to obtain, but that is still better than the almost 7 months I waited for our 5412 core to arrive. Again, doesn't help that SA is the a** end of nowhere in the minds of most hardware vendors

Thanks for the reply. It's interesting, as the 1st cx 6100 we put in ran extremely well for about 18 months before the PoE part of it failed - network switching was fine, but all PoE dependent devices were down. Thankfully the good old HP warranty did the job and the switch was replaced very quickly. Replacement switch has been running solidly now for the last few months, touch wood. It's the first time I've seen the PoE part of a switch die, but the local persistent power cuts here in South Africa have not helped matters in any way shape or form. I'm actually extremely impressed that more hasn't gone wrong with our other HP/Aruba switches despite the constant on/off cycles. Our network is pretty basic - mostly 1 gig down to clients and AP's, 10 gig to core. Have a mix of 2620, 2530 and 2540 units, 2 cx 6100 units and a 5412R zl2 core. Hopefully early next year I'll be down to just 1 2620 unit.

Hi everyone, I'm about to put my 2nd Aruba cx 6100 switch into production later today, replacing an old HP 2620 model. I was just wondering what others who use this switch model think? Things that I like are: Love how quiet the PoE model is compared to all our previous HP/Aruba PoE switches Love that the 24 port model isn't super deep or heavy Solid build quality USB-C console connector (hooray for this becoming the universal standard now) Things I don't like: The web UI is far faster than on the older series, but it is far less polished overall The CLI is a bit more confusing to use compared to the old switch series The way VLANS are configured messed up my brain compared to what I had gotten used to on the old series Addings ports to VLANS is so much more tedious than on the old series Firmware size is huge, really seems bloated compared to the old series Honestly, I do like the sheer hardware upgrades over the 2530/2540 series, but I really don't like the new AOS-CX switch OS - I feel it's almost more suited for programmers or something vs a simple network admin. The old AOS switch OS really worked so well and the best part is that most of what you learned on old HP ProCurve switches just kept on being carried forward into the newer models. I'd really love to hear your thoughts and views

These 2610's are 11 years old now. We got them about 2 years after I started at this school, when my 1st partner colleague insisted we move to managed switches throughout and get rid of the old unmanaged D-Link switches the school had previously. In operation those 2610's were nigh bulletproof. Thankfully we never had that issue despite having increasingly regular power outages over the last few years here in South Africa - one small mercy. However I cannot agree enough about those lifetime warranties! That alone has inspired such confidence in me to always go with HPE/Aruba. Here in South Africa, regular cuts called load shedding have become the norm over the last few years as the only power company in the country convulses in its death throes. Our equipment regularly gets powered off and thankfully we've had no issues to date. Long term I don't know if the constant cuts are subtly and slowly damaging the power supplies in the current switches, so only time will tell.

Good idea to check them out. One never knows. Luckily these 2 units aren't ever going back into my network and I have more units, but this will now make 4 units that have done this to me. Once long ago, we got a 2620 in place of a 2610, but otherwise it's been like for like. Thanks yeah, I do know that they can do that. Unfortunately I'm not set up to test caps (not that I have the soldering skills to apply/remove them in the 1st place ) I've been tempted to maybe test with another 2610 power supply to narrow down whether it's the power supply or the board itself, but now that I've logged the switches I don't want to fiddle further

So weird that being powered down for an extended period causes it to die. I've now logged both switches with HP, will probably get 2 refurb 2610's for replacement if last year was anything to go by.

Hi everyone, I've got a stack of old HP 2610 switches in my office. I had a donation request this week, so I pulled 2 of the 24 port models out to clean and wipe the config. Both of the units refuse to boot, they just make a high-pitched squealing noise (very similar to coil whine) and every light on the switch stays lit up. There's no console port access and the switch never goes further. This isn't the first time this has happened to me. Last year I had the same issue with 2 other 2610's I was donating as well. Logged with HP and they replaced the switches as per the warranty but I never found out what the root problem was. The funny thing is that these switches were absolutely bulletproof during their service lives, never had any issues. But now after sitting on a shelf for a year or more after being retired, they just randomly die? I've taken the tops off and I don't see any leaking, bulging or exploded capacitors, but I lack the skill to troubleshoot further. Was just wondering if something like this has happened to anyone else with this particular model? I know electronics age and nothing is completely bulletproof, but this just seems weird to me. Thanks!