Snail mail EGTB trading

[Shaun]

Sounds perfect to have a US source!

Shaun, When I think of internal hard drives I think of SATA and IDE. What is the differnce? Is one type of drive more popular or "preferred"?

Mark

SATA is certainly more common now.

Shaun

[Shaun]

I mailed to Shaun on August 31st. I expect him to receive it soon.

It has not arrived yet

Shaun

[kb2ct]

Tracking says it reached an airport in New Jersey in six hours.

It has not been scanned since.

Even priority mail is a little unpredictable, but it won't be long.

[MarkS]

It's like the night before christmas....

[Shaun]

It's like the night before christmas....

Only you don't know what day Christmas will fall....

Still waiting on the mail.

[MarkS]

bump.

Everyone still alive?

[Shaun]

It's reached England just has not made it to Brighton yet , we think it was held up in customs....

Shaun

[Shaun]

Lets hope your joke about Christmas does not turn into reality

[guyhaw]

Rafael stopped maintaining WILHELM some time ago. There's no reason to assume it works with VIsta.

If you are getting 'FAIL' messages with WILHELM, it could be that you are not describing your files as DTM files. WILHELM, or at least the version I had, could check EGTs to the DTC and DTZ metrics as well.

I suggest that:
a) you check your MD5sum-checking tool on your smaller EGT-files: there is less chance of these files actually being faulty
b) you use another tool for doing MD5sum checks.

A while ago, I downloaded the 'last 16' EGTs from Nelson Hernandez, and I think only a couple of files out of many failed to cross the Atlantic intact. I was dead impressed, even though I know most of the 'redundant' checks used to ensure integrity of transmission. In fact, the most likely problem was that my disc was faulty. I think many of John Tamplin's EGT files have 'decayed' on his discs over time.

g

[MarkS]

If this EGTB ever escapes customs, I would like eventually to get a copy of it on one of those external hard drives which use a USB port to connect to the computer. Just how much slower will the access times be, as compared to an internal hard drive with a SATA hookup?

[kb2ct]

The drive is through customs. It took 3 weeks.

There is a problem with the power supply.

This will happen one way or another.

In my experience even USB drives are fast enough and you can always use firewire or ESATA. It also is possible to transfer them to an internal drive once you have them.

[Shaun]

The drive is through customs. It took 3 weeks.

There is a problem with the power supply.

This will happen one way or another.

In my experience even USB drives are fast enough and you can always use firewire or ESATA. It also is possible to transfer them to an internal drive once you have them.

UPDATE

I have raised a warranty claim with LaCie in the UK hopefully they will honor a US warranty. FIngers crossed guys.

I have also ordered a 2TB internal drive as a backup plan (the power adapters are very expensive in the UK so unless LaCie UK honor the warranty that is probably the prefered route).

Shaun

P.S. This is a well travelled external drive:

Made?

Shipped from US to Japan - Japan to US - US to UK

[Shaun]

If this EGTB ever escapes customs, I would like eventually to get a copy of it on one of those external hard drives which use a USB port to connect to the computer. Just how much slower will the access times be, as compared to an internal hard drive with a SATA hookup?

For backups etc USB is okay*, however for TB access I would either go internal SATA or external eSATA.

Shaun

* for some reason I have found the usb controllers slow down HD access noticably, which is perhaps odd when you consider that usb flash drives can work so fast despite the interface?

[Ray]

* for some reason I have found the usb controllers slow down HD access noticably, which is perhaps odd when you consider that usb flash drives can work so fast despite the interface?

Very odd indeed, I was going to make the same comment myself

[Kirill Kryukov]

The main problem with USB drives is reliability. Just a couple weeks ago I saw another drive dead, after a couple of hours non-stop writing data to it. An external 2.5 drive in a box with USB interface. They are just not designed for typical EGTB usage pattern. (The dead drive was not mine but my friend's, who wanted to copy some media files from me. Luckily it was still on warranty).

Weak spots of a USB drive: 1. Drive is in a closed box with poor ventilation (or no ventilation at all). So it overheats and dies quickly. 2. External drive "manufacturers" put the cheapest crappiest drives into them, like maxtors which heat up so much that you can fry eggs on it. 3. The USB interface is a poor interface for moving terabytes of data. USB 2.0 is like a bicycle with a jet engine. Firewire is much better, SCSI or eSATA is still worlds better. 4. USB drives use crappy power supplies that cost perhaps 1$ to make. A high quality ATX power supply inside your computer provides much more clean power.

Possible reasons to use a USB hard drive: You are unable to use another interface or internal drive OR it's someone else's drive. USB is for connecting printers, sound cards, and mice. A terabyte over USB? Don't forget to verify the checksums after copying if your drive survives the experiment.

It's only a lucky chance that Ken's drive survived the trip US->Japan->US and even brought some EGTB files back.

[kb2ct]

Some USB ports are easily 10 times faster than other ports.

There is no way of telling except by trial and error.

