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Photo Galleries 2026-04-16T21:55:25-07:00 Dolf Starreveld https://starreveld.com/blog/ Jekyll © 2026 Dolf Starreveld /blog/assets/img/favicons/favicon.ico /blog/assets/img/favicons/favicon-96x96.png 2026-04-16T18:00:00-07:00 2026-04-16T18:00:00-07:00 https://starreveld.com/blog/posts/2026/04/16/buying-hard-disks/ dolfs

In February, I bought a new NAS enclosure to replace my three-year-old_ ReadyNAS devices. Of course, I needed to also purchase disks to go inside. I wanted four 12TB drives (or slightly larger) and did a bunch of googling and watching YouTube reviews to determine which drives might be the best to buy. Attempt #1 I settled on Western Digital WDC_WD120EFBX (12TB), principally because they are ...

2026-03-17T15:11:00-07:00 2026-03-17T15:11:00-07:00 https://starreveld.com/blog/posts/2026/03/17/japan-travel/ dolfs

In the summer of 2025, my family travelled to Japan for an extensive three-week trip. I have chronicled everything in a separate blog. It describes each activity we did, the sites we visited, and the things we learned, along with many pictures. Besides sharing our adventure, it contains many helpful tips and “things to know” for those of you who are contemplating or planning a trip to Japan. M...

2026-03-02T12:44:00-08:00 2026-03-02T12:44:00-08:00 https://starreveld.com/blog/posts/2026/03/02/esphome-mel-heatpump/ dolfs

In an earlier post, I described why smart thermostats with heat pumps are generally a bad idea. I also described how I tried out the Aidoo Pro to try and achieve better control and behavior, as well as remote control. Having ditched both approaches (read the posts), I have now arrived at a setup that I think works well, or very close to well (read on for details). Step 1: Try out a communicat...

2026-02-23T19:32:00-08:00 2026-02-23T19:32:00-08:00 https://starreveld.com/blog/posts/2026/02/23/hutspot/ dolfs

Tonight I felt like a last shot at eating, and thus cooking, a typical Dutch winter dish. Winter is rapidly disappearing here in CA (it was 70F today), and because of tradition, I just don’t make dishes like this when the weather is not wintery. I made an exception today, just because I did not see another opportunity on the horizon. History According to legend, during the siege of Leiden in ...

2026-02-23T11:43:00-08:00 2026-02-23T11:43:00-08:00 https://starreveld.com/blog/posts/2026/02/23/terramaster-truenas-sde-ignore/ dolfs

A user on Reddit made me aware of the fact that while running TrueNAS on a Terramaster F4-F425 Plus like I do (possibly also on other models), the file /var/log/netdata/error.log is full of rapidly produced (and continuously producing) messages like this: PermissionError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: '/dev/sde' Unexpected error reading partitions for device: '/dev/sde' Traceback (most recent ...