Nintendo Switch Hardware Today

The Switch has multiple models, the primary different models being The Original (2017), The Lite, and The OLED (2021) models. The Lite and the OLED versions have updated SoC chips on a newer process node which gives better battery. We are going to just list the Original model specs. Original MSRP $299.

SoC: NVIDIA Tegra X1 (2015) - TSMC 20nm
CPU: ARM - 4 Cores Cortex A57 @ 2.2GHz (Plus inactive 4 Cores Cortex A53)
RAM: 4GB LPDDR4 @ 1600MHz - BW: 25.6 GB/s
GPU: NVIDIA Maxwell - 256 Cores @ 768 MHz - 393 GFLOPs FP32 (docked mode, handheld mode is almost half the performance @ 306 MHz - 236 GFLOPs FP32)
Storage: 32GB eMMC Flash + SD Card Expansion
Display: 6.2in LCD @ 720p (7in OLED @ 720p on 2021 model)

Comparison to Hardware Today

Note: These comparisons are not meant to direct Nintendo to using this hardware. Nintendo has specific demands for their hardware, namely Price and Battery Life. It is much more important for Nintendo Hardware to be affordable to most people than for it to have the best specs in a handheld device.

Valve Steam Deck (2022)

Valve last year released the Steam Deck, a handheld PC gaming device with a very similar form factor to the Nintendo Switch. Original MSRP $399

SoC: Custom AMD Zen 2 APU - TSMC 7nm
CPU: x86 - AMD 4 Cores Zen 2 @ 3.5GHz
RAM: 16GB LPDDR5 @ 5500MHz - BW: 88GB/s
GPU: AMD RDNA 2 - 8 Compute Units (512 Cores) @ 1.6GHz - 1.6 TFLOPs FP32
Storage: 64GB eMMC Flash Base + SSD Expansion + SD Card Expansion
Display: 7in IPS LCD @ 720p/800p

In raw graphics compute alone, the Steam Deck is capable of 4x the graphics performance compared to the Switch (in docked mode) while maintaining similar battery life. Note though how the Steam Deck is keeping with 720p for the handheld display.

Desktop AMD Ryzen APU with Vega GPU (2019)

The AMD Ryzen 3 3200G is a desktop CPU that has 4 Zen 1+ Cores @ 4GHz and an integrated Radeon Vega 8 CPU, with 8 Compute Units (512 cores) @ 1.1GHz. Original MSRP of $99. It is basically the smallest and cheapest graphics options AMD sells today, in the form of the Ryzen 3 3200G for $75.

This cheap AMD desktop APU is capable of 2.8x the graphics compute over the Switch (in docked mode) .

Laptop AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS APU RDNA3 GPU (2023)

AMD has a very recent lineup of Ryzen laptop chips with a very good configuration of 8 Zen 4 cores @ 5.2GHz and 12 RDNA 3 Compute Unit GPU (768 cores) @ 2.8GHz - 4.1 TFLOPs FP32.

In raw graphics compute, this laptop Ryzen APU has over 10.4x the graphics capability over the Nintendo Switch (in docked mode) .

Other Comparisons

We could go on forever listing modern devices like the iPhone 14 A16 Bionic chip or a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 series SoC. The point is that the capabilities of the Switch are vastly over shadowed by modern hardware.

SoCs for Next-Gen

Exploring possible chips feasible for a successor

Requirements

• Comparable power consumption to the Tegra X1 (10-15 watts)
  Nintendo wants to keep costs low and battery life manageable. Even the Steam Deck utilizes a 15w AMD APU.- ARM based
  Nintendo has a massive Switch library and teams working on ARM based hardware. Their handheld teams (now merged into a unified team group with consoles) have been working with ARM since the Gameboy Advanced days and every handheld since. Nintendo also typically tries to do backward compatibility when possible. The Switch is the first console since the Gamecube to not offer backwards compatibility. This is due to 2 factors: A) The move from PowerPC to ARM architectures and B) The game medium format changing from disc to cartridges.- Ray Tracing Accelerators
  Ray Tracing in games is still really not there, but you'd like to be able to do some Ray Tracing tricks in games- AI/ML Accelerators
  AI is the new hot thing, but it's going to be important moving forward in games in the future as game developers consider more advanced AI generation in their games, whether it's for generating environments/maps, NPC characters, dialogue, or encounters.

Note: The Candidate list below is in no specific order or likelihood

Candidate A: NVIDIA Orin

Sticking with NVIDIA for the second round

In 2022, NVIDIA had a new ARM based SoC called Orin release. It comes in a variety of models. It's main application so far has been in cars that need in-car displays with 3D graphics and autonomous AI driving processing. It's on Samsung's 8nm process node.

NVIDIA Orin NX (2023):
CPU: 12 ARM Cortex A78AE cores @ 2GHz
RAM: 8GB LPDDR5 - BW: 102.4GB/s
GPU: NVIDIA Ampere - 1024 cores @ 765MHz - 1.57 TFLOPs FP32
TDP: 10-20 watts

This would give the next-gen Switch successor comparable graphics compute to the Valve Steam Deck. However this may also be one of the most expensive chips on this list making it a little impractical as well as drawing much more power than the other candidates. But Nintendo would have very similar tech to the Switch to work with.

Candidate B: Qualcomm Snapdragon

Going with the biggest and highest performing ARM maker

This one is more of a recent revelation as the idea of Nintendo working with Qualcomm, the major provider for Android based phone chips and Microsoft's ARM-based Surface Laptops, was not really considered. Until now. Rumors are circulating that Nintendo (along with Sony) are in talks with Qualcomm on the possibility of utilizing their IP for handheld gaming devices.

Qualcomm and Nintendo would most likely create a custom chip design, but let's take a look at Qualcomm's flagship mobile phone chip to see what Qualcomm is capable of. It's built on TSMC 4nm. However I don't believe Nintendo would go with a 4nm design or the flagship design considering Qualcomm seems to be charging OEMs $160 per chip. That's a big chunk of the target $299-$399 MSRP.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 (2023):
CPU: 8 ARM Qualcomm Kryo cores (1x Cortex X3 @ 3.2GHz, 2x Cortex A715 @ 2.8GHz, 2x Cortex A710 @ 2.8GHz, 3x Cortex A510 @ 2GHz)
RAM: Up to 16GB LPDDR5X @ 4200MHz
GPU: Qualcomm Adreno 740 - 2560/1280 Units @ 680MHz - ~900 GFLOPs FP32
TDP: 5-7 watts

Qualcomm has the ARM CPU and GPU tech to almost reach Apple M-series chips. With graphics performance, Qualcomm has GPUs that can beat the Nintendo Switch (in docked mode) by 3x the GPU performance at just half the power consumption. On top of that, Qualcomm has their own AI and Ray Tracing accelerators on their SoCs. Qualcomm's Adreno GPUs are based on AMD/ATi Radeon IP sold to them over a decade ago.

However I think it's more likely that Nintendo will utilize more of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 specs, manufactured on Samsung 4nm and is much less expensive with about 20% less performance.

Note: Adreno GPU FLOPs on websites are reported as very high, 2.5 TFLOPs for the Adreno 730 for example. But with the Xclipse 920 being 25% faster than that, with 3 RDNA 2 compute units, that would mean that the Exynos 2200 would have 2x the performance of the Steam Deck's 8 RDNA2 Compute Unit GPU, while at half the clock. That makes no sense, so I have adjusted the FLOPs of Adreno and Xclipse GPUs to make more sense in line with real performance data of the Steam Deck.

Candidate C: Samsung Exynos + Radeon GPU

The most cost effective but the most risky

Samsung and AMD partnered together recently to revive the Samsung Exynos brand with AMD Radeon powered graphics. Exynos chips are ARM based and Samsung usually only puts them in their non-North America market devices as the CPU performance haven't outclassed Qualcomm's flagships for several years.

Samsung Exynos 2200 (2022) - Samsung 4nm
CPU: 8 ARM cores (1x Cortex X2, 3x Cortex A710, 4x Cortex A510)
RAM: up to 16GB LPDDR5
GPU: Samsung/Radeon Xclipse 920 - 3 RDNA 2 Compute Units (192 cores) @ 555MHz
TDP: 5-8 watts

The Exynos 2200's Xclipse 920 GPU benchmarked as being 25% faster than the Qualcomm Adreno 730. That puts it around 800 GFLOPs FP32 or 2.5x the GPU performance compared to the Switch (in docked mode). The RDNA 2 GPU also features Ray Tracing cores.

Note: Adreno GPU FLOPs on websites are reported as very high, 2.5 TFLOPs for the Adreno 730 for example. But with the Xclipse 920 being 25% faster than that, with 3 RDNA 2 compute units, that would mean that the Exynos 2200 would have 2x the performance of the Steam Deck's 8 RDNA2 Compute Unit GPU, while at half the clock. That makes no sense, so I have adjusted the FLOPs of Adreno and Xclipse GPUs to make more sense in line with real performance data of the Steam Deck.

Candidate D: AMD Radeon + Versal / K12

Reuniting long old partners whom also server your competition

This prediction is more of a crapshoot but AMD has two different ARM technologies as well as graphics technologies under its belt it can utilize to make a custom chip. AMD is no stranger to Nintendo, AMD/ATi were the ones that designed and built the GPUs in the Gamecube, Wii, and Wii U (same thing with IBM and their PowerPC CPUs for Nintendo).

When it came time to make the Switch, however, AMD didn't really have a solution for Nintendo to consider. AMD was struggling financially with a poor performing CPU architecture series, their GPUs weren't as competitive or efficient anymore, and they just cancelled their K12 ARM core being designed by Jim Keller to focus on Jim Keller's other brain piece, Zen/Ryzen, the product that would bring AMD back from the brink of death and bankruptcy.

Today, AMD is a different story. They have a very power efficient and successful x86 CPU architecture, their graphics architecture has vastly shaped up into better power efficiency designs, and they've acquired Xilinx, an FPGA, SoC, and AI/ML focused company. Xilinx comes into play here because now AMD is back to making ARM based CPUs after their ARM experiments half a decade ago with ARM Opterons and their cancelled K12 ARM cores.

AMD Versal SoC (Xilinx Versal)

I won't go much into this product cause these products are meant for a vastly different market segment. AMD Versal is an FPGA SoC, but it also contains ARM Cortex Cores, showing that AMD once again has talent in-house that works with designing and implementing robust ARM CPUs (that aren't just the embedded ARM cores for the Zen security features).

AMD K12 ARM Architecture

AMD K12 is the ARM CPU architecture that was being developed in parallel with AMD Zen. Both of these were being headed by Jim Keller, who had just left Apple after working on their A7 SoC. The K12 would have been very similar to how Apple's A-series ARM CPUs worked.

AMD has been sitting on this IP design for several years now, and unfortunately the original design is most likely no longer competitive with newer ARM architectures, but it contains a great jumping board, and with newer process nodes, it would be good enough to utilize in a Switch successor.

AMD Radeon RDNA 3 GPU Architecture

AMD Radeon's RDNA architecture has been a success for AMD. It performs greater than Vega/GCN while maintaining lower power draw. This has been useful for implementing RDNA graphics not only in desktop discrete GPUs, but also GPUs for laptop/mobile designs as well as recently, in Samsung's Exynos 2200 ARM SoC.

AMD's RDNA graphics architecture also power Nintendo's main competitor systems:

• Sony Playstation 5 - Custom AMD RDNA 2 GPU - 32 CUs @ 2.23GHz - 10.3 TFLOPs FP32
• Xbox Series X - Custom AMD RDNA 2 GPU - 52 CUs @ 1.82 GHz - 12.16 TFLOPs FP32
• Xbox Series S - Custom AMD RDNA 2 GPU - 20 CUs @ 1.56 GHz - 4 TFLOPs FP32
• Valve Steam Deck - AMD RDNA 2 GPU - 8 CUs @ 1.6 GHz - 1.6 TFLOPs FP32

AMD's RDNA roadmap has each generation gaining around 50% performance per CU (compute unit). If we take the example of Samsung's Exynos 2200 with 3 RDNA 2 CU GPU, and turn it into an RDNA 3, same CUs, we're looking at around a 1.2 TFLOPs FP32 GPU that could very well outperform Qualcomm's Adreno 740 at the same power usage, and match the GPU performance of an NVIDIA Odin NX at half to 1/3 the power usage.

Combine that with GPU optimizations that can transfer between the GPUs on the PS5 and Xbox Series X for game developers, which can help with game development time and optimizations. Nintendo is already utilizing AMD technology on their Nintendo Switch games such as FSR to boost game performance.

That's a pretty enticing deal for Nintendo to consider.

Scoring the Candidates

NVIDIA Odin NX

✅ Familiar architecture, CPU and GPU, to existing Switch
✅ Highest GPU performance overall
✅ Reutilize Switch Operating System co-developed with NVIDIA
❌ Least power efficient
❌ Prohibitively expensive, according to retail pricing
❌ NVIDIA doesn't do much custom silicon products

Overall Conclusion: 👎 - Unlikely

Qualcomm Custom Snapdragon

✅ Highest performance ARM CPUs
✅ High performance GPU
✅ Power Efficient
🫳 Costly silicon but not out of the question
🫳 Unfamiliar GPU Architecture from before, but APIs alleviate that
❌ Rarely does custom silicon designs. But only with Microsoft so far

Overall Conclusion: 👍 - Very Likely

Samsung Custom Exynos + Radeon RDNA 3

✅ Least expensive option
✅ High to Highest performance GPU
✅ Power Efficient
🫳 Different but familiar and common GPU architecture type
❌ Has almost never done custom silicon chips for other companies

Overall Conclusion: 👍 - Likely

AMD Custom ARM + Radeon RDNA 3

✅ Within budget
✅ High to Highest performance GPU
✅ Power Efficient
✅ AMD is known for its custom silicon business and track record
🫳 Different but familiar and common GPU architecture type
❌ AMD has little in-house experience in executing on an ARM CPU product

Overall Conclusion: 👎 - Possible but Unlikely

Displays and Memory

Display tech, resolutions, and memory options

Display Tech

IPS LCD

This would be the cheapest option for Nintendo to go for. An upgrade over their original Switch screen, however it is a downgrade from the upgraded OLED Switch model.

Overall Conclusion: 👎

OLED

This may be one of the most likely options, Nintendo may even just use the same OLED screen from the OLED Switch and use it here. Same size and every thing. Would keep costs down and the tech wouldn't be a downgrade.

**Overall Conclusion: **👍

Mini-LED

This is a toss up. Mini-LED would technically be less expensive than OLED, provide the same quality as the OLED, but deliver higher brightness for outdoor use, and may even prove to be more power efficient than OLED for gaming. It even has the benefit of not having burn-in be a potential problem. Apple is using this tech for many of their screens (iPad and Macs) these days over OLED (iPhones and Watch). However I don't believe many Mini-LEDs come in this size, but that may not matter for a custom order.

**Overall Conclusion: **👍

Resolutions

720p

That's it. There's a reason why Valve went with a 720p display for the Steam Deck. It works for the screen size and it is much more power efficient.

**Overall Conclusion: **👍

Memory

8GB LPDDR5

I really don't think Nintendo is going to go much higher than 8GB. Maybe 12GB, but that'd be pushing it in terms of how much the GPU can actually utilize for its performance level. Memory is a bit cheaper these days though. While a device like the Steam Deck has 16GB of LPDDR5 memory, it's also running a full on PC operating system and less optimized games. The iPhone 14 Pro, with one of the best mobile GPUs on the market has a mere 6GB of LPDDR5 and runs many mobile games fine with quality much higher than a Switch could dream of.

Putting It All Together

My finalized predictions for what the Switch successor will have

So after going through all the options, let's take a look at the summary of what the Nintendo Switch successor will probably look like spec wise in the most likely scenario.

MSRP Target: $349
SoC: Custom Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 based SoC - Samsung 4nm
CPU: 6 (4 + 2) ARM Qualcomm Kryo cores (4x Cortex A710 @ 2.5GHz, 2x Cortex A510 @ 1.8GHz)
RAM: 8GB LPDDR5 @ 3200MHz - BW: 51.2 GB/s
GPU: Qualcomm Adreno 730 - 1536/768 Units @ 900 MHz - ~700 GFLOPs FP32 ( About 70% - 100% GPU performance uplift rough estimate compared to Switch docked mode, potentially more with different architecture and process node and memory bandwidth improvements)
Storage: 64GB eMMC Flash + SD Card Expansion
Display: 7in OLED @ 720p

With the conservative budget, we're looking at maybe a 2-3X performance improvement over the existing Nintendo Switch's hardware (in docked mode) in theoretical performance. If Nintendo can score a deal on pricing with Qualcomm for better specs on a custom arrangement or approaches Samsung for a new generation Exynos with RDNA 3 graphics, we're looking at more of a 4-5X performance improvement compared to the Switch (in docked mode).