If your flash drive port is fast, then use it for a hub until you find another fast port.

This is the mainl weakness of USB connections.

Firewire and ESATA avoid this problem.

[ernest]

You are being overly pessimistic, Kirill !...

I am using a 1.5 TB eSATA Seagate disk, in a "FlatDock" box with USB and eSATA access (I use the USB access).
It is quiet and heats up very little.

I bought the package (140 euros) at MacWay and have no problems with it (I knock on wood...).

[MarkS]

Hello EGTB guys,

I wanted to do a reality check with myself. I'm only going to use the EGTBs to analyse chess games -- my own pathetic ones and GM games as I go through books. Maybe even doing some endgame study and finding out the obviously bad moves. I have the Total Nalimov Tablebases 1 and II that those Chess Assistant people sell. In all, there are about 100 GB of data there which covers all the 5-piece endings, and the most important 6 piece endings.
Here is a link to these tablebases, they are the first 2 products.

http://store.convekta.com/shop_model.as ... ew=Catalog

So just wondering... would I really find the 1.5TB of full tablebases useful? Is the monster-edition only useful for you computer specialists, or for computer-computer games?

Mark

[Shaun]

Update --- LaCie are going to replace the power supply

Shaun

[kb2ct]

Super, Shaun.

I was prepared either way. I bought a dataport.

Having a complete set of EGTB's ins't necessary, but it is nice.

One of my friends who sent me a drive and wants the complete set is competing for the ICCF world championship.

[Shaun]

Hello EGTB guys,

I wanted to do a reality check with myself. I'm only going to use the EGTBs to analyse chess games -- my own pathetic ones and GM games as I go through books. Maybe even doing some endgame study and finding out the obviously bad moves. I have the Total Nalimov Tablebases 1 and II that those Chess Assistant people sell. In all, there are about 100 GB of data there which covers all the 5-piece endings, and the most important 6 piece endings.
Here is a link to these tablebases, they are the first 2 products.

http://store.convekta.com/shop_model.as ... ew=Catalog

So just wondering... would I really find the 1.5TB of full tablebases useful? Is the monster-edition only useful for you computer specialists, or for computer-computer games?

Mark

The complete 6 men are 1.2TB so slightly less than 1.5TB ... I don't trust incomplete TB's, going back a while when I did not have complete 5 men - I saw examples where the engine would play very odd moves to get into a won tablebases position. I suspect this still applies to the 6 men and could be critical for analysis.

Shaun

[MarkS]

Update please?

I got a 1.5 TB hard drive, and it is very hungry for chess data. Am anxious to send it to a member here (luckily his name isn't IStealHardDrives), but that depends on the successful outcome of this thread.

BTW, when you buy things like Flash Memory, you expect to pay a little bit of a "penalty" in memory... that is a 8GB USB drive gives you about 7.3 GB of actual space (about 10% loss). I'm not sure why, but I expected this "tax" of 10% to not be as high with a Mega Drive like the 1.5TB, but when I hooked it up to make sure it worked it said I only had about 1.34 TB or something lke that. Is there a technical reason why the real memory is always less than the stated memory?

[Kirill Kryukov]

BTW, when you buy things like Flash Memory, you expect to pay a little bit of a "penalty" in memory... that is a 8GB USB drive gives you about 7.3 GB of actual space (about 10% loss). I'm not sure why, but I expected this "tax" of 10% to not be as high with a Mega Drive like the 1.5TB, but when I hooked it up to make sure it worked it said I only had about 1.34 TB or something lke that. Is there a technical reason why the real memory is always less than the stated memory?

Hard drive manufacturers think that 1 kB is 1000 bytes, while your OS thinks it's 1024 bytes. Same for MB, GB and TB.

[kb2ct]

Hard drive manufacturers think that 1 kB is 1000 bytes, while your OS thinks it's 1024 bytes. Same for MB, GB and TB.

I think it is an outcome of advertising. It is easier to sell a 2 TB drive than a 1.81 TB drive.

If advertising says a product won't leak, you can be sure that when it fails, it will be because of a leak.

[grandad364]

I am new to this forum and discussion group, so please be patient with me.

1) Can anyone direct me to a current way to get the program "Wilhelm" along with english documentation?

2) Can you direct me to the working download sites for Nalimov EGTBs?

Most of the eMule download sources seem to be inactive ( Both KKs site and the eMule sites are up, but the eMule "sharers" are no longer sharing. I have only found one download link. I am not too familiar with eMule, but when I copy an paste links into eMule, only a few have found active "sharers". If there is another way to check for people who are still sharing, please help me find them.

Also, can I please get the address of the active download links that you know of?

I am considering the snail-mail option, but I think that this places a real burden on the person who has to copy 1.2 TB onto new hard drives.

I would like to share 6-piece EGTBs of "most popular" or "most frequently encountered" with chess community via torrents.

Thanks!

grandad

tomedowdy@gmail.com