What happened to the popularity of database software?

[John Connor]

I don't know about Mac, but your answer is in post #8.

 

[madoka]

I don't know about Mac, but your answer is in post #8.

Thanks. Downloading now.

 

[Ns1]

Excel does all of those things...

I'd like to keep track of my comics, trading cards, Lego sets, and guns. Something that will let me sort by year, keywords, condition, etc. I keep buying duplicates of things I already own and a database seems appropriate to help with that problem.

 

[OutHouse]

no use for them.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Some people use Excel as their simple database - one row per (whatever)

The rest use teh internets (hosted servers) and teh clouds.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Any situation I've found an Access DB or similar setup, or God Forbid, a program written within a Microsoft Word doc (yes, I've seen that!) I feel it coulod have been done 10x better in php/mysql or equivalant web language. At least then the data is centrally located on a (hopefully) raid and backed up server, and it can be accessed by anyone you wish via a web browser. No need to worry about any kind of client program, or a shared access DB where you can run into issues with multiple users accessing it at once etc...

That said stuff like Access has it's uses especially if you want to throw together a really quick database of something. But I've seen it all too often in corporate environments where it starts as a little something, until it grows big and the whole company relies on it. Then it blows up because it just got too big and complicated and corrupted or something. Then IT is held liable to "just make it work we need this yesterday".

That said I will admit I do have some excel spreadsheets at home, for stuff like documenting my IP assignments, vlans etc. I have one for my switch layouts as well so I keep track of what port is used for what vlan, or important devices.

 

[sdifox]

You haven't lived unless you have dealt with 50mb excel file that doesn't even have actual data in it yet. :shudder:

 

[Thebobo]

SuperBase Personal

 

[Unico]

In LibreOffice Base I’d suggest creating your new database using the Firebird Embedded database engine rather than the older HSQLDB Embedded engine. Firebird appears to be the future direction for Base and does not require the JavaScript runtime.

However Base seems to be on the back burner for the LibreOffice development team. Don’t expect to see a lot of enhancements of the next few releases.

 

[Kaido]

Growing up in the 80s, database software was used to keep track of recipes, baseball cards, book collections, etc. I don't understand why simple software for that purpose seems almost nonexistent now.

Microsoft Access is no longer Mac compatible and it seems it has one foot in the grave.

Don't people still have a need for a simple database program? I'd like to keep track of my comics, trading cards, Lego sets, and guns. Something that will let me sort by year, keywords, condition, etc. I keep buying duplicates of things I already own and a database seems appropriate to help with that problem.

I just use Google Drive these days; the built-in Google search for things like their Spreadsheets web GUI works awesome. No programming required!

 

[sdifox]

I just use Google Drive these days; the built-in Google search for things like their Spreadsheets web GUI works awesome. No programming required!

I fondly remember dvdprofiler and the cuecat

 

[louis redfoot]

Growing up in the 80s, database software was used to keep track of recipes, baseball cards, book collections, etc. I don't understand why simple software for that purpose seems almost nonexistent now.

Microsoft Access is no longer Mac compatible and it seems it has one foot in the grave.

Don't people still have a need for a simple database program? I'd like to keep track of my comics, trading cards, Lego sets, and guns. Something that will let me sort by year, keywords, condition, etc. I keep buying duplicates of things I already own and a database seems appropriate to help with that problem.

a well designed spreadsheet should suffice

 

[Kaido]

I fondly remember dvdprofiler and the cuecat

Bwahahaha! The memories...

https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/my-dvd-collection.38235/page-2

PLEX makes life so much easier. Someday I'd like to get a phat Synology setup for home...for $2.7K (Amazon pricing), you can do a 30TB lunchbox, which is pretty hefty! (edit: $2k got 6TB back when that thread was posted, lol!)

 

[Red Squirrel]

I need to upgrade the drives in my NAS some time. I "only" have 19TB. Two of the arrays are raid 10 though, so you "lose" half the space when you go raid 10, vs 5 where you only lose 1 drive worth.

I eventually want to look into ZFS too. Right now I'm using mdadm raid. I have VMs spread across the two raid 10's along with regular data. I'm not sure what's better, lot of small LUNs or few big ones. The more drives in an array the faster performance, but if they're separate then one VM that's high in I/O is not going to affect the others.

Also need to debate if I go towards a SAN architecture vs NAS. They both have some pros and cons. NAS is probably better for my needs but SAN feels more "enterprisy". . Linux can do iSCSI too.

 

[Kaido]

I need to upgrade the drives in my NAS some time. I "only" have 19TB. Two of the arrays are raid 10 though, so you "lose" half the space when you go raid 10, vs 5 where you only lose 1 drive worth.

I eventually want to look into ZFS too. Right now I'm using mdadm raid. I have VMs spread across the two raid 10's along with regular data. I'm not sure what's better, lot of small LUNs or few big ones. The more drives in an array the faster performance, but if they're separate then one VM that's high in I/O is not going to affect the others.

Also need to debate if I go towards a SAN architecture vs NAS. They both have some pros and cons. NAS is probably better for my needs but SAN feels more "enterprisy". . Linux can do iSCSI too.

I was a big fan of FreeNAS for a long time, but over the past few years I've switched to Synology. SHR-2 is pretty awesome & they have a really great package selection available. Plus, you can build a rackmount 100TB unit for under $9k, which is incredible.

 

[louis redfoot]

I was a big fan of FreeNAS for a long time, but over the past few years I've switched to Synology. SHR-2 is pretty awesome & they have a really great package selection available. Plus, you can build a rackmount 100TB unit for under $9k, which is incredible.

what do u guys do with all that space?

 

[sdifox]

what do u guys do with all that space?

Linux distros of course :shifty eyes:

 

[sdifox]

Bwahahaha! The memories...

https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/my-dvd-collection.38235/page-2

PLEX makes life so much easier. Someday I'd like to get a phat Synology setup for home...for $2.7K (Amazon pricing), you can do a 30TB lunchbox, which is pretty hefty! (edit: $2k got 6TB back when that thread was posted, lol!)

I like my PE R710.

 

[louis redfoot]

Linux distros of course :shifty eyes:

haha, so basically storing every dvd ever released. everything's online these days. i'll torrent something on the rare occasion that i really want to see it.

personally i'd rather blow that server farm on a wild romp across europe lol

 

[Malogeek]

I was a big fan of FreeNAS for a long time, but over the past few years I've switched to Synology. SHR-2 is pretty awesome & they have a really great package selection available. Plus, you can build a rackmount 100TB unit for under $9k, which is incredible.

Synology NAS have just come so far. With SHR and expandable linked housings, your flexibility and growth options are awesome for home/smb use.

 

[sdifox]

haha, so basically storing every dvd ever released. everything's online these days. i'll torrent something on the rare occasion that i really want to see it.

personally i'd rather blow that server farm on a wild romp across europe lol

I hate travelling. Debating building backblaze pod.

 

[ringtail]

IIRC, the triumvirate of office software was a word processor, database, and spreadsheet. But simple database software seems to have fallen off the map. What happened to them?

Also, I just want to keep track of my various collections. What's a simple database program I can use?

Here's a nice free db program to track your library:
http://arachnoid.com/LibraryDB/index.html

 

[Kaido]

Linux distros of course :shifty eyes:

Linux ISO's. So many Linux ISO's

 

[Kaido]

I hate travelling. Debating building backblaze pod.

I have no use for one, but I really wanna build one too

 

[Kaido]

Synology NAS have just come so far. With SHR and expandable linked housings, your flexibility and growth options are awesome for home/smb use.

Yeah...being able to resize the partitions AND transfer the contents of the system to a larger Synology unit kind of make ZFS moot. Plus the linked housings, optional upgrades (SSD cache, 10GbE NIC, RAM expansion), HA config, various integrated backup systems, security camera system, excellent package repository, etc. So many things you can do!

My two biggest complaints with Synology are lack of advertising & lack of package data. Most people have no idea what Synology's DSM is capable of, partly due to a severe lack of advertising & partly due to minimal package data on their website. They have stupid powerful features & don't really do a good job telling people what they have. You could literally spend days digging into what these machines have to offer...