These performance improvements in graphics would also be in handheld mode, while the docked mode would be even higher. Is this enough for a new generation for the next 6 years? Possibly. But with Playstation 5 and Xbox Series X retailing at $399 and $499 respectively, I feel like there's actually a lot more room for improvement on this estimate for cost/performance.

However, based on rumors, Qualcomm's chip pricing for their flagship chip would indicate that perhaps the wiggle room isn't that much with process node costs and rising semiconductor margins. It seems AMD is giving Microsoft and Sony a great deal on their TSMC 7nm custom hardware, but that hardware doesn't need to be as power efficient since they don't run on battery or have as much heat dissipation limits.

I'm actually hoping more for the Samsung Exynos + Radeon RDNA 3 dream to come true for the sake of greater graphics performance and lower cost.

ZFS is a magical filesystem created by Sun Microsystems, with an initial release of 2006. While ZFS may be almost 20 years old by this post (over 22 if you count when they started development), it was ahead of it's time then, and even now, with newer filesystems like BTRFS, APFS, and ReFS, it is still ahead of its time. In just about every aspect, ZFS has more features, better data integrity, and the most amount of data and files possible on a single filesystem.

If you are storing data on servers, especially across drives in an array, you should be considering ZFS, unless it is not possible on the hardware or OS you are running.

Below I will group the Getting Started information in expandable info boxes.

ZFS System Requirements

• Direct access to drives - ZFS can only work correctly if it can directly see and write to drives. This means that if you use a RAID card or a storage controller, you must have the drives passthrough or in HBA mode and have write caching off.- Linux, BSD, Solaris, or supported UNIX OS - Solaris has the original ZFS by Oracle (formerly Sun). OpenZFS is available on Linux and BSDs like FreeBSD and NetBSD. OpenZFS is the opensource continuation of ZFS, developed by the community. The Linux and BSD versions are in parity. macOS has an OpenZFS port that works, but it's state may not be as consistent as the Linux and BSD OpenZFS.- Adequate CPU and Memory - ZFS has features like memory caching and file compression. Compression on modern CPUs is quite fast, and the memory cache for ZFS can utilize a lot of memory. The cache is dynamic so it will free itself if the OS needs it.

Operating Systems for ZFS

For this guide, I'll assume you're using an OS that has OpenZFS included already without needing to set it up.

Linux

• Proxmox (my preferred Linux server host OS and Linux ZFS option)- Ubuntu 20.04 Focal- Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy (if you use Ubuntu, this is preferred)- TrueNAS Scale

BSD

• FreeBSD- ****TrueNAS Core ****(Preferred BSD option)

Solaris

• Oracle Solaris (Proprietary)- illumos (Fork of OpenSolaris)- OpenIndiana (Based on illumos, preferred Solaris option)

Other OSs Supported but will need work to setup ZFS

Check [OpenZFS Wiki] on how to do that

• Debian, Red Hat 8.0+ / AlmaLinux / Rocky Linux / CentOS Stream / Fedora, Arch Linux- Void Linux- NetBSD- macOS / Mac OS X - Please check on [OpenZFS on OS X] for more info

ZFS Terminology

• Pool: A storage array consisting of VDEVs. Pools have names associated with them at creation.
• VDEV: VDEVs are a name for Virtual Devices. Virtual Devices are made up of Physical Devices or Physical Drives that collectively make up different configurations of devices for RAID, Mirrors, Stripes, RAID-Z, Special Devices, Cache, or SLOGs.
• Physical Device/Drive: A storage device being used for a pool
• RAID, Stripe, and Mirror While ZFS has its own spin on RAID 5/6/7, ZFS can also do traditional RAID like RAID 0/1/10, or in ZFS terms Stripe (0), Mirror (1), and Mirror + Stripe (10).
• RAID-Z - A ZFS specific RAID type based on RAID 5 and RAID 6. There are 3 levels/types of RAID-Z: RAID-Z1 (RAID 5), RAID-Z2 (Raid 6), RAID-Z3 (Raid 7, in theory). Each type/level adds more parity allowing for more redundancy and resilience to drive failure. Once a Pool is created as a RAID-Z type it can not be changed until you remake the Pool.
• Dataset - A virtual filesystem that resides within a Pool. While a Pool can act as a filesystem on its own, you can utilize Datasets to segment out the Pool into specific filesystems that can have their own properties or Feature Flags set entirely.
• Feature Flags - Each Pool and Dataset can have features flags enabled on them to. This includes but is not limited to: mount points, compression, encryption, quotas, deduplication, atime, checksum algorithm, etc.
• Scrub - This a filesystem check for ZFS Pools. It can be performed online while the filesystem is mounted and active. It will read through the entire pool's data from each device and check if there are data errors found. It will then attempt to repair the data on drives that have an error on that read data from data/drives with known good data. Scrubs can take a while to perform on large pools, especially hard drive based pools. Scrubs can reduce IO of the pool while active, but scrubbing can also be tuned to pause while IO is being performed. Scrubs should be performed regularly, ideally monthly. Some OSs like Proxmox automatically have pools perform scrubs on a monthly basis.
• ARC - Standing for Adaptive Replacement Cache, ARC is a RAM/Memory based read cache for ZFS to speed up reads greatly for frequently accessed files. ARC will by default utilize as much free memory as it can. It is dynamic and will release memory when requested by the OS so overall the OS and it's apps will not realistically be affected by ARC's utilization. ARC is not used for write operations or cache.
• L2ARC - This means Level 2 ARC. L2ARC resides on a dedicated drive or partition on a drive, usually an SSD, but it should be faster than the associated Pool array it is added to. L2ARC is not used for write operations or cache.
• ZIL / Log - ZIL stands for ZFS Intent Log. It is a log of the data ZFS writes-ahead before committing data to a pool. In the case of a system failure, ZFS will recover and read this log to determine where it left off.
• SLOG - A SLOG means Separate Log, meaning a specified device or pair of devices, usually something fast like NVMe drives, are dedicated or have dedicated partitions for ZFS to utilize for the ZIL. The best type of NVMe drive would be one with very low latency and no drive cache, like an Intel Optane drive.
• Snapshots - ZFS has the ability to take Snapshots of a Pool or Dataset. Snapshots are created instantly and only take up space based on the changed file differences between the Snapshot and the live Pool/Dataset filesystem. Snapshots can be rolled back in their entirety or you can pull specific files from the hidden directory in that Dataset in ".zfs/snapshot/snapshot_name/"
• ZFS Send / ZFS Recv - ZFS has a built in ability to Send and Receive ZFS Pools or Datasets in their entirety to another Pool or Dataset, locally or remote. This also has the ability to just send the changes since the last Send/Recv. This works by first Snapshotting a Pool or Dataset and then sending that snapshot to the target Pool or Dataset. Because this works with snapshots, you are not working with live active data that is changing.
• CoW / Copy-on-Write - When ZFS writes data to a Pool/Devices, it will use unused or forward space on the drives to write the new data. When it is finished writing the data, it verified that this data was correctly written before it decides to have the old data removed and queued for deletion/overwriting. This ensures that data integrity is kept for new writes and that the old data is safe before overwriting it with data.
• Data Integrity / Checksum - When ZFS writes data to the pool, it performs a checksum hash on the data. When this is read later or a scrub is performed, this data and checked against the checksum to ensure data integrity is kept. This is critical as the data could be corrupted at any time, from events like a flipped bit, a bad cable, a bad drive, or the drive simply reporting the data wrong, even if that drive isn't showing signs that it is bad.
• ashift - How much data writes to devices should be adjusted to handle sector writes. ZFS will by default try to detect the sector size of the drives and conform to the lowest common denominator. But if you know that the drives in the Pool will accept 4K sectors, you can specify ashift=12 to have ZFS treat the devices as 4K sector size for writes for optimal performance.

Utilize a newer OpenZFS on older Ubuntu LTS versions

You can utilize a PPA repository to have the latest OpenZFS version on an older Ubuntu install (16.04 - 20.04). Ubuntu 22.04 has a new enough version of OpenZFS to not need this.

The Launchpad PPA Url: [https://launchpad.net/~jonathonf/+archive/ubuntu/zfs]

How to install this, step by step:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jonathonf/zfs
sudo apt update
sudo apt install zfs-dkms
sudo apt autoremove
sudo apt update
sudo apt dist-upgrade -V
sudo reboot
sudo zfs version

You should now be on a 2.x version of OpenZFS

Creating ZFS Pools

Commands and Examples for creating ZFS Pool Arrays

The examples below will assume you are doing this on Linux but ZFS commands themselves are universal. ZFS requires root privileges so either be root or use sudo/doas/etc

Creating a ZFS Pool

Identifying Drives

When using drives for ZFS, you need to utilize their actual drive names or WWNs. We also need to check for the sector sizes these drives support.
While you can create Pools with drive partitions, it is best to use the whole drive when possible.

To start, we'll take an inventory of the drives available.

lsblk -o NAME,SIZE,MODEL,FSTYPE,LOG-SEC,PHY-SEC,SERIAL,MOUNTPOINT

And we get an output similar to this, but I am including only the drives I want to use in this example.

NAME         SIZE  MODEL               FSTYPE         LOG-SEC PHY-SEC
sdc          14.6T ST16000NM000J-2TW103                    512    4096
sdf          14.6T ST16000NM000J-2TW103                    512    4096
sdg          14.6T ST16000NM000J-2TW103                    512    4096
sdh          14.6T ST16000NM000J-2TW103                    512    4096
sdi          14.6T ST16000NM000J-2TW103                    512    4096

From this information, we know we want to get the drive ID names of sdc, sdf, sdg, sdh, and sdi. As because these are 4K native drives, we can include ashift=12 in our pool creation command to force 4K sector mode. If it just says 512 or otherwise, leave out the ashift in the creation command. But ZFS is smart and it will check the reported Physical Block Size of the drive and choose what's best, so this is almost never needed.

So we will check the /dev/disk/by-id/ directory in Linux to see what the drive IDs are. We can use grep to filter the output easier.

ls -lh /dev/disk/by-id | grep -e sdc -e sdf -e sdg -e sdh -e sdi       
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  9 Jan  9 00:38 ata-ST16000NM000J-2TW103_ZR52CQQK -> ../../sdi
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  9 Jan  9 00:38 ata-ST16000NM000J-2TW103_ZR57LBNF -> ../../sdh
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  9 Jan  9 00:38 ata-ST16000NM000J-2TW103_ZR5CZTZ6 -> ../../sdg
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  9 Jan  9 00:38 ata-ST16000NM000J-2TW103_ZR5D4D23 -> ../../sdf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  9 Jan  9 00:38 ata-ST16000NM000J-2TW103_ZR60QV5P -> ../../sdc
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  9 Jan  9 00:38 wwn-0x5000c5007443c744 -> ../../sdf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  9 Jan  9 00:38 wwn-0x5000c500e3c9cfab -> ../../sdh
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  9 Jan  9 00:38 wwn-0x5000c500e53da9b9 -> ../../sdc
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  9 Jan  9 00:38 wwn-0x5000c500e5c8b8a5 -> ../../sdg
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  9 Jan  9 00:38 wwn-0x5000c500e5e2bfee -> ../../sdi

We want ideally the ones that look like ata-DRIVEMODEL_SERIAL in this case, but if you are using NVMe drives, they will start with nvme-DRIVEMODEL_SERIAL. wwn- entries will also be acceptable but not all drives use those and this creates extra steps in identifying bad drives later. So for now, copy and paste those names somewhere.

For the following, replace POOLNAME with your desired name of the Pool storage. It is case sensitive and can not be the following: mirror, raidz, spare, draid, log

Replace drive#-name-serial with the actual Drive ID names you found earlier.

***DO NOT USE THE TYPICAL NAMES OF DRIVES IN THE FORMAT OF sda or /dev/sda*****or nvme0n1 or /dev/nvme0n1**or one day you will find after a reboot or a change of cables, your drives will have different names and the ZFS pool will go offline. This can be fixed if you do this, later in this guide.

Single Drive Pool

• Min/Max Drives: 1/1- Fault Tolerance: None- Drive Space Overhead: None- Read / Write Speed: Native Drive Speed

zpool create POOLNAME drive1-name-serial

Striped (RAID 0) Pool

• Min Drives: 1- Fault Tolerance: None- Drive Space Overhead: None- Read / Write Speed: Native speed multiplied by # of Drives

zpool create POOLNAME drive1-name-serial drive2-name-serial

Mirrored (RAID 1) Pool

• Min Drives: 2- Fault Tolerance: (# of Drives) - 1- Drive Space Overhead: ((# of Drives) - 1) / (# of Drives)- Read / Write Speed: 2x Drives / Native Drive Speed

zpool create POOLNAME mirror drive1-name-serial drive2-name-serial

Example of a real command

zpool create VENTURE mirror nvme-T-FORCE_TM8FP8002T_112104060080114 nvme-T-FORCE_TM8FP8002T_112104060080143

Striped + Mirrored (RAID 10) Pool

• Min Drives: 4- Fault Tolerance: (# of Drives in each mirror) - 1- Drive Space Overhead: ((# of Drives) x Parity Stripes over # of Mirrors- Read / Write Speed: Typically 2x Drives / 2x Drives - Read speed increases with # of mirror groups

zpool create POOLNAME mirror drive1-name-serial drive2-name-serial mirror drive3-name-serial drive4-name-serial

Example of a real command

zpool create ENTERPRISE mirror ata-ST16000NM000J-2TW103_ZR52CQQK ata-ST16000NM000J-2TW103_ZR57LBNF mirror ata-ST16000NM000J-2TW103_ZR5CZTZ6 ata-ST16000NM000J-2TW103_ZR5D4592 mirror ata-ST16000NM000J-2TW103_ZR5D4D23 ata-ST16000NM000J-2TW103_ZR60QV5P

You may have noticed how the syntax here shows that a RAID 10 is made up of 2 mirror commands, with a striped layout of the mirrors. This also matters how you add drives to these Pools later.

Here's an example of what a RAID 10 ZFS Pool looks like after created.

zpool status
  pool: CHALLENGER
 state: ONLINE
  scan: scrub repaired 0B in 00:10:24 with 0 errors on Sun Jan  8 00:34:25 2023
config:

	NAME                                      STATE     READ WRITE CKSUM
	CHALLENGER                                ONLINE       0     0     0
	  mirror-0                                ONLINE       0     0     0
	    nvme-TEAM_TM8FP4004T_112211290580504  ONLINE       0     0     0
	    nvme-TEAM_TM8FP4004T_112211290580505  ONLINE       0     0     0
	  mirror-1                                ONLINE       0     0     0
	    nvme-TEAM_TM8FP4004T_112211290580958  ONLINE       0     0     0
	    nvme-TEAM_TM8FP4004T_112211290581167  ONLINE       0     0     0

errors: No known data errors

RAID-Z Type Pools

These are more specialized for ZFS. These will provide the most usable storage space, the best redundancy, the best data integrity, but also the slowest write speeds for ZFS Pool arrays. To calculate storage and speed, use this [ZFS RAID-Z Calculator].

Which RAID-Z level should I choose?

You will have to decide based on your needs and your drives. The safest best is to choose RAID-Z2 by default. If you value your data, then RAID-Z3. RAID-Z1 can be useful if you're on a budget and your ability to quickly change out a failed drive. SSDs can work well on RAID-Z1 due to how they most likely won't die from resilvering a new drive replacement and can do it very quickly, as well as maximizing the space utilization.

If you're running high IO intensive applications like databases on ZFS, you may want to consider ZFS RAID 10 and not a RAID-Z, since it will have the best write speeds.

RAID-Z Pool (RAID-Z1)

• Min Drives: 3- Fault Tolerance: 1 Drive- Drive Space Overhead: 1 Drive- Read / Write Speed: # of Drives - 1 / Single Drive Speed

zpool create POOLNAME raidz drive1-name-serial drive2-name-serial drive3-name-serial drive4-name-serial ...

Example of a real command

zpool create INTREPID raidz1 ata-TEAM_T2532TB_112208190540104 ata-TEAM_T2532TB_112208190540533 ata-TEAM_T2532TB_112208290490136 ata-TEAM_T2532TB_112208190540057

RAID-Z2 Pool

• Min Drives: 4- Fault Tolerance: 2 Drives- Drive Space Overhead: 2 Drives- Read / Write Speed: # of Drives - 2 / Single Drive Speed

zpool create POOLNAME raidz2 drive1-name-serial drive2-name-serial drive3-name-serial drive4-name-serial ...

RAID-Z3 Pool

• Min Drives: 5- Fault Tolerance: 3 Drives- Drive Space Overhead: 3 Drives- Read / Write Speed: # of Drives - 3 / Single Drive Speed

zpool create POOLNAME raidz3 drive1-name-serial drive2-name-serial drive3-name-serial drive4-name-serial drive5-name-serial ...

Example of a RAID-Z type Pool in Status output

  pool: INTREPID
 state: ONLINE
  scan: scrub repaired 0B in 00:52:52 with 0 errors on Sun Jan  8 01:16:54 2023
config:

	NAME                                  STATE     READ WRITE CKSUM
	INTREPID                              ONLINE       0     0     0
	  raidz1-0                            ONLINE       0     0     0
	    ata-TEAM_T2532TB_112208190540104  ONLINE       0     0     0
	    ata-TEAM_T2532TB_112208190540533  ONLINE       0     0     0
	    ata-TEAM_T2532TB_112208290490136  ONLINE       0     0     0
	    ata-TEAM_T2532TB_112208190540057  ONLINE       0     0     0

errors: No known data errors

After Creating Your Pool

Now that your Pool is created, you need to set your default global properties for it and then a mountpoint. Check below for how to do that in the property flags section.

I personally like to set these properties on my Pools at the Pool level before I do anything with the Pool.

# Set ZStandard Compression globally for space and sped up reads
zfs set compression=zstd-7 POOLNAME

# Disable atime (Access Time) for performance and reduce SSD wear
zfs set atime=off POOLNAME

# Set BLAKE3 Checksums for performance when writing
zfs set checksum=blake3 POOLNAME

# Set the mountpoint
zfs set mountpoint=/storage/POOLNAME POOLNAME

# Create Datasets for major directories/categories
zfs create POOLNAME/DATASET_NAME

# Recordsize Adjustment OPTIONAL FOR MEDIA FILES
zfs set recordsize=1M POOLNAME/DATASET_NAME

ZFS DATASETS

Virtual Filesystems as directories in your Pool

If you looked at the ZFS Terminology area, you'll see that Datasets are virtual filesystems in ZFS. They show up as directories in the Pool. There's a lot of benefits to utilizing Datasets for your data.

Datasets have their own properties

Datasets inherit properties set from their parent Pool or parent Dataset. But you can set properties specifically on Datasets so that they have addition or changed features. Such as but not limited to:

• Different level of compression - Maybe you want more or less compression for that Dataset for the type of data it is holding- Quotas - You can set limits of how much data that Dataset can have. This is useful for many situations including setting a user's home directory as a Dataset to limit their disk space utilization.- ATIME - Maybe the data in that Dataset benefits from Access Times- Encryption - You can specifically encrypt the data in a Dataset- SAMBA Mode - You can set a property that makes the Dataset SAMBA friendly for access from Windows machines that are case insensitive- Checksum type - You can change what checksum algorithm is used for that data- Mountpoint - You can set a mountpoint for that Dataset to be somewhere else in the Filesystem

Datasets show disk space utilization info instantly

With the zfs list command, you can see live information instantly about how much space is being utilized by the Datasets. No more running and waiting for du -h on multiple directories to see what's using up the disk space.

Datasets can be Snapshot and Recovered

You can snapshot a Dataset instantly and rollback to that snapshot anytime. Snapshots only use space for file differences or deltas between the snapshot and the live Dataset filesystem. This is great for backing up the existing data before you make major changes to the data. Or you can have a script that snapshots the Dataset regularly incase one day you accidently delete or change a file. You can then mount that snapshot to recover the data, roll back the snapshot (overwriting the new data), or even access the snapshot files from the hidden folder in the Dataset .zfs/snapshots/snapshot_name

Datasets can be Sent to other ZFS Pools locally and remotely

In conjunction with the Snapshot feature, you can send the Snapshot of a Dataset to another pool and retain all the properties and permissions, and it only sends the difference in files, sort of like a ZFS specific RSYNC.

Create a ZFS Dataset

Reminder: Datasets are case sensitive, name them how you'd name a directory

# Dataset at the root of the Pool
zfs create POOLNAME/DATASET_NAME

# Dataset in another Dataset
zfs create POOLNAME/DATASET_NAME/ANOTHER_DATASET

Rename a ZFS Dataset

zfs rename POOLNAME/CURRENT_DATASET_NAME POOLNAME/NEW_DATASET_NAME

Destroy a ZFS Dataset

WARNING: THIS WILL DELETE ALL THE DATA IN THE DATASET INSTANTLY.

If there are children Datasets under this Dataset, you will need to specify -r

# Destroy a Dataset (no children Datasets)
zfs destroy POOLNAME/DATASET_NAME

# Destroy Dataset and all children Datasets underneath
zfs destroy -r POOLNAME/DATASET_NAME

Destroy a ZFS Dataset Snapshot

Same principle as the Dataset, but you specify the Snapshot only

# Destroy a Dataset Snapshot
zfs destroy POOLNAME/DATASET_NAME@SNAPSHOT_NAME

# Recursively destroy all Snapshots of Dataset and Children Dataset Snapshots with the same name
zfs destroy -r POOLNAME/DATASET_NAME@SNAPSHOT_NAME

ZFS Property Flags

Commands and Examples for Pool and Dataset Properties

ZFS properties

See all properties for a POOL or DATASET

zfs get all POOLNAME
zfs get all POOLNAME/DATASET_NAME

See specific properties for a POOL or DATASET

# Single Property
zfs get propertyA POOLNAME
zfs get propertyA POOLNAME/DATASET_NAME

# Multiple Properties
zfs get propertyA,propertyB,propertyC POOLNAME
zfs get propertyA,propertyB,propertyC POOLNAME/DATASET_NAME

Example of some properties you'd check and the output

# Single Property in a Pool
zfs get compression INTREPID

NAME      PROPERTY     VALUE           SOURCE
INTREPID  compression  zstd-7          local

# Single Property in a Dataset
zfs get compression INTREPID/mirrors/apt

NAME                  PROPERTY     VALUE           SOURCE
INTREPID/mirrors/apt  compression  zstd-12         inherited from INTREPID/mirrors

# Multiple Properties in a Pool
zfs get compression,compressratio,mountpoint,encryption,atime INTREPID

NAME      PROPERTY       VALUE              SOURCE
INTREPID  compression    zstd-7             local
INTREPID  compressratio  1.14x              -
INTREPID  mountpoint     /storage/INTREPID  local
INTREPID  encryption     off                default
INTREPID  atime          off                local

Pool and Dataset mountpoint

When you set this on a Pool or a Dataset, ZFS will automatically mount the Pool or Dataset to this filesystem path. The path is case sensitive and doesn't have to match your POOLNAME.

Mountpoint for a POOL

zfs set mountpoint=/path/to/dir POOLNAME

**Mountpoint for a Dataset **

zfs set mountpoint=/path/to/dir POOLNAME/DATASET_NAME

Example of my mountpoint

zfs set mountpoint=/storage/ENTERPRISE ENTERPRISE

Compression on a Pool or Dataset

ZFS allows you to define compression globally on a pool and specifically on Datasets. Compression is inherited from the parent filesystem unless it has its own compression set. You can change the compression on a pool or dataset anytime, but the data is not compressed to the new format and level until new data is written.

zfs set compression=OPTION POOLNAME
zfs set compression=OPTION POOLNAME/DATASET_NAME

Here are the options available

on | off | lzjb | gzip | gzip-[1-9] | zle | lz4 | zstd | zstd-[1-19] | zstd-fast | zstd-fast-[1-10,20,30,40,50,60,70,80,90,100,500,1000]

on defaults to lz4. zstd alone means zstandard level 3 when set. But you can specify different zstd levels with zstd-# from compressional level 1 to 19. zstd-fast and its options utilize a faster zstd compression method, but the compression ratio will be less.

My recommendation is to utilize zstandard, specifically zstd-7 as a global option on the Pool, and use zstd-12 for Datasets that can benefit from higher compression and the data write speeds don't matter as much. You can also set zstd-15 or zstd-19 for maximum space savings for backup or archival data.

# Set global zstandard level 7 on POOL globally
zfs set compression=zstd-7 POOLNAME

# Set higher zstandard compression on specific Dataset
zfs set compression=zstd-12 POOLNAME/DATASET_NAME

See what compression is being used on a Pool or Dataset

zfs get compression POOLNAME
zfs get compression POOLNAME/DATASET_NAME

See how much compression is helping - Compression Ratio

zfs get compressratio POOLNAME
zfs get compressratio POOLNAME/DATASET_NAME

Example of the output
The higher the value, the higher % of the data is compressed. 1.82x basically means 82% of the space is saved by compression.

zfs get compressratio INTREPID
NAME      PROPERTY       VALUE  SOURCE
INTREPID  compressratio  1.13x  -

zfs get compressratio INTREPID/containers/mikesulsenti.com
NAME                                  PROPERTY       VALUE  SOURCE
INTREPID/containers/mikesulsenti.com  compressratio  1.82x  -

atime (Access Timestamps)

Disable atime on a Pool or Dataset

zfs set atime=off POOLNAME
zfs set atime=off POOLNAME/DATASET_NAME

Check atime on a Pool or Dataset

zfs get atime POOLNAME
zfs get atime POOLNAME/DATASET_NAME

ZFS Disk Quotas

Limit Disk Space Usage by Dataset, Users, and Groups

Dataset and User Disk Space Quotas

ZFS allows you to set disk space quotas on datasets which limits how much space a Dataset can use total or limit how much a Dataset can use in Data and ZFS overheads like snapshots and metadata, or even specific Users or Groups that can use that Dataset filesystem.

These properties accept inputs in Byte units like: T - Terabytes, G - Gigabytes, M - Megabytes, K - Kilobytes

You can check on a Dataset's quota and refquota settings like this:

zfs get refquota,quota POOLNAME/DATASET_NAME

And the available disk space for the Datasets with quotas should show in zfs list

Quota - Limit Total Disk Usage in a Dataset

The ZFS property flag quota sets the hard limit of how much disk space a Dataset can use, including actual data, snapshots, and any other extras. Snapshots will use disk space if there are changes between snapshot(s) and the live data. This caps both.

# Syntax of quota
zfs set quota=[SIZE] POOLNAME/DATASET_NAME

# Real Example setting this is 1,200 Gigabytes max Total Quota
zfs set quota=1200G INTREPID/users/mike

Or remove it with none value

zfs set quota=none INTREPID/users/mike

RefQuota - Limit Data Disk Usage in a Dataset

refquota sets a limit on the live data disk usage of the dataset but does not have a limit on the snapshots and other ZFS data that can add to the total disk usage by the Dataset. You can set both refquota and quota to provide two levels of disk quotas, a hard limit of the Data and a hard limit of the total ZFS data.

# Syntax of refquota
zfs set refquota=[SIZE] POOLNAME/DATASET_NAME

# Real Example setting this is 1,000 Gigabytes max Data Quota
zfs set refquota=1000G INTREPID/users/mike

Now I can also set the quota on this Dataset to a slightly higher number to give some space to potential snapshot utilization even if the data is maxed.

Or remove it with none value

zfs set refquota=none INTREPID/users/mike

User and Group Quotas - Limit Disk Usage by Users and Groups

Similar to how you can set a quota for a Dataset, you can set quotas for specific users or specific groups.

View Disk Usage by User or Group

# View disk usage by Users
zfs userspace POOLNAME/DATASET_NAME

# View disk usage by Groups
zfs groupspace POOLNAME/DATASET_NAME

Example output

zfs userspace INTREPID/users/mike
TYPE        NAME   USED  QUOTA  OBJUSED  OBJQUOTA
POSIX User  mike  1.00T   none    1.64M      none
POSIX User  root     3K   none        6      none

zfs groupspace INTREPID/users/mike
TYPE         NAME   USED  QUOTA  OBJUSED  OBJQUOTA
POSIX Group  mike  1.00T   none    1.64M      none
POSIX Group  root     3K   none        6      none

Set User Quota

# Syntax for setting a user quota
zfs set userquota@USERNAME=[SIZE] POOLNAME/DATASET_NAME

# Real example for setting user 'mike' to 200 Gigabytes max
zfs set userquota@mike=200G INTREPID/shares/Documents

Or remove it with none value

zfs set userquota@mike=none INTREPID/shares/Documents

Set Group Quota

# Syntax for setting a group quota
zfs set groupquota@GROUPNAME=[SIZE] POOLNAME/DATASET_NAME

# Real example for setting group 'accounting' to 500 Gigabytes max
zfs set groupquota@accounting=500G INTREPID/shares/Documents

Or remove it with none value

zfs groupquota@accounting=none INTREPID/shares/Documents

ZFS Management

Commands to check and manage a ZFS Pool

Check Pool Status

zpool status is going to be the way to status of the Pool health and the drives

# Check zpool status of all Pools
zpool status

# Checkk all Pools with extra Verbose information
zpool status -v

# Check a specific Pool (with Verbose info)
zpool status -v POOLNAME

Example output

state shows whether the Pool or Device is online or healthy

READ, WRITE, and CKSUM indicate if there's ERRORs with the data. You don't want to see anything in these columns but 0. But if you see error counts, it could indicate a bad cable or a bad drive.

  pool: ENTERPRISE
 state: ONLINE
  scan: scrub repaired 0B in 09:00:00 with 0 errors on Sun Jan  8 09:24:01 2023
config:

	NAME                        STATE     READ WRITE CKSUM
	ENTERPRISE                  ONLINE       0     0     0
	  raidz1-0                  ONLINE       0     0     0
	    wwn-0x5000cca24cc243a9  ONLINE       0     0     0
	    wwn-0x5000cca24cc3cf60  ONLINE       0     0     0
	    wwn-0x5000cca24cc3c39a  ONLINE       0     0     0
	    wwn-0x5000cca24cc3c304  ONLINE       0     0     0

errors: No known data errors

  pool: INTREPID
 state: ONLINE
  scan: scrub repaired 0B in 00:52:52 with 0 errors on Sun Jan  8 01:16:54 2023
config:

	NAME                                  STATE     READ WRITE CKSUM
	INTREPID                              ONLINE       0     0     0
	  raidz1-0                            ONLINE       0     0     0
	    ata-TEAM_T2532TB_112208190540104  ONLINE       0     0     0
	    ata-TEAM_T2532TB_112208190540533  ONLINE       0     0     0
	    ata-TEAM_T2532TB_112208290490136  ONLINE       0     0     0
	    ata-TEAM_T2532TB_112208190540057  ONLINE       0     0     0

errors: No known data errors

Example of an output after a resilvering (re-syncing data on a replaced or offline drive)

  pool: INTREPID
 state: ONLINE
  scan: resilvered 70.0G in 00:17:40 with 0 errors on Tue Jan 17 12:06:45 2023
config:

	NAME                                       STATE     READ WRITE CKSUM
	INTREPID                                   ONLINE       0     0     0
	  raidz2-0                                 ONLINE       0     0     0
	    ata-TEAM_T2532TB_TPBF2209160130700561  ONLINE       0     0     0
	    ata-TEAM_T2532TB_TPBF2209160130700881  ONLINE       0     0     0
	    ata-TEAM_T2532TB_TPBF2209160130700462  ONLINE       0     0     0
	    ata-TEAM_T2532TB_TPBF2209160130700420  ONLINE       0     0     0

errors: No known data errors

Pool Filesystem Statistics

zpool list outputs information about the Pool filesystem like Total Size, Allocated Usage, Free Space, Fragmented Free Space, Capacity, Deduplication Ratio, and Health status.

You can use zpool list -v to show more detailed information of the Pool broken down by Device and Pool Type.

You can also customize the command to show the properties you want to list out. Use zpool list -h to show what options you can list out.

Example usage and outputs

zpool list
NAME         SIZE  ALLOC   FREE  CKPOINT  EXPANDSZ   FRAG    CAP  DEDUP    HEALTH  ALTROOT
ENTERPRISE  14.5T  7.34T  7.20T        -         -     3%    50%  1.00x    ONLINE  -
INTREPID    7.44T  2.93T  4.51T        -         -     2%    39%  1.00x    ONLINE  -

zpool list -v
NAME                                   SIZE  ALLOC   FREE  CKPOINT  EXPANDSZ   FRAG    CAP  DEDUP    HEALTH  ALTROOT
ENTERPRISE                            14.5T  7.34T  7.20T        -         -     3%    50%  1.00x    ONLINE  -
  raidz1-0                            14.5T  7.34T  7.20T        -         -     3%  50.5%      -    ONLINE
    wwn-0x5000cca24cc243a9            3.64T      -      -        -         -      -      -      -    ONLINE
    wwn-0x5000cca24cc3cf60            3.64T      -      -        -         -      -      -      -    ONLINE
    wwn-0x5000cca24cc3c39a            3.64T      -      -        -         -      -      -      -    ONLINE
    wwn-0x5000cca24cc3c304            3.64T      -      -        -         -      -      -      -    ONLINE
INTREPID                              7.44T  2.93T  4.51T        -         -     2%    39%  1.00x    ONLINE  -
  raidz1-0                            7.44T  2.93T  4.51T        -         -     2%  39.4%      -    ONLINE
    ata-TEAM_T2532TB_112208190540104  1.86T      -      -        -         -      -      -      -    ONLINE
    ata-TEAM_T2532TB_112208190540533  1.86T      -      -        -         -      -      -      -    ONLINE
    ata-TEAM_T2532TB_112208290490136  1.86T      -      -        -         -      -      -      -    ONLINE
    ata-TEAM_T2532TB_112208190540057  1.86T      -      -        -         -      -      -      -    ONLINE

Pool IO Stats

zpool iostat provides IO statistics. Passing the verbose option zpool iostat -v provides a greater breakdown of the IO information. You can also target a specific pool with zpool iostat -v POOLNAME

zpool iostat
              capacity     operations     bandwidth
pool        alloc   free   read  write   read  write
----------  -----  -----  -----  -----  -----  -----
ENTERPRISE  7.34T  7.20T     33     60  5.60M  3.50M
INTREPID    2.93T  4.51T     39    132  2.09M  1.70M
----------  -----  -----  -----  -----  -----  -----

zpool iostat -v
                                        capacity     operations     bandwidth
pool                                  alloc   free   read  write   read  write
------------------------------------  -----  -----  -----  -----  -----  -----
ENTERPRISE                            7.34T  7.20T     33     60  5.60M  3.50M
  raidz1-0                            7.34T  7.20T     33     60  5.60M  3.50M
    wwn-0x5000cca24cc243a9                -      -      8     15  1.41M   902K
    wwn-0x5000cca24cc3cf60                -      -      8     14  1.39M   891K
    wwn-0x5000cca24cc3c39a                -      -      8     15  1.41M   902K
    wwn-0x5000cca24cc3c304                -      -      8     14  1.39M   892K
------------------------------------  -----  -----  -----  -----  -----  -----
INTREPID                              2.93T  4.51T     39    132  2.09M  1.70M
  raidz1-0                            2.93T  4.51T     39    132  2.09M  1.70M
    ata-TEAM_T2532TB_112208190540104      -      -     10     34   535K   438K
    ata-TEAM_T2532TB_112208190540533      -      -      9     32   535K   435K
    ata-TEAM_T2532TB_112208290490136      -      -     10     34   536K   438K
    ata-TEAM_T2532TB_112208190540057      -      -      9     32   535K   434K
------------------------------------  -----  -----  -----  -----  -----  -----

ZFS Pool Scrub

zpool scrub initiates a full Pool data check, while the Pool is still online and usable. It will scan through all the data in the Pool and verify that the data matches the checksum. If it finds an issue, it will attempt to repair that data on the Device with data it knows is good.

Scrubs should be done on a monthly basis. How long a scrub takes to perform depends on if it's being done on spinning Hard Drives or SSDs, how much data is on the Pool, how many drives are in the Pool to speed up read times, and how much IO is using the Pool during the duration. Large SSD arrays can do their scrubs in hours while large (old) HDD arrays I have seen take half a month to almost a month to finish.

Start a scrub manually on a POOL (or resume a paused scrub)

zpool scrub POOLNAME

Pause a scrub in progress (can be resumed later)

zpool scrub -p POOLNAME

Stop/cancel a scrub in progress

zpool scrub -s POOLNAME

Check on the Status of a Scrub (zpool status)

zpool status -v POOLNAME

  ...
  scan: scrub in progress since Sun Jul 25 16:07:49 2021
        403M scanned at 100M/s, 68.4M issued at 10.0M/s, 405M total
        0B repaired, 16.91% done, 00:00:04 to go
  ...

Enable Periodic Scrubs

Proxmox automatically does this, but for other Linux systems, you can enable a systemd timer for this like so:

# Scrub POOLNAME weekly
systemctl enable zfs-scrub-weekly@POOLNAME.timer --now

# Scrub POOLNAME Monthly (recommended)
systemctl enable zfs-scrub-monthly@POOLNAME.timer --now

Or simply just setup a cronjob that calls the scrub command.

# Scrub all pools on the second Sunday of every month.
24 0 8-14 * * root if [ $(date +\%w) -eq 0 ] && [ -x /usr/lib/zfs-linux/scrub ]; then /usr/lib/zfs-linux/scrub; fi

# Or Simply on the 15th of every month for a specific Pool
0 2 15 * * zpool scrub POOLNAME >/dev/null 2>&1

ZFS Pool TRIM

While Linux/Systemd has a FSTRIM.timer that is usually enabled by default on most distros, this may not actually TRIM ZFS Pools.

zpool trim POOLNAME

Enable Periodic TRIMs

Proxmox automatically does this, but for other Linux systems, you can enable a systemd timer for this like so:

# TRIM POOLNAME weekly
systemctl enable zfs-trim-weekly@rpool.timer --now

# TRIM POOLNAME monthly (recommended)
systemctl enable zfs-trim-monthly@otherpool.timer --now

Or setup a cronjob for it

# TRIM all Pools the first Sunday of every month.
24 0 1-7 * * root if [ $(date +\%w) -eq 0 ] && [ -x /usr/lib/zfs-linux/trim ]; then /usr/lib/zfs-linux/trim; fi

# Or Simply on the 5th of every month for a specific Pool
0 2 5 * * zpool trim POOLNAME >/dev/null 2>&1

ZFS ARC Stats and Summary

arcstat and arc_summary can provide useful and advanced information on how ZFS's ARC Cache is being used.

arcstat
    time  read  miss  miss%  dmis  dm%  pmis  pm%  mmis  mm%  size     c  avail
16:11:59     0     0      0     0    0     0    0     0    0  6.6G  8.5G   1.9G

arc_summary

------------------------------------------------------------------------
ZFS Subsystem Report                            Fri Jan 20 16:12:06 2023
Linux 5.15.74-1-pve                                           2.1.6-pve1
Machine: virgo (x86_64)                                       2.1.6-pve1

ARC status:                                                      HEALTHY
        Memory throttle count:                                         0

ARC size (current):                                    43.2 %    6.6 GiB
        Target size (adaptive):                        55.1 %    8.5 GiB
        Min size (hard limit):                          6.2 %  983.5 MiB
        Max size (high water):                           16:1   15.4 GiB
        Most Frequently Used (MFU) cache size:         21.2 %    1.0 GiB
        Most Recently Used (MRU) cache size:           78.8 %    3.8 GiB
        Metadata cache size (hard limit):              75.0 %   11.5 GiB
        Metadata cache size (current):                 24.4 %    2.8 GiB
        Dnode cache size (hard limit):                 10.0 %    1.2 GiB
        Dnode cache size (current):                    90.4 %    1.0 GiB

ARC hash breakdown:
        Elements max:                                             776.7k
        Elements current:                              25.6 %     198.9k
        Collisions:                                                24.9M
        Chain max:                                                     5
        Chains:                                                     4.5k

ARC misc:
        Deleted:                                                  185.8M
        Mutex misses:                                              50.7k
        Eviction skips:                                           325.7k
        Eviction skips due to L2 writes:                               0
        L2 cached evictions:                                     0 Bytes
        L2 eligible evictions:                                  10.1 TiB
        L2 eligible MFU evictions:                     33.2 %    3.3 TiB
        L2 eligible MRU evictions:                     66.8 %    6.7 TiB
        L2 ineligible evictions:                                10.6 TiB

ARC total accesses (hits + misses):                                 3.6G
        Cache hit ratio:                               96.7 %       3.5G
        Cache miss ratio:                               3.3 %     119.7M
        Actual hit ratio (MFU + MRU hits):             96.5 %       3.5G
        Data demand efficiency:                        99.4 %       1.3G
        Data prefetch efficiency:                       1.2 %      86.8M

Cache hits by cache type:
        Most frequently used (MFU):                    86.2 %       3.0G
        Most recently used (MRU):                      13.6 %     475.0M
        Most frequently used (MFU) ghost:               0.1 %       4.7M
        Most recently used (MRU) ghost:               < 0.1 %       1.3M
        Anonymously used:                             < 0.1 %     772.9k

Cache hits by data type:
        Demand data:                                   36.6 %       1.3G
        Prefetch data:                                < 0.1 %    1000.0k
        Demand metadata:                               63.1 %       2.2G
        Prefetch metadata:                              0.2 %       7.7M

Cache misses by data type:
        Demand data:                                    6.3 %       7.5M
        Prefetch data:                                 71.6 %      85.8M
        Demand metadata:                               17.3 %      20.7M
        Prefetch metadata:                              4.8 %       5.8M

DMU prefetch efficiency:                                          366.1M
        Hit ratio:                                     21.6 %      79.1M
        Miss ratio:                                    78.4 %     287.0M

L2ARC not detected, skipping section

### The output continues so I just cut it off here.

ZFS Pool Upgrade

Every so often, a ZFS Utils update introduces new features. ZFS Pools on BSD, Linux, and macOS do not use a version number, but feature flags. When a ZFS Pool Upgrade is available, zpool status -v will show that upgrades are available. Note: If you do the upgrade, the Pool won't be able to be used in an older ZFS system. This usually is not an issue to be concerned about.

You can upgrade the pool with:

# Check all Pools for upgrades
zpool upgrade

# Enable all supported features on all Pools
zpool upgrade -a

# Enable for specific Pool
zpool upgrade -a POOLNAME

ZFS Pool Drive Management

Manage Drives and Devices in Pools

Offline Drive

Temporarily Offline a Drive

A Temporarily offline Drive comes back online automatically after a reboot or you put it back Online

zpool offline -t POOLNAME DRIVE_NAME

Example of real world use

zpool offline -t INTREPID ata-TEAM_T2532TB_112208190540533

Offline a Drive permanently (and by force)

The -f flag forces the drive to be offline in a faulted state. This is a step more than a normal Offline as it persistence between Pool imports. Do not use the -f flag unless you need the drive to stay offline between imports.

zpool offline -f POOLNAME DRIVE_NAME

Online a Drive

Brings the physical Drive online

zpool online POOLNAME DRIVE_NAME

Bring the Drive online AND Expand -e the Drive to use available space on Drive. If the Device is part of a mirror or RAID-Z, all Devices must be expanded before te new space is usable on the Pool.

zpool online -e POOLNAME DRIVE_NAME

Replace a Drive

You can replace a drive in a ZFS Pool while the old drive is still in the Pool. The new drive will be added the Pool and resilvered. After this is completed, the OLD Drive will be detached from the Pool. This can be before or after the OLD Drive is removed from the system.

zpool replace POOLNAME OLD_DRIVE_NAME NEW_DRIVE_NAME

Clear Errors

If errors occured on a ZFS Pool, and a solution was applied, you can Clear the errors from the Pool to bring the Pool back from a degraded state.

# Clear All Errors on a Pool
zpool clear POOLNAME

# Specific Drive
zpool clear POOL DRIVE_NAME

Export ZFS Pool

You can export a ZFS Pool to either move it (and the drives) to another system or to utilize proper Drive names, if you accidently made the Pool with the /dev/sda type drive naming convention, that is NOT recommended to have.

zpool export POOLNAME

All Datasets and Pools will be unmounted and the Pool will probably disappear from zpool status

Import ZFS Pool

You an import a ZFS Pool that was exported or came from another system.

List importable Pools. Not all importable Pools may show up this method.

zpool import

  pool: POOLNAME
    id: 15451357997522795478
 state: ONLINE
action: The pool can be imported using its name or numeric identifier.

Then import via the name or ID

zpool import POOLNAME

Import by scanning Drives

If you're unsure about what Drives to import by or there's a lot to import, you can use this to scan through the Disks by ID name and import them. For some HDDs, it may default to using wwn- names, which isn't as good as the actual Drive name.

-a Means that it searches for and imports found Pools

-N Means it Imports the Pool without automounting filesystems

-d Means it searches a directory or a device

zpool import -d /dev/disk/by-id -aN

So you can specify the -d option multiple times to import the Drive name you specifically want:

zpool import -d ata-ST16000NM000J-2TW103_ZR52CQQK -d ata-ST16000NM000J-2TW103_ZR57LBNF -d ata-ST16000NM000J-2TW103_ZR5CZTZ6 -d ata-ST16000NM000J-2TW103_ZR5D4592 -d ata-ST16000NM000J-2TW103_ZR5D4D23 -d ata-ST16000NM000J-2TW103_ZR60QV5P -aN

Import a Pool that was DESTROYED

You can re-import a Pool that was Destroyed with zpool destroy POOLNAME with the -D flag

# Import Destroyed Pool by autoscanning Disk IDs
zpool import -D -d /dev/disk/by-id -aN

# Import Destroyed Pool by specific Drive names
zpool import -D -d ata-ST16000NM000J-2TW103_ZR52CQQK -d ata-ST16000NM000J-2TW103_ZR57LBNF -d ata-ST16000NM000J-2TW103_ZR5CZTZ6 -d ata-ST16000NM000J-2TW103_ZR5D4592 -d ata-ST16000NM000J-2TW103_ZR5D4D23 -d ata-ST16000NM000J-2TW103_ZR60QV5P -aN

Adding to your Pool

Mirrors, Cache Drives, LOG Drives

ZPOOL ADD

Adding to your ZFS Pool usually means a couple of things. Do not mistake this with "expanding" your Pool.

Mirror

Add a mirror to your Pool. If you are running a ZPOOL Mirror already or a ZFS RAID 10, you can add additional mirrors to your Pool

zpool add POOLNAME mirror DRIVE_NAME_1 DRIVE_NAME_2 ...

Cache Drive - L2ARC

You can add a Cache or L2ARC to your ZFS Pool to speed up Read speeds and latency. Your Cache device should have a faster speed than your actual Pool, so you'll want to utilize SSDs for a HDD Pool, or NVMe SSD for a SATA SSD Pool. You can have multiple Cache drives for the Pool, which allows redundancy. More space though for L2ARC is not usually going to be beneficial, this is after your ARC Cache in memory is used.

zpool add POOLNAME cache DRIVE_NAME [DRIVE_NAME_2 if you use more than 1 drive]

You can remove this Drive from the Pool

zpool remove POOLNAME CACHE_DRIVE_NAME

Log Drive - ZIL - ZFS Intent Log Drive

You can add a ZIL or Intent Log drive to your ZFS Pool. These should ideally be very fast and Cache-less NVMe Drives. Intel Optane drives make the best Log Drives. They only need to be around 16-20GB in size. ZFS will only store about 5 seconds of writes to the drives before committing them to the Pool. If you have SSDs as your Pool storage already, this may not benefit you much if at all.

Additionally you should ideally have TWO Log drives in case one of them fails. A failed Log drive alone is not an issue but a failed Log drive and a power failure of the system could cause data corruption for the data that was about to be written.

# Single Log drive
zpool add POOLNAME log DRIVE_NAME

# Redundent Log drives
zpool add POOLNAME log mirror DRIVE_NAME_1 DRIVE_NAME_2

You can remove the ZIL Log Drive from the Pool

zpool remove POOLNAME LOG_DRIVE_NAME

ZFS Pool Hot Spares

These Drives can be added to your Pool to automatically replace a failed Drive.

zpool add POOLNAME spare DRIVE_NAME

The Spares will be listed in their own category from the active Drives

Remove a spare at anytime (as long as a Drive is not currently failed)

zpool remove POOLNAME SPARE_DRIVE_NAME

ZFS Snapshots

Instant and space efficient life savers

ZFS has the ability to Snapshot entire Pools and Datasets. These snapshots take no space except for the change or delta in files from the live filesystem. They can be sent to other Datasets, ZFS Pools, mounted, or rollbacked to.

Create a ZFS Snapshot

ZFS Snapshots are named with the @ symbol first and then a name for that Snapshot. This is case sensitive and it can be whatever you want. Do not use spaces and I would avoid certain special characters. But this could be, but not limited to:

• @today - @yesterday- @2023-01-15 - @jan-15-2023- @focal - @bionic- @3-days-ago - @5daysago- @v3.22 - @v2.09

# Snapshot a Pool
zfs snapshot POOLNAME@SNAPSHOT_NAME
zfs snapshot POOLNAME/DATASET_NAME@SNAPSHOT_NAME

Recursively Create Snapshots for Dataset and Children Datasets

Useful if you want all the Datasets of the target Dataset to have their own Snapshots at the same time, and for scripting.

-r is the Recursive flag to apply

zfs snapshot -r POOLNAME/DATASET_NAME@SNAPSHOT_NAME

Rollback a Dataset to its last Snapshot

You can easily rollback all changes made to a Dataset's filesystem/files/data to the last Snapshot made of that Dataset.

Note: Rolling back to the last Snapshot will delete all changes made including: new files, modified files, etc

# Syntax of a Snapshot Rollback
zfs rollback POOLNAME/DATASET_NAME@SNAPSHOT_NAME

# Real Example
zfs rollback INTREPID/containers/mikesulsenti.com@2023-01-08

You can only rollback to the latest Snapshot. If you want to rollback to an even earlier Snapshot that still exists, you must either destroy the snapshots between that snapshot and the live Dataset. Or run rollback with the -r option to automatically delete all snapshots inbetween.

zfs rollback -r POOLNAME/DATASET_NAME@SNAPSHOT_NAME

Rename A ZFS Snapshot

Similar to renaming a Dataset, you can rename a Snapshot. useful for scripting or moving things around.

# Change a specific @SNAPSHOT_NAME to a New Name
zfs rename POOLNAME/DATASET_NAME@SNAPSHOT_NAME @NEW_SNAPSHOT_NAME

# Recursively change all @SNAPSHOT_NAME Snapshots to a New Name
zfs rename -r POOLNAME/DATASET_NAME@SNAPSHOT_NAME @NEW_SNAPSHOT_NAME

Destroy or Delete a ZFS Snapshot

Destroys a ZFS Snapshot and removes it and the data from the filesystem. Does not touch the live filesystem/Dataset

# Destroy a specific Dataset's Snapshot
zfs destroy POOLNAME/DATASET_NAME@SNAPSHOT_NAME

# Recursively Destroy @SNAPSHOT_NAME Snapshots
zfs destroy -r POOLNAME/DATASET_NAME@SNAPSHOT_NAME

Clone a Snapshot to it's own Dataset

You can take a Dataset's Snapshot and make it into it's own Dataset and live filesystem

zfs clone POOLNAME/DATASET_NAME@SNAPSHOT_NAME POOLNAME/NEW_DATASET_NAME

You then need to Promote the clone Dataset to no longer depend on the origin Snapshot

zfs promote POOLNAME/NEW_DATASET_NAME

ZFS Send and Receive

Send ZFS filesystem locally and remote

ZFS Send and Receive

-R is Replicate and it replicates the filesystem properties and children filesystems, including all snapshots.

-i is for snapshot and sends incremental changes

-v is verbose output and shows how much data has been sent and more each second

First you need to snapshot the Dataset or Pool. Check the section above on how to do that

zfs snapshot POOLNAME/DATASET_NAME@SNAPSHOT_NAME

ZFS Send and Receive Locally

# Replicate a Snapshot
zfs send -R -v POOLNAME/DATASET_NAME@SNAPSHOT_NAME | zfs receive OTHER_POOLNAME/OTHER_DATASET_NAME

# Replicate a Snapshot with Incremental Changes
zfs send -R -i -v POOLNAME/DATASET_NAME@SNAPSHOT_NAME | zfs receive OTHER_POOLNAME/OTHER_DATASET_NAME

ZFS Send and Receive Remotely

Simply just pipe into the ssh command with the hostname or user@hostname

# Replicate a Snapshot
zfs send -R POOLNAME/DATASET_NAME@SNAPSHOT_NAME | ssh user@hostname zfs receive OTHER_POOLNAME/OTHER_DATASET_NAME

# Replicate a Snapshot with Incremental Changes
zfs send -R -i POOLNAME/DATASET_NAME@SNAPSHOT_NAME | ssh user@hostname zfs receive OTHER_POOLNAME/OTHER_DATASET_NAME

Monitor Progress of a ZFS Send

zfs send has a -v verbose option, but this may produce too much information. You can utilize pv to have a more simplified info, but you may not get a full picture like -v provides.

You can install the utility pv which is Pipe View. If you put pv between the pipes, you can watch the data stream being sent. You can install it on Debian/Ubuntu/Proxmox with apt install pv and on Red Hat/CentOS/Fedora/AlmaLinux/Rocky Linux with yum install pv

# Monitor locally
zfs send -R -i POOLNAME/DATASET_NAME@SNAPSHOT_NAME | pv | zfs receive OTHERPOOLNAME/OTHER_DATASET_NAME

# Monitor Remotely over SSH
zfs send -R -i POOLNAME/DATASET_NAME@SNAPSHOT_NAME | pv | ssh user@hostname zfs receive OTHER_POOLNAME/OTHER_DATASET_NAME

ZFS Encryption

Encrypt ZFS Datasets and Decrypt them

Create an Encrypted Dataset

The important options here are:

• encryption - Options: on, off, aes-256-gcm (default for on currently and recommended), aes-256-ccm (OLD default), aes-192-gcm, aes-192-ccm, aes-128-gcm, aes-128-ccm- keylocation - Options: prompt (prompts in shell when you tell ZFS to load Dataset), file:///path/to/key_file.txt- keyformat - Options: passphrase (8-512 bytes long and recommended), hex, raw (hex and raw must be 32 bytes long)

Create an Encrypted Dataset with aes-256-gcm, prompt with command, using passphrase key

zfs create -o encryption=on -o keylocation=prompt -o keyformat=passphrase POOLNAME/ENCRYPTED_DATASET_NAME

Load the key to mount Dataset after a reboot

-r Recursively loads the key for any child Dataset encrypted with the key. If a Child Dataset has its own key, you will need to target load-key for that Dataset

zfs load-key -r POOLNAME/ENCRYPTED_DATASET_NAME

Or load-key using a key file

zfs load-key -r -L file:///path/to/key_file.txt POOLNAME/ENCRYPTED_DATASET_NAME

You can also specify -a to load that key for any encrypted volume on any active Pool in the system

Change User Encryption Key

You can not change the Master Key to an encrypted Dataset. You'll have to move the data to another new Encrypted Dataset to fulled change out the Master Key. But this changes the user key wrapper.

zfs change-key [-l] [-o keylocation=location] [-o keyformat=format] [-o pbkdf2iters=value] POOLNAME/ENCRYPTED_DATASET_NAME

Sending an Encrypted Dataset

When you send a Dataset with zfs send, if you want that data to be encrypted on the other receiving end, you must specify -w to keep the data encrypted as is. This also means you can not compress the data stream as the encrypted data is incompressible.

zfs send -w -R -i POOLNAME/ENCRYPTED_DATASET_NAME@SNAPSHOT_NAME | zfs  receive OTHER_POOLNAME/OTHER_ENCRYPTED_DATASET_NAME

I may update this guide and cheat sheet with more information later or with any new major changes OpenZFS introduces.

If you see an issue in this post, feel free to contact me about it!

For reference in measurements:

• 1 shot = 1 oz
• 2 shots = 2 oz
• Half shot = 0.5 oz

Some cocktail jiggers are different sizes. Simply just adjust the proportions to what you want. I use a Japanese Jigger that is 2oz top and 1oz bottom

**🍺 **Butterbeer

Universal Studios of Orlando has the Harry Potter world area and they serve "Butterbeer" there, based on the Harry Potter drink in the books and movies. But anyone who has ever tried their Butterbeer knows that it tastes odd and nothing like you'd expect the Butterbeer name and visuals in the movie to taste like. So I experimented a lot to get this recipe right and with the help of a friend who suggested a major tweak to perfect it, I believe this drink is the closest thing you'll get to real Butterbeer.

What you'll need:

• Drink shaker
• Butterscotch Schnapps (liqueur - I used [Mr Stack's Butterscotch Schnapps])
• Peanut Butter Whiskey (Specifically [Sheep Dog] as the flavor is best for this)
• Hazelnut Liqueur
• Egg whites
• Root beer (diet root beer also works)
• Ice

Recipe
Into your shaker:

• 4 shots of Butterscotch Schnapps
• 2 shots of Peanut Butter Whiskey
• 1 shot of Hazelnut liqueur
• Half shot of egg whites

Shake it well for 15 seconds
Add ice into the shaker and shake for 5 seconds

Pour out into the cup to halfway point (preferably a clear glass mug).
Fill the rest of the cup/mug with cold root beer.
Stir it a little bit.

**👻 **The Ghostbuster

This is a more refreshing drink that comes out to a turquoise blue and looks great with a (yellow) glow stick added in.

What you'll need:

• Drink shaker
• Vodka
• Sour Apple Schnapps/Liqueur
• Blue Curaçao
• Apple Juice
• Ice
• Glow stick (optional)

Recipe
Into your shaker:

• 2 shots of Vodka
• 2 shots of Sour Apple Schnapps
• 1 shot of Blue Curaçao
• Ice

Shake it well for 5 seconds

Pour out into the cup to halfway point (preferably a tall clear cup).
Fill the rest of the cup with cold apple juice.
Stir it a little bit.
Add an optional glow stick.

**🧹 **Witch's Brew

This is a more refreshing fizzy drink that comes out to a purple hue and looks great with dry ice added in to give it a cool look.

What you'll need:

• Drink shaker
• Vodka
• Watermelon Schnapps/Liqueur
• Blue Curaçao
• Orange Juice
• Club Soda
• Ice
• Dry Ice (optional)

Recipe
Into your shaker:

• 2 shots of Vodka
• 2 shots of Watermelon Schnapps
• Half shot of Blue Curaçao
• Ice

Shake it well for 5 seconds

Pour out into the cup to halfway point (preferably a tall clear cup).
Put a shot of Orange Juice into the glass.
Fill the rest of the cup with cold Club Soda.
Stir it a little bit.
Add an optional Dry Ice cube into the glass.

**🧛 **Vampire's Kiss

This is a more classy and simple drink using Sparking wine or brut.

What you'll need:

• Drink shaker
• Vodka
• Sparking wine or brut or Champagne
• Raspberry Schnapps/liqueur
• Ice

Recipe
Into your shaker:

• 2 shots of Vodka
• 2 shots of Raspberry Schnapps
• Ice

Shake it well for 5 seconds

Pour out into the cup to halfway point (preferably a tall clear cup).
Fill the rest of the cup with cold Sparking wine/brut/champagne.
Stir it a little bit.

**🍎 **The Poisoned Apple

An Apple and cinnamon flavored drink inspired by Snow White's Apple.

What you'll need:

• Drink shaker
• Tequila (gold/reposado)
• Cinnamon Whiskey
• Apple Cider
• Ice

Recipe
Into your shaker:

• 2 shots of Tequila
• 2 shots of Cinnamon Whiskey
• Ice

Shake it well for 5 seconds

Pour out into the cup to halfway point (preferably a tall clear cup).
Fill the rest of the cup with cold Apple Cider.
Stir it a little bit.

⚰️ Plague

A harder drink with a lot of different flavors mixed with coke or a similar soda.

What you'll need:

• Drink shaker
• Vodka
• Jägermeister
• Melon Schnapps/liqueur (NOT Watermelon Schnapps)
• Raspberry Schnapps/liqueur
• Coke (or Dr. Pepper)
• Ice

Recipe
Into your shaker:

• 2 shots of Vodka
• 2 shots of Jägermeister
• 1 shot of Melon Schnapps
• 1 shot of Raspberry Schnapps
• Ice

Shake it well for 5 seconds

Pour out into the cup to halfway point (preferably a tall clear cup).
Fill the rest of the cup with cold Coke or similar soda.
Stir it a little bit.

☠️ Graveyard Shift

A simple hard drink with a lot of different flavors.

What you'll need:

• Drink shaker
• Jägermeister
• Tequila (Gold/reposado preferred, silver/blanco is fine)
• Cranberry Juice
• Ice

Recipe
Into your shaker:

• 4 shots of Jägermeister
• 2 shots of Tequila
• Ice

Shake it well for 5 seconds

Pour out into the cup to halfway point (preferably a tall clear cup).
Fill the rest of the cup with cold Cranberry Juice.
Stir it a little bit.

🧟 Ectoplasm

A simple drink that comes out looking neon green if mixed right.

What you'll need:

• Drink shaker
• Tequila (Gold/reposado)
• Sour Apple Liqueur
• Orange Juice
• Ice

Recipe
Into your shaker:

• 4 shots of Tequila
• 4 shots of Sour Apple Liqueur
• Ice

Shake it well for 5 seconds

Pour out into the cup around halfway point or more (preferably a tall clear cup).
Fill the rest of the cup with cold Orange Juice until the look is neon green.
Stir it a little bit.

I have other drink menus for different seasonal occasions (Winter Holidays and Summer) and I'll share those when those seasons get close.

Stay tuned.

I suggest anyone reading this, and is new to the gym, to read the previous part post first: [Weightlifting 101: The Basics and Foundations for Starters]

While this post is meant to for anyone, including beginners, the routine and advice is advanced. I personally don’t believe in having people start out on beginner routines. They learn incorrectly and have difficulty adapting to higher levels. There is no real reason for it other than making an easy to follow routine and “learning” to lift on compound exercises. Well that’s stupid. Learn something once, the right way.

The Routine

I bet the majority of you will want this part the most. I’m going to put it at the top here. But if you give a shit about reaping the results from a routine like this, then you better read this whole damn post and not just come for a routine to copy the routine thinking “doing that will get me results“. Basically if you’re only interested in the routine, fuck off, go do cardio at Planet Fitness or something. What you do in the gym does matter, but the routine/list of exercises doesn’t matter a ton. It’s how you do it and what you do outside the gym.

So let me explain how this split works. I call it a continuous split cycle. Instead of having muscle groups on certain days of the week with certain days as rest days, I just go to the gym every day, or any day I want, and pick off where I left off last in the cycle. For example: Chest -> Back -> Legs -> Chest -> Oh shit I skipped a day -> Back -> Legs – > Chest

Not a hard concept to understand. Essentially I never have an actual rest day. There’s almost no point since every muscle group is getting at least 36 hours to recover (36 hours is how long it takes for a muscle to fully recover from a lifting session.)

Modes for lifting

My routine is based around hypertrophy (size) training, but you can switch that up a bit for your own goals. So my routine won’t have anything except what exercises I do. Sets and reps will be based on the below goal rules. You can apply these to any routine.

General Global Rules:

• Never stop at a certain number of reps. Always lift until you hit failure and can not do another rep- As a beginner, you will often stop thinking you can’t do another rep. Do not cut yourself short. Your capable of another rep despite pain or mentality, do another rep; TRY- Rest periods are important. Do not try to be a “badass”. Do not go shorter than 1 min- Use good form always. But it’s okay to break it a little for an extra last rep.

If your goal is Hypertrophy (muscle size), follow these rules:

• Do 4 sets of every exercise. Aim for 12 – 16 reps- Rest Period between each set is 1 min and 15 secs each

If your goal is Strength (how much weight you can lift), follow these rules:

• Do 3-4 sets of every exercise. Aim to do around 5 reps- Rest Period between each set is 1 min and 45 secs each, up to 2 mins

If your goal is MIXED (Size and Strength), follow these rules:

• Do 4 sets of every exercise. Aim to do around 8 – 10 reps- Rest Period between each set is 1 min and 30 secs each

Cycle Day 1 – Chest Day – [Chest, Triceps, Shoulders]

• ****Bench Press********OR ****Incline Dumbbell Press- Skullcrushers- ****Superset: Dumbbell Delt Lateral Raises + Dumbbell Delt Front Raises ****Failure for Front Raises- ****Decline Cable Flys ****(You should look like you’re doing a Most Muscular flex on these, the motion is in the elbows, not your wrists)- ****Tricep Pushdown Extensions ****(Strict form, bend knees, elbows never move)- Rear Delt Flyes- Cable Flys (same rule of thumb for decline, but just for hitting general chest area- ****Hanging Leg Raises + Dips ****(At set finish, do Dips until failure)

Cycle Day 2 – Back Day – [Back, Biceps, Lats, Traps]

• ****Pull Ups [optional] ****(This is first because it is the hardest exercise to perform on here, you should do it first if you want to do it)- ****Preacher Curls ********OR ********Barbell/EZ Bar Curls ****(Do not rock back, elbows should never move)- ****Hammer Curls ****(Up and down like you’re using a hammer, easy to do both arms at the same time)- (Alternating) Dumbbell Curls- Wide Grip Lat Pulldowns- Seated Lat Row- Barbell/Hex Bar Shrugs- Hanging Leg Raises- ****Standing Forearm Curls ****(After rep failure, hold until grip failure, use dumbbells obviously)

Cycle Day 3 – Leg Day – [Quads, Hamstrings, Calves, Abs]

• Squat- Deadlift OR Front Squat- Hanging Leg Raises- Leg Press- Weighted Ab Crunch Machine- Leg Extension- Leg Curls- ****Declined Bench Sit Up + ****Ab Twists- Calf Raises

Dieting

Don’t make this shit complicated, it’s not. You can make a meal plan if that helps you keep on track with your macros.

Simple General Rules for Dieting

• Calories In, Calories Out – Boils down to basically how many calories of food you are eating vs you are expending (Metabolism + exercise)- Keep up protein intake no matter what- It is better to burn more calories instead of intaking less food- Fasting is not magic, it doesn’t aid in weight loss. It is a method to prevent you from being so hungry in the morning, you eat more than you should- Do not starve yourself. You body needs calories and it will adapt to its needs. If it thinks you’re starving, it will lower it’s metabolism to compensate. You’ll start to gain fat as a result of this mode- Fat and Carbs are NOT BAD. You need these just like protein, but keep it proportional- Get 0.8-1 grams of protein per lean body mass weight (lbs) per day. You could make it even simpler by saying 1 gram per pound of body weight per day. More than you probably need, but whatever

I’m fat and I want to lose fat and gain muscle:

• Eat less food. Eat 25% less food per meal, it’s that easy- Count how many calories you’re getting in. Use [MyFitnessPal] to track calories and see where you should stop eating per day- Eat more vegetables in your meals- You can use Fatty foods to help you feel fuller faster at meals- Use Whey to supplement or replace a meal

I’m skinny and I want to gain muscle:

• Eat more food (especially protein). And don’t tell me you eat a lot or you have a high metabolism. That’s 100% bullshit. Eat more protein.- Take an extra Whey Protein shake during the day- Increase general protein (and meat/dairy) intake- Do not overeat on food to try to get bigger. Gaining fat won’t help you gain more muscle.

Supplementation

There is nothing wrong with taking supplements. You WILL NOT get all the nutrition you need day in and day out from eating healthy food.

• Whey Protein – This helps increase your protein intake in the day with minimal calories- Take immediately after lifting sessions- Other go times, in addition, are aftering waking up, 1 hour before lifting, and before bed- Recommended brand: Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard (ON)- Multivitamin – There are many vitamins and minerals you don’t get in foods often- Take in morning and before bed- Recommended brand: ON Opti-Men- Fish Oil – Omega-3s are good for you and your digestion amongst other body functions. Good if you don’t eat fish daily- Take in morning and before bed- Recommended brand: ON Fish Oil- Calcium + Vitamin D – People don’t get much sunlight these days. Vitamin D is very important for males and Calcium helps bone health. You need both for them to work together- Take in morning and before bed- Recommended brand: Doesn’t matter, I use Spring Valley, I found it at Walmart- Zinc + Magnesium – Good for test levels, sleep, and male health- Take before bed- Recommended brand: ON ZMA- Green Tea Extract – Helps metabolism and all the good shit green tea gives you. Also caffeine. May help suppress appetite for some people- Take in the morning- Recommended brand: Doesn’t matter. But I got a GNC brand Green Tea Complex I like because it’s got a lot of capsules and high dosage- Pre-workout – I like to have pre-workout to drive my mood and help feel “in the zone”. You can also just drink coffee, take caffeine pills, whatever- Take 30 mins before lifting- Recommended brand: Nitraflex by GAT

Cardio

I fucking hate this shit

When I am looking to cut down more fat, I do extra cardio stuff. But I don’t run, and you can read those reason in the tips section below

Instead of do:

• Sprint Intervals- Burns a lot of calories in short time, increases your body’s HGH levels, promotes muscle growth- 60 secs sprinting, 60 seconds walking (that’s your rest)- Sprinting is 10+ MPH. I go 12 MPH- Incline Walking- Easy, good cool down from sprints, burns a lot of calories, doesn’t eat/waste muscle mass for it- 15-20mins- Max incline mode on a treadmill- 3 – 4 MPH

You can do these whenever. I like to do these every morning after I wake up, while still fasted.

You can do these after lifting too. I say after lifting, and not before because you will be very tired from these. You can do other HIIT cardio post lifting too, like HIIT cycling on a stationary bike

Tips and Other Good Advice

Stomach Vacuums

These are great for core/abs/waistline. Do these every morning when you wake up. Look up how to do stomach vacuums correctly if you don’t know how. Do around 6 of them every morning. If you’re fat and above 18% body fat, these are useless for you, cut down first.

• Muscles need 36 hours to recover from a lifting session. Utilize this information however you wish- Negatives (the opposite direction of your exercise’s main motion) do not help you. Do not do them slowly. In fact you want negatives to be forced out- Holding a muscle in the contracted position mid rep does nothing for you but feel good, you’re wasting energy and reps- Recovery is important. If you’re not recovering, you’re wasting away. Get 8 hours of sleep, keep rest periods between sets- Flex in the mirror. See what you have, need to improve, how your muscles move and act- Flexing is an exercise. So if you flex between sets, increase rest time- Motivation is a self-driven thing. If you have issues getting motivated to go to the gym and workout, that’s on you. You have to find something that drives you. A reason, a goal, a desire. Just know that every missed day of the gym is one day of progress gone from being who you want to be physically- Rest days are not mandatory. But one per week or every 2 weeks helps you ensure your body and nervous system is getting a break to recuperate- Supplements are not needed for gains. They just help.- Take progress pics every week or two. Changes are gradual so you may not notice you change in the mirror- Stop stepping on the scale. Two reasons: Most people have a goal for body composition. In body composition, weight doesn’t mean much, so the numbers are useless. Your number changes could be water, fat, muscle. Go by eye and see how your progressing in composition and size. Second, there is a psychological aspect to this. This affects me greatly too, but seeing weight changes, such as my weight dropping, can make me hungrier.- If you want to track you weight, do it once a week, and only in the mornings- When you lift doesn’t really matter. It’s more preference than anything. I like to lift in the evening/night. It’s when I have the most drive for lifting. Lifting at night with pre-workout can be detrimental to sleep though.- Consistency is the most important part about fitness. You can do stupid shit and get results eventually if you’re consistent. So no matter what, keep consistent in doing fitness and doing it everyday- Make time for fitness. Everyone has 1 hour per day to workout. No excuses.- Calisthenics are good. Add them to your routine if you like. Do them if you can’t go to a gym- Running/Jogging is not beneficial for gains or your knees. Do Sprints, Stairs, and or incline walking instead. Running burns calories, but it will promote muscle wasting for those calories instead of fat. Muscle mass is not good for running and survival. Your body would rather eat muscle mass before it’s fat storage.- “How much weight should I do?” – Whatever it takes to be in your rep range. If you’re hitting the upper rep range, increase the weight. If you’re lifting for strength, aim to increase weight on all lifts by 5 lbs per week.

Welcome, my name’s Mike. I’ve technically been lifting for over 13 years, the most recent 5 being more consistent and constant. I started on the back porch of my house where my father taught me the basics on lifting with a home gym multi-machine, adjustable weight dumbbells, and a basic bench that he got for us (I was 10, the second oldest of 4 boys).

Over those 13 years, I scoured the internet to read up on as much bullshit as I could find about weightlifting. Forums, articles, more forums, etc. More recently I’ve more of my research based on scientific studies and nutritional science journals. I’ve been through a lot related to lifting whether it’s the social parts, experimenting with routines and exercises, my diet, and more. Lifting is intimidating to some folks or confusing. Some hire personal trainers to guide them on their magical quest. Some look up stuff on Google to find the “best” routine with 0 knowledge on how to execute it or if it’s even a good lift or a good lift for your goals.

This post is going to be long and maybe multi-part on JUST the starting basic stuff. Lifting is both incredibly easy and very complex to do. There is rights and wrongs and sometimes shit just doesn’t matter. I will break down the basics of lifting into simple sections to understand and go into details on those sections. I will go into some details of lifting that people don’t tell starters about to keep things simple, but bad habits die hard and the more correct you train the better and faster results will come and you’ll have no problems kicking up to the intermediate and advanced levels after your first year or two. Sometimes you will learn bullshit information. Sometimes we refer to this bullshit info as Broscience. Do not follow or trust Broscience. Actual scientists and college researchers in medicine or nutritional science do studies. The only okay Broscience is advice that comes from professional lifters and athletes, but not all that advice, even by pros, are actually good or accurate.

While I am a male, this is kind of written for a male audience since how I lift is typical for a male and not a female, nothing I say can’t be applied to females who want to start lifting.

The Social Aspect

Conquer Your Fear

Major thing that prevents people from starting to lift or they already started and then they just stop, is the anxiety of going to the gym or weight room. Let me give some quick bullet points on this.

• Everyone at the gym is there to better themselves.- Everyone at the gym used to be in your position and situation when they started.- You see that huge ripped jock. Yeah, well before he started to lift he was small, skinny, or fat, or whatever.- No one is born fit or muscular. You have to go to the gym to change that. Everyone at a gym did that and so can you.- The gym “veterans” are self conscious about themselves too. I am a big guy and I lift a lot. I still have a minor feeling about other guys in my tier of lifting judging my movements or weight.- People who mock others in the gym are douchebags you should ignore. Either they don’t remember when they started or they’re kind of mediocre at lifting. Or just a douche. But I have never seen someone every visibly or audibly mock someone at a gym in several years.- Gyms get crowded. Don’t be afraid to ask someone:- How many sets do you have left?- Are you using this/these?- Would you spot me?

When I was a kid just starting to lift, I did lifts on my home gym equipment on my back porch. I was self conscious about neighborhood kids seeing me lifting, especially as a kind of chubby 11 year old. Also I lifted on the porch at night. I would often try to hide myself on the wall or just pretend I wasn’t doing anything if I heard people walking up and down the sidewalk which could see into our porch. Looking back, my feelings about it were very dumb. I was not a very social 6th grader and self confidence was not a strong suit of mine. I believe the pressure of situation made me stop until I was 14.

So to put it all simply:

GO into the gym and do not give a fuck. Nobody at the gym gives a fuck. Everyone at the gym started once, they’re all there to do the same thing as you.

Etiquette

You can watch this funny video for some funny stuff here. Below I’m gonna go through DOs and DON’Ts

DOs

• If you aren’t sure if someone is using a weight or equipment, ask- Only do bench or squats with a spotter- Re-Rack your dumbbells- Deload the weight plates on a machine or bar- You can carry a backpack around the gym- Ask someone to spot you- Ask someone experienced for help or if you’re doing a lift correctly- Put the weight plates in order, back to front, heaviest to lightest (45lb on the back, then 35, 35, 10, 5)- Put weights ON a bar or machine in that same order (pic below)

DON’Ts

• Do not do curls in the squat rack. Everyone will hate you, even people who don’t need to do squats.- Don’t drink pre workout or protein shakes while exercising. Not how you take them and it’s better to have water or gatorade/powerade. You’ll look like a retard.- Do not use multiple machines or weights (multiple dumbbells) at once. First off super sets are stupid. Second, you need to share stuff at the gym. If you’re hogging shit, people can’t get their stuff done.- Do not yell or grunt obnoxiously. One thing when someone is doing a heavy ass deadlift or squat and does a semi loud one on the last sets. It is another for some guy to stand in a mirror grunting loud as fuck for some reason doing bicep curls.- If your gym offers an easy way to wipe the equipment down (clean it), when you are done, wipe the shit off.- Don’t sit with friends on a machine or 3 chatting. Nothing more annoying than the evening lift session at a local gym with like herds of highschoolers bullshiting around equipment doing almost nothing.- Don’t try to lift more than you can. Don’t try to be impressive (and then fail).- Quarter/half reps are not a thing. Don’t do them.- Do not work out with a shirt. You see those images or videos of bodybuilders lifting without a shirt? Pro tip, they don’t actually do that while actually lifting.- Try not to converse with people too long or offer no escape method. People have 1-2 minutes of rest between sets and exercises. They have to get back to lifting.- Don’t ask people what their routine is. Not that you can’t or they’ll care, this rule is more of a “Stop focusing on the routine as being your problem”. Some people think “Oh if I just do what they’re doing in the gym, I’ll be like that”. FALSE- Don’t play music over speakers, use headphones- Don’t let your phone distract you too long between sets.- Don’t step on the equipment cushion pads- Do NOT SLAM THE DAMN WEIGHT. So many times I heard a crashing weight sound of some idiot who lets go of a machine or a cable. YOU WILL BREAK SOMETHING and no one wants to hear that either. Only okay to slam the weight if you’re in a squat rack and you set it down or you just deadlifted.- Do NOT DROP THE WEIGHT. If you can’t put it down, don’t pick it up. The gym floors are concrete. You will break their concrete floors. Plus you look like a douche and an idiot. I lift with 70-115lb dumbbells. I have never dropped one. Only drop them if you really really have to.- Being fully naked in the locker room is for weird old guys. I don’t know why this is common, but they exist and they love to weigh themselves naked.

Recovery

Before I get too ahead and start lifting shit for you to follow, you need to understand what you have to do when you aren’t lifting, which is like 95% of your day.

Let me ingrain this in you now. Recovery is the MOST important part about lifting.

If I just broke down a percentage of how important Recovery, Diet, and Lifting was to obtaining your lifting goal:

• Recovery – 50%- Diet – 40%- Lifting – 10%

In The Gym

So recovery starts in the gym literally in between sets. You need to give yourself 1-2 minutes to recover from the set you just did (3-5 minutes for strength and powerlifters). Your body will be re-supplying chemicals to your muscles between sets. Make sure to drink water between sets or exercises. It’s bullshit when a coach pushes you to do something with little or no rest in between. That’s not how your body improves. You need the right amount of rest periods between these intense intervals and you need water. This is how you improve.

Breathing

Everyone has to breath. When working out you need to breath even more. It’s typical for lifting to have a rhythm of breathing matching your movement. Breath in before performing the lift, breath out as you’re lifting / doing the rep, breath out on the “negative” (Negative is the opposite or returning motion after performing a lift or exercise). Some exceptions to these where the exercise on the negative pushes on the core/lungs and the lift expands or removes the pressure (EG: Leg Press, side lateral raises).

Important to not hold your breath. I’ve had to yell at a lot bunch of people in high school who wouldn’t breath sometimes while benching or squatting. You will pass out or you won’t perform well at all.

Out of the Gym

Eat

I can’t go into all the details on how you should eat. At least not in this part. Dieting is a major factor in all this. Diet will determine how well you progress, how much muscle you can gain, how much fat you lose, your health and wellness, and more.

Diet is different from person to person and from goal to goal. I suggest anyone who’s serious about their goals should count and keep track of the calories and macronutrients they are taking in each day. Macronutrients are Proteins, Carbohydrates, and Fats. You need a combination of all three of those each day. Do not fall for the myth that carbs make you fat, or that fats are bad. You need essential fats for cells and more and carbs for energy.

Your calorie needs will depend on your resting metabolism + the calories you burn from your physical activity. You can calculate your metabolism with online calculators for a rough estimate. Lifting sessions are harder to judge, they can range from 300-400 calories in a session. Counting calories will be most important to lose fat and stay low on fat.

Having excess calories will not make your muscular gains better at all. You can make the same gains on a calorie deficient as you would on eating a ton of stuff.

****Do not be fooled by the ideas of bulking and cutting cycles. ****There is very little reason for most people to do these.

And Sleep

Your recovery mainly happens during REM sleep (Rapid Eye Movement sleep). As you’re sleeping, your body will be busy recovering and replenishing. For males, this is also the peak time of your body’s testosterone production.

I can not stress how important it is to get 2 full REM cycles of sleep every day. I say 2 cycles instead of 8 hours because not everyone sleeps a straight 8 hours. Some people experience 2 cycles of 4 hours REM cycles with a waking disruption in between.

Having a Goal

(And also your own personal drive and motivation to achieve that goal)

So I made this chart to show some good example body types with some simplified lifting goals. You want to lift right? What’s your motivation to lift and what are you trying to achieve? Don’t tell me “Weight Loss or gaining weight”. No, that’s an effect of lifting. When you get into lifting, you’re going for a goal physically. In that goal path, you doing sub-goals to help you achieve the your ultimate end goal. The chart above doesn’t mean you’re 100% clean cut into categories. There is a ton of overlap, overlapping goals, etc. Find a goal you want, use that as your motivation, and move on that goal. Your goal will be affected by your routine. While routine isn’t the majority of a lifting lifestyle, it will affect the kind of results you want. I’ll go into specific routines for some goals later on in this post.

Bodybuilder

A bodybuilder mainly cares about the size of their muscle. Whatever helps them achieve that, they’ll do it. While they prefer low bodyfat, some do cycles of bulking and cutting to maximize their muscle size gains when their appearance doesn’t matter. They typically spend the longest in the gym and go the most often during the week. A typical bodybuilder does not care about how much weight they are moving and many do not care about performing long endurance running.

A bodybuilder’s best friends in the gym are dumbbells, cables, and smith machines. They make up a majority of the lifts because of their isolation of the muscle groups.

Physique

Not that much different from a bodybuilder. They aim for a combination of athletic endurance performance and muscle size. They prefer to keep a very low body fat year long and once they reach a size they like, they try to maintain that size or look. Often athletes achieve this goal through typical lifting and active lifestyles.

You’ll want a mixture of compound and isolation exercises as well as bodyweight lifts.

Athlete

This person cares about performing 120% in a competition. Wrestlers, fighters, gymnasts, lacrosse players, etc. They want quick movement AND explosive power in one go. They keep up high endurance levels through constant cardio. They want to stay lean, but they aren’t looking to be too lean. A little body fat is desirable for athlete wanting to have consistent energy in a competition.

Compound lifts are key for strength. Athletes should do a lot of bodyweight exercises and core movement. Full body workouts work well here.

Powerlifter

One of the more unique ones and more simple to understand, powerlifters are anyone who is concerned about how much weight they move and their explosive energy. They lift very heavy and focus on compound exercises that work multiple muscle groups. Powerlifting is great for newer people because it gives a great understanding of the mind-muscle connection and focusing on how to do 100% on each set.

Compound lifts are king. Bench, Squat, Deadlift, etc. In my opinion a powerlifter should aim to increase the weight they can lift by at least 5 lbs per week. Full body workouts are best done here.

So did you pick a goal? You don’t have to spend a lot of time thinking about it. These goals are long term and take a very long time. You won’t accidently become a bodybuilder or powerlifter overnight, or even in a month. But by picking what you want to work towards will help you get a leg up on getting there and having the knowledge to move to the next level in lifting for that goal.

I’m gonna end this post here. I’m going to write posts on what to do about how to reach each goal, starting with the Bodybuilder and Physique goal(s), as this is something I have the most experience in. Below is a chart to keep in mind for if you’re impatient to start a routine now. I’ll be using this chart over and over again.

I also recommend you check out my [myths and misconceptions post]. Some quick knowledge things to get out of the way and not be a retarded lifter at the gym.

So here’s an update on me, summarized a bit.

I was having a very hard time during summer. The room I was living in was extremely hot. It’s mid summer, a computer (and NAS server) and poor air conditioning venting. I live on a diet of frozen pizzas, water, peanut butter and nutella sandwiches, and fruit cups. I didn’t feel very good, I wasn’t working, and my body was strained from lifting during the summer. My shoulder was strained and my wrists had a nerve pinch feeling, so I had to take weeks off at a time to heal. Maddening.

I’m back in school now, but not without difficulties. Apparently my school didn’t think I was returning this semester until I realized something was wrong with how I was being registered on the site and I had no housing.

Skip a week later, I’m living in a literal hotel room as a dorm. The school is doing construction on a new dorm and they knocked down an older dorm to build this new one. Well they put all the Freshmen (except me) into the on campus dorms and put all the mature senior students and ROTC cadet students into an off campus dorm that takes up 90% of this large 12 story Holiday Inn owned hotel.

Pros:

• Queen sized hotel bed with sheets- Comes with a large flat panel TV- At max, two people per room- Free parking for your car- Free shuttle transportation to the school- Mini fridge and microwave in the rooms- Key cards open my dorm room

Cons

• 15 minute walk from campus- The shuttles work usually on 30 minute intervals at the 15 and 45 of each hour. Inconvenient if you miss one.- There is no room to put stuff. I’m living in boxes on the side of my bed. No closet.- There is no Ethernet port. Only WiFi- Yes it is HOTEL WiFi. And hundreds of students are on it on their their god damn iPhones and PS4s and tablets. The internet speed is seriously worse than DSL. like 500Kbps Download and 1.2Kbps Upload- There is only one “desk” and it is a table with 2 chairs. Very uncomfortable for a desktop user.

The internet connection in this dorm was so bad, and on top of being a tedious trip back and forth from school, I went out to the local Best Buy, after researching laptops for 8 hours the night before, and purchased a laptop so I can stay on campus, on the on campus WiFi, which is faster. I’m also using it to take notes in classes too. I’m not spending $550 without using it to the max.

If you guys what to know what I got, it was [this laptop]. HP Pavilion x360, 13.3in, Intel i5-6200U, 8GB ram, 128GB SSD, 1080p screen (with touch).

I like it. I had a few requirements for a laptop

• 1080p screen that was vibrant (IPS)- quad core cpu- 6-8GB of ram- 13in size- 6-8 hours battery life- A full US keyboard (not like chromebooks that are missing a lot of keys like Home, End, Insert, Delete, etc)- Good build quality and little give- A keyboard that felt good

This fit the bill for it

So some lifestyle changes

First I’m going back out at the lacrosse team. Last semester I got taken out from a knee injury dealing with my tibia bones getting micro-fractures in the bone by my knees from my weight and lack of muscle support while running or sprinting. It took several months to heal. I’m here again this semester doing lacrosse conditioning. day 1 already happened and I had to sit out after sprints and half a practice and I started to have minor pain in my knees. I can’t rush the recovery. The condition and support muscles have to build up, but if I go to fast the bones will get injured again and it’ll take me out again. Luckily this is the conditioning season and not the playing season.

On top of that I’m doing Army ROTC. Buzzed my hair and I’m waking up at 5am for PT every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I’m aiming to be an Army officer for cyberwarfare. My major at school is for Cybersecurity and you need that major to get into that Army branch.

I now wake up Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 5am for PT and my schedule is packed with classes, lacrosse practice, and Tuesdays are dedicated almost entirely to ROTC classes/labs. Way different lifestyle but I feel good about it. Been able to live healthier from it on top of having a better diet from having access to the school dining hall.

I have free time between classes. I’ll be working on things, homework, assignments, and I’ll use some of the time to start posting more blog posts again. I’m having to change to my lifting setup drastically to accommodate lacrosse practice and lacrosse lifting. I’ll be writing about it maybe next week when I have it more figured out.

We got a few things:

• The name of the series (Discovery)- The name of the ship (Discovery)- The design of the ship’s exterior from the video- The registry number (NCC-1031)- Hints from the logo’s aesthetics possibly

So if you haven’t seen the teaser for the series, watch it below:

So now let’s break down what we know and apply it to Star Trek canon lore bullshit. I’m gonna explore how this teaser may reveal what era this series is in.

The ship’s name and registry

USS Discovery is a name that isn’t really used on any known Federation Starship. The exception is that there was a [Discovery NX-04] just after Enterprise NX-01, Columbia NX-02, and Challenger NX-03.

The name does show up in [Star Trek The Next Generation in an episode], but it has no registry number. So we have no real history on any previous ships in the series.

The registry number is NCC-1031. [Here is a list of all NCC registries.] NCC is used for almost all Starfleet starships after 2161. Nothing special here, 2161 is the founding of the Federation. NX is used for prototype and experimental ships after 2161. So this is a standard fleet ship and not something in an early stage of prototype or experimentation.

Being NCC-1031, which is a low registry number, may mean that the ship is an early era ship.

I would say the registry number puts it between year 2235 to 2255.

Here’s some relevant year numbers for multiple series:

• Enterprise – Enterprise NX-01 – 2151- TOS – USS Enterprise NCC-1701 – 2250s & 2265- TNG – USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D – 2363- DS9 – USS Defiant NX-74205 – 2370- VOY – USS Voyager NCC-74656 – 2371

USS Discovery’s Ship Design

USS Discovery has a pretty unique look going for it. But it has major design language hints to the era it’s supposed to be set in in the Star Trek universe.

The saucer section I think tells a lot. The design has a flat top and bottom for the post part and has sharp and flat angles on the sides. This is very similar to the Original Series era of Starfleet starship saucer designs.

To compare, here’s a chart of Enterprise NCC-1701 era ship designs.

Some more side views of other Starfleet ships

More TOS ship designs

Of all the ones I posted, check out these I picked out as being the MOST SIMILAR to the USS Discovery design language:

NCC-617, NCC-585, NCC-3201

They’re older style ships from the TOS and PRE-TOS era. Not all the same elements are gonna be the same. Some design standards have changed since these designs were originally drawn out for TOS.

NCC-617

NCC-585

NCC-3201

The USS Discovery has a very large array of impulse engines. They’re also colored blue, which is weird considering most impulse engines are colors red.

Voyager impulse engines

Klingon ship

Constitution Class (Enterprise 1701)

JJ Abrams Alt Timeline Constitution class (Enterprise 1701)

Defiant’s aft view (back), the red circles are the impulse engines

Enterprise 1701-D impulse engines in red

HOWEVER. The NX-01 had blue impulse engines and at least 4 of them.

Enterprise NX-01 impulse engines

The deflector design is strange. But it seems similar to the style Enterprise 1701-A had back in the 2260s with the refit. Afterwards, later ship designs had more oval and wide deflectors.

USS Enterprise NCC-1701-A

USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D

USS Voyager NCC-74656

USS Defiant NX-74205

It’s strange though. This seems very much like a Klingon ship design with it’s sharp angles and triangular aesthetic. Specifically a Klingon cruiser. Like the D-33 Heavy Cruiser or D-4 Cruiser.

The Logo

Let’s take a look at the Discovery series logo and then some Star Trek series logos. See which ones seem familiar in style.

Discovery

The Original Series (TOS)

The Next Generation (TNG)

Deep Space Nine (DS9)

Voyager (VOY)

Enterprise (ENT)

JJ Abrams Reboot movies

Star Trek Beyond movie logo

I don’t know about you guys but the new logo is very similar to the Original Series Star Trek logo (and the TOS reboot alternative timeline movies).

I mention the JJ Abram alternative timeline only because it has modernized Star Trek The original Series designs in it. But the writers said it will not take place in the alternative timeline of the rebooted movies. But the logo style oozes The Original Series era aesthetic.

Ralph McQuarrie design

Films involving Ralph McQuarrie

Someone showed me these two images below as I was writing this post. Looks like the Star Trek Discovery design is based on concept art for Star Trek Planet of the Titans by Ralph McQuarrie. Ralph is known for designing the ships in Star Wars.

USS Enterprise concept painting by Ralph McQuarrie

USS Enterprise study model

B-24-CLN study model

The Enterprise study model is seen in [Season 5 Episodes 7 of TNG in the Surplus Depot Z15]. It is shown in wreckage and abandoned old ships.

AND ALSO in an Earth Space dock during the movie [Star Trek III: the Search for Spock].

Conclusion

So here’s my summary, take, and prediction from the teaser.

Star Trek Discovery takes place on the Starfleet Starship USS Discovery NCC-1031 during the 23rd century around 2240-2255 in the [main Prime Universe timeline] before Captain James T Kirk captain’s the USS Enterprise NCC-1701.

The name doesn’t mean much, but I feel giving the ship the name “Discovery” means it’s an exploration vessel and not “militaristic” in design. No military specific designed ships were really ever made by Starfleet until the USS Defiant NX-74205 during Deep Space 9.

However, the ship’s design looks pretty militaristic with it’s Klingon aesthetics. We’ll have to wait until January to find out I suppose.

This news just appeared as I was writing this. Prime universe confirmed. Show’s initials are "DSC". (Update from the future: We call Discovery "DIS")

It’s important, in my opinion, to understand that a routine isn’t just a list of motions to do. It’s almost a lifestyle you perform in and out of the gym. You can’t just go – “Oh give me your routine.” and copy another successful person’s lifting routine. You need to understand why and how to do the routine correctly too.

For these first few posts, I will go over my routine in the gym. Third post now…

Wednesday and Saturday – Legs and Abs (Leg Day)

I split my lifting days into 2 split sets of 3 days, Monday – Saturday, 6 days at the gym. The third day of the set is Legs and Abs which I do every Wednesday and Saturday. I go for about 1.5 hours.

Here’s a quick overview of how today looks for me:

• ****Leg Press ****– 4-6 sets x 12-30 reps- Alternative or Additional lift: Squats (Barbell + Squat Rack — You should have 2 spotters) [Alternative does not replace Leg Press, put Leg Press somewhere else]- ****Ab Torso Rotation Machine ****– 4 sets x 10-14 reps- Alternative Exercise: Weighted Floor Oblique Twist- ****Leg Extensions ****– 4 sets x 10-14 reps- ****Leg Curls ****– 4 sets x 10-14 reps- ****Calf Raises ****– 4 sets x 10-14 reps- ****Seated Ab Crunch ****– 4 sets x 10-14 reps- Alternative or Additional Exercises: Weighted Decline Crunches, Hanging Leg Lifts- I do not do HITT Cardio on this day. If you’re able to walk out of the gym without looking funny, you didn’t do leg day well enough. You definitely shouldn’t be doing or able to do cardio.)

That’s what a Wednesday and Saturday lift day looks like to me. Read on more for the details, I recommend doing so ->

The muscle groups for this split day

Leg day will work…the Legs. That includes Quads (Front Leg Muscles Labeled Rectus Femoris and Vastus Medialis), Hamstrings, Glutes, Calves, Abs, Obliques.

Please don’t skip leg day. You’ll look silly with small legs on a built body. Your legs should match.

I chose to do Legs on my third day and dedicated almost entirely to Legs. Legs are over half of your body. And if you count in that we’re doing core (abs) then that’s a lot of the body to do.

In my opinion it doesn’t take as many lifts to target legs and abs. Additionally your legs should fatigue easier if you’re lifting with decent intensity.

For many people, Legs are the most painful muscles to workout. People resist the pain and won’t push themselves past the pain thresholds to make progress. Do not falter in your Leg Day lifts from the pain.

Sets and Reps (and the warm ups)

Notice how I do at least 4 sets for each exercise. What I do for every exercise is I do about 30% less weight on my first set and pump out 14-20 reps. It doesn’t matter to me if I am fatigued or not at the end. I want to get the blood flowing into the muscles before I start. The blood flow will allow me to 1. Lift more 2. Recover faster (even start recovery between sets).

The mystical Pump Arnold talks about has other benefits besides feeling really good. More blood flow helps get nutrients to the muscle to recover between sets and the long term recovery. Recovery is the key to fitness. A muscle’s recovery starts as soon as your set is done. To help with getting the most out of my sets, the warm up set gets my muscles ready to take on the heavy load and recover faster.

Each set, I aim to do 10-14 reps. This means I am not lifting 100% of what I can do. In fact it’s not even 80% of what I can more. Hypertrophy happens best at higher reps between 8-14 reps. So I use whatever weight I can use to make sure I stay in that range. But I always do as many reps as I can put out. I always go to failure basically. If I hit 10, I hit 10. If I hit 8, I hit 8. But I shouldn’t be going below 10 before Set 2 & 3. That means it’s too heavy. I want to touch on this on a later section. It’s important.

I take a certain amount of rest between sets. Most recommend 1min between sets. I do 1 1/2 minutes. This gives my muscles ample time to go a good full round next and enough blood to flow around. If I wait too soon, I feel I am not rested enough to take on the next set with the amount of reps I want to do.

Specific to Leg Day: Always always always do a light weight warm up on Leg Press or Squats (or Deadlifts). You need to warm up and do light weight motion before going heavy. And I suggest you gradually ramp it up.

Separating the lifts

I don’t know if you noticed, but I do each exercise basically in isolated groups. I give time for a muscle group to rest before working it again in the same session. But that’s not all I do. The very first lift I do at the gym will be my main and biggest lift, always. It takes the most energy and it is the most demanding lift of the night so I need to do it first or I won’t be able to do it well at all.

So here we have first exercise being Leg Press. This is my main focused lift of the session and the most demanding one. Then the second lift is not a leg exercise, I do an abs exercise then to give my legs some recovery time before going to the focused lifts later.

But for Leg day, I’m honestly NOT worried about the order or alternating of exercises or muscle groups. It really doesn’t matter that much on this day. But if you can, try to put a buffer between Leg Press and the next Leg lift.

Why I chose these specific exercises and tips on doing them

NOTE: I am still refining and tweaking this routine. It is very easy to swap out these lifts for other lifts. But I am satisfied with my progress on it so far and any Starter or Intermediate or even an early Advanced lifter could benefit from it most likely.

Alternative FIRST Lift: Squats (only if you can get 2 spotters)

****Leg Press ****– Leg Press is one of the best leg day workouts. In my opinion it can completely replace the Squat as the main lift entirely. It also benefits people who go to the gym on their own since you don’t need a spotter like Squats do. But for some reason I see people do really dumb things on Leg Press. Please do NOT do more weight than you can actually do. Your motion on the Leg press machine should be from a fully extended leg position to ALL THE WAY DOWN to where your knees are in your chest and the press is practically at the lowest it can be, and you push it all the way back up. People don’t do this and also think they can load the Leg press machine up with a dozen full plates. I have pretty strong legs, I’m not a powerlifter though. But I start at 2 45lb plates on each side and I go to a MAX of 4-5 45lb plates on each side (total of 8-10 plates max).

We’re not here to do a ton of weight and you shouldn’t be doing it either. We want to have a decent amount of weight, ramp that weight up to a capped limit, and pump out 4-6 SETS with 12-30 REPS. You heard me. 30 REPS. We want to ideally hit that even at our top weight cap. The cap is something you’re going to have to figure out. But don’t also think you have to cap the leg press at 10 plates. If you can do 30 reps with 10 plates at full range of motion by set 4 or 5, go ahead, increase the plates. But to be fair, if you’re that strong, why are you reading my guide? :^)

Ab Torso Rotation Machine – I choose this next because it is a good way to get some rest in after blasting legs on leg press. Ab Rotation targets mainly the Obliques.

****Leg Extensions ****– Leg Extensions are an isolation leg machine lift for the quads. Adjust the seating to where your knees stick out, grab the handles, and push your legs up on the bar until they are FULLY extended and up and hold the top for a second and release. For me Leg Extensions are one of the most painful lifts I do all week because of the amount of lactic acid that gets built up doing this exercise. Don’t let it stop you from doing it fully.

Leg Curls – Leg Curls are an isolate leg lift for the hamstrings in the back of the leg thigh. People seem to forget they exist despite them be quite large. There are two machines that do this. One is very similar to the Leg Extension machine where you sit down on it. The other is one where you lay down on your stomach on the machine. I find the second one awkward to use but that’s a personal thing.

Calf Raises – There’s two different machines at gyms to do these on. One is a seated calf raise bench that uses weight plates. The other is usually one you stand on and put your shoulders under a raised padding and you lift your body up on your toes to extend the calfs. Same motion, one is standing vs seated. Honestly I prefered the results from the seated calf raises with the plates. But I don’t always have a choice. Make sure to go all the way up on the balls of your feet and hold it for 1-2 seconds and then slowly come down and go PAST the neutral level to where the heel of your foot is now below your toes. This is your resting position. Your feet should not be apart more than the width of your shoulders.

Seated Ab Crunch – Good way to finish up the session is to do weighted ab crunches. I don’t care if you use a machine like pictured or get on a declined bench and hold onto a 45lb weight on your chest.

You should treat your abs like any other muscle group. That means giving it resistance with weight, sets, reps, and a couple days of rest.

Closing Thoughts

Let me explain something about my Leg Day. In the 4 years I have been actively and seriously training, I have only been doing Leg Day for about 8 months of those 4 years (In 2016, when I started my semester at the University, I started to do Leg Day). Yeah I was a Leg Day skipper.

So my routine for Leg Day is very far from perfect. I have a very confident approach to how my first 2 split days are done and what lifts to do and how my body reacts to those lifts. On Leg Day, it is still in a prototype stage for me. But I am happy with how my legs have grown in those 8 months. This is still a very effective routine for anyone. But an Advanced or Amateur Professional Lifter would probably not see it as well planned.

I don’t do Squats mostly because I do not have a spotter at all. I go to the gym alone so Leg Press is my perfect alternative.

One exercise I am considering adding in is Deadlifts or an alternative to deadlifts. I don’t do anything for my lower back. It’s not a major issue but it is neglected.

Abs aren’t that important to me, but I want to either replace an Ab exercise or add on an Ab exercise with Hanging Leg Lifts. Ab exercises are not too important. You should work them out like normal muscles, but their primary visibility is from low body fat. But athletes should do Ab/Core exercises often, the strong cores are important for athletes.

Some of my explanations or tips for the lifts may be lacking in words. They’re mostly machine motions. They’re hard to mess up. You’ll also notice that people unfamiliar with lifting right use these machines often. They’re that easy.

Done

That concludes this blog post about my lifting routine on Split Day 3. I’ll soon be writing up about Dieting and Supplementation, and one more on Advanced lifting details/mindsets. There’s other stuff I’ll get into too maybe like a Beginner’s/Starter Lifter guide, my experience from moving from Intermediate lifting to Advanced lifting, and more.

These things take time to type up, they are very long, and there is a lot of information to convey. I won’t be able to link in the individual studies and research parts for every why so don’t come to my blog posts expecting BioLayne Norton level PhD discussions on why I do a certain thing. But details do matter, so I will try to explain as much as possible and try to remember the details as I go.

Thanks for reading this post, I’ll get more out as soon as I can and I hope your lifting improves from what I have learned and shared.

It’s important, in my opinion, to understand that a routine isn’t just a list of motions to do. It’s almost a lifestyle you perform in and out of the gym. You can’t just go – “Oh give me your routine.” and copy another successful person’s lifting routine. You need to understand why and how to do the routine correctly too.

For these first few posts, I will go over my routine in the gym. Second post now…

Tuesday and Friday – Biceps, Back & Lats, Forearms, Traps

I split my lifting days into 2 split sets of 3 days, Monday – Saturday, 6 days at the gym. The second day of the set is Biceps, Back and Lats, Forearms, and Traps which I do every Tuesday and Friday. I go for about 1.5 – 2 hours.

Here’s a quick overview of how today looks for me:

• ****Preacher Curls (EZ Bar) ****– 4 sets x 10-14 reps- ****Wide Grip Lat Pulldowns ****– 4 sets x 10-14 reps- ****Dumbbell Shrugs ****– 4 sets x 10-14 reps- ****Hammer Curls ****– 4 sets x 10-14 reps- ****Dumbbell Bicep Curls (Standing) ****– 4 sets x 10-14 reps- ****Seated Lat Row ****– 4 sets x 10-14 reps- Forearm Curls (Dumbbells Standing) – 4 sets x 10-14 reps- ****Forearm Extensions (Barbell Seated) ****– 4 sets x 10-14 reps- ****Lat Pullovers (Seated Machine) ****– 4 sets x 10-14 reps- ****Alternative: Standing Front Lat Pushdowns (Wide Grip Bar) ****– 4 sets x 10-14 reps- HIIT Cardio – 15-20mins (Optional, very good for cutting fat with little muscle loss)

That’s what a Tuesday and Friday lift day looks like to me. Read on more for the details, I highly recommend doing so ->

The muscle groups for this split day

I specifically chose to have Biceps, Back and Lats, Forearms, and Traps all on day 2 of my split because they share 2 similar things.

• They are similar working groups. When you do back exercises, you’re also working out the biceps AND forearms. When you do shrugs for traps, your forearms are in heavy play. It makes sense to pair these muscles together to work them out and have them recover at the same time.- They are all categorized as PULL exercises. Every single exercise I listed above requires my muscles to PULL In. This compares to the PUSH day, which is on Day 1. My previous post went over that.

This is the “show off” muscles day

Sets and Reps (and the warm ups)

Notice how I do at least 4 sets for each exercise. What I do for every exercise is I do about 30% less weight on my first set and pump out 14-20 reps. It doesn’t matter to me if I am fatigued or not at the end. I want to get the blood flowing into the muscles before I start. The blood flow will allow me to 1. Lift more 2. Recover faster (even start recovery between sets).

The mystical Pump Arnold talks about has other benefits besides feeling really good. More blood flow helps get nutrients to the muscle to recover between sets and the long term recovery. Recovery is the key to fitness. A muscle’s recovery starts as soon as your set is done. To help with getting the most out of my sets, the warm up set gets my muscles ready to take on the heavy load and recover faster.

Each set, I aim to do 10-14 reps. This means I am not lifting 100% of what I can do. In fact it’s not even 80% of what I can more. Hypertrophy happens best at higher reps between 8-14 reps. So I use whatever weight I can use to make sure I stay in that range. But I always do as many reps as I can put out. I always go to failure basically. If I hit 10, I hit 10. If I hit 8, I hit 8. But I shouldn’t be going below 10 before Set 2 & 3. That means it’s too heavy. I want to touch on this on a later section. It’s important.

I take a certain amount of rest between sets. Most recommend 1min between sets. I do 1 1/2 minutes. This gives my muscles ample time to go a good full round next and enough blood to flow around. If I wait too soon, I feel I am not rested enough to take on the next set with the amount of reps I want to do.

Separating the lifts

I don’t know if you noticed, but I do each exercise basically in isolated groups. I give time for a muscle group to rest before working it again in the same session. But that’s not all I do. The very first lift I do at the gym will be my main and biggest lift, always. It takes the most energy and it is the most demanding lift of the night so I need to do it first or I won’t be able to do it well at all.

So here we have first exercise being Preacher Curls (EZ Bar). This is my main focused lift of the night and the most demanding one. Then the second lift is not a bicep exercise, I do a Back/Lats exercise now. And I also pick back vs forearms or traps because if I did forearms before back or even traps, the forearms is going to be affected by this fatigue and my grip will be reduced for the rest of the night.

Bicep -> Back/Lat -> Forearm or Traps -> Bicep (repeat)

This goes back to giving rest and recovery time. We’re staggering what muscles we workout to get the most out of our 1-2 hours of lifting.

Why I chose these specific exercises and tips on doing them

NOTE: I am still refining and tweaking this routine. It is very easy to swap out these lifts for other lifts. But I am satisfied with my progress on it so far and any Starter or Intermediate or even an early Advanced lifter could benefit from it most likely.

Alternative FIRST Lift: Pull Ups – If you can do 10-14 pull ups, do them before even Preacher Curls.

Preacher Curls (EZ Bar) – Preacher Curls are the meat and potatoes of my bicep session. They are the most demanding and my main focus so it goes first. I choose Preacher Curls over Standing Barbell Curls because Preacher Curls give more isolation to the biceps and reduces cheating on the movement. This can be helpful for others who can’t seem to grasp the feeling of NOT incorporating other muscles on Barbell Curls, not that I’m one of them, but I prefer getting the strict isolation in here. There is a debatable downside though, some say the inclined surface reduces the motion range at the bottom and or the gravity tension at the top. I think those issues are bullshit though. Preachers have given me the most immediate results for me.

Don’t sit back so much, I think leaning forward is best so you can go ALL the way down on the decline motion. Bring the bar up to the top and squeeze and hold it there for 1 second and then slowly go back down. Keep your grip somewhat close. Either at shoulder length or closer. The wide EZ bar grips will hurt your forearms too much.

Alternative Lift: Barbell Curls (Standing)

Wide Grip Lat Pulldowns – Wide Grip Lat Pulldowns are especially good if you aren’t able to do many Pull Ups. But these are great for even when you can do pull ups, you can easily do even more weight than your body weight at these machines. They also really focus on your lats very well. In my opinion, these are the main lat exercise and give me the best results.

You need to make sure you do these with great form. Keep your lower back straight and bend your middle and upper back backwards so your chest starts facing the ceiling. You’re not just doing a straight Pull Up like motion, you’re facing up at the ceiling a bit and bringing the bar down to your chest. And no you don’t have to touch your chest to the bar, but you need to get close and let it stick there for half a second to a second.

Alternative Lift: Pull Ups or Weighted Pull Ups (Do these first and instead shift the routine around or add another back lift here)

Dumbbell Shrugs – Shrugs get the traps. Traps don’t need a lot of work really. I seriously ONLY do one lift for them. I do Dumbbell shrugs instead of Barbell or Trap bar because it’s easy and convenient. But I do feel the trap bar is the best overall. When I max out the Dumbbell weight, I will have to use the trap bar shrugs. But until then, I’m doing Dumbbell Shrugs. Bonus, dumbbell shrugs are great for forearms too.

Make sure to not focus on any specific facing side to shrug. Just neutral stance, up and down. And you should be at the maximum part of your shrug at the top and hold it for a second. I don’t know why I had to tell someone once to shrugs ALL THE WAY UP. I couldn’t imagine why they would think to only go until they felt tension and not the maximum range of motion. And whatever you do, don’t you dare drop those dumbbells. I don’t care if you can hardly hold them at the end of your set, put them back on the rack or gently on the ground until you’re ready for the next set.

Alternative Lift: Trap Bar Shrugs or Barbell Shrugs

Hammer Curls – Every bicep routine should have Hammer Curls. If you flex your bicep right now and then moved your hand into a hammer use position, you’ll see and or feel that the muscles being used are different. We want to get these other muscles that normal curls will not get. Hammer Curls will add a lot of mass to your arms.

When I do this lift, instead of alternating the arms, I curl both arms at the same time. It felt more natural and it prevents me from cheating by keeping my hands facing straight. You do not have to do this. But do not do the lift in front of my chest. Imagine you’re lifting up a hammer to hammer a nail. The motion is the same.

Dumbbell Bicep Curls (Standing) – Very cliche lift, but it is very good AND easy to mess up. Stand straight up and keep your back straight the entire time. Do not lean back or rock. You are cheating the lift. The alternating can be hard to keep count. I start with my right arm first (1 – Odd) then left (2 – Even). The number I count to is 2x what I should be aiming to lift. It being odd or even refers to either my right or left hand respectively. Just make sure to keep things EQUAL. If you do the right arm and only finish the rep HALFWAY, you need to do the left arm too and go HALFWAY at least. If you don’t do this, you’ll lose symmetry in both physical size and strength.

Alternative Lift: Concentration Curls or Over the Bench (Preacher Like) Dumbbell Curls

Concentration Curls are very good and you can do them instead of the standing dumbbell curls. But you need to make extra sure you don’t cheat, this is supposed to be an isolation exercise. My recommendation is also placing the opposite hand under the curling elbow to lock it in place.

Seated Lat Row – This lift comes in multiple forms. There are seated cable rows, seated weight plate row machines, and seated row machines (sitting up against a pad). I don’t care which one you pick if you have the options. Pick what you like to do. I prefer the Seated Cable Row Machine I can slide on 45lb weight plates on with flexible grip handles. I’d LOVE to show you what it looks like but I can’t find a picture of one of these plate machines at all.

But that’s okay, you can use cable or the regular machines, they’re just as good. Keep your back straight, as always, and imagine you’re rowing a boat (and the water is made of rubber cement lol).

Forearm Curls (Dumbbells Standing) – These are really simple to do. I like these over other forearm exercises cause of the range of motion. Holding the dumbbells while standing also works the forearms in general. Stand with dumbbells at your side like you’re doing the Dumbbell Shrugs. Now just curl your wrists in and hold them at the top for a second and release down. And if you want to burn them out, instead of putting the dumbbells down at the end of the reps, when you can’t do more reps, just hold onto the dumbbells as long as you can. Now you’re doing a Farmer’s Carry too! Then put them down and rest.

Alternative Lift: Farmers Carry

Forearm Extensions (Barbell Seated) – I call these Extensions. Others call them Palms Down Wrist Curls. Extensions is more accurate to me. You can do these over a bench or sit on a bench and use your knees to place your wrists on. These work the outer forearms and will finish up your forearms.

Lat Pullovers (Seated Machine) – I like to finish the night off with Lat Pullovers. These are hard to do as the machines to do this motion are not that common. Luckily my Gold’s Gym has 2 actually. I do not recommend the variant on a bench lifting a barbell or dumbbell, it won’t be as effective and you could just instead do the Standing Front Lat Pushdowns instead and get better results.

Alternative Lift: Standing Front Lat Pushdown (Wide Grip Bar)

These are actually really good, definitely recommend it for others to swap out Pullovers for these instead if they like the lift better or more convenient. I may actually be switching to these soon to see how they work for me.

HIIT Cardio post-workout

Okay, you just spent an hour and a half doing a great lifting session. If you have time, and you feel like cutting down fat, you can add in a 15-20min HIIT Cardio session IMMEDIATELY after your last exercise.

A HIIT Cardio session after lifting is one of the best ways to shred fat without your body losing muscle mass. Normal cardio sessions will eat away at your muscles gains. Cardio is BAD for keeping muscle. But HIIT (and Sprints, which is a type of HIIT) are good. Don’t do HIIT before lifting. It will not work well and you’ll reduce your energy levels needed for lifting at your maximum performance.

Do 15-20 minutes of very intense cardio. It can be a stairclimber, high tension stationary bike, sprints, or full on 20 minutes of running. I don’t care. But it has to be 15-20 minutes STRAIGHT of non-stop high intensity cardio.

Done

That concludes this blog post about my lifting routