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Blocklist-Update.sh

Blocklist-Update.sh is a script that I wrote to manage blocklists from bluetack etc to be used in conjunction with Transmission torrent downloader in Linux/MacOS. The script can be taylored to work with Qbittorrent as well, but the placement of the blocklists means you'd have to redirect the blocklist to go somewhere locally manageable as Transmission uses its own blocklist directory in .config. I believe there are about 10 lists there now. It works well for my needs. It can be ran weekly using crontab in standard user profile.  To download:  blocklist-update.sh To download the others:  Github
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WD BLUE 250GB 3D NAND 2.5 INCH SATA III SSD

A couple of weeks ago, my new Western Digital Blue 250 GB SSD came in the mail. It’s fast. My computer automatically recognized the new hardware when I plugged it in. After installing Manjaro 17.1.1 on the device(As I had no Manjaro 17.1.2), it booted quickly and cleanly. The system ran as if I had a regular Hard disk drive in the machine. It shutdown 2 times as fast as the hard disk drives I’ve been using have done. It also loaded applications in a flash. Everything seemed stable on the system. A couple of issues I’ve been having with Manjaro lately, the themes aren’t working as they are supposed to, this doesn’t seem to matter here. All my scripts worked beautifully on it, everything finished in half the normal amount of time. I’ve had absolutely zero problems with it. Installing the device, however, might prove to be a challenge. The only available slots are where the floppy drive would go and it isn’t open, and an SD card reader spot. I also didn’t originally have a cable that would be long enough. I was able to purchase one, but I think I’m going to wait and swap out the CPU cooler as well.

The system in question is an upgraded Dell Inspiron 531. It has 6 Gigs of DDR2 RAM, AMD Athlon II dual core 4450e socket AM2 processor. It has the standard on board graphics chip from Nvidia and the stock power supply unit. It also has a new case fan that I installed shortly after I bought the machine. I also upgrade the BIOS. The processor and RAM came mostly from a Compaq machine whose PSU no longer functioned properly(Also purchased a couple of gigs online). The current Hard disk drive installed is a Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 7200 RPM drive. It has 149GB of storage. The system runs efficiently enough, but it is by far not where I want it to be. An article about upgrading a low-end device will be arriving soon so stay tuned.

I am very happy with the device as it gives the system more pep and liveliness as opposed to the old hard drive that’s been worked into the ground. I got the device at a rather descent deal on Amazon. I guess it helped that the holidays were right around the corner at time of purchasing. The drive is Sata III compatible, m.2 2280 3D Nand technology. The idea is that the more storage space that is on the drive, the faster the drive is. As the drive acts more like RAM than regular hard disk storage during operation, it should be faster anyway. It has sequential read/write at 560MBs/530MBs consecutively. It has a rated estimate mean time to failure at 1.75 Million hours. I went with the 250 GB over a 120 GB drive on the premise that drives with more NAND chips within them, tend to have better performance.

 My next big adventure is seeing how it runs day to day. I probably won’t be able to put the computer to sleep when I leave the house because Linux suspend and SSD’s aren’t really known to work well together or at least they weren’t in the past. I may do more research on that in the upcoming few days to see what would happen.  

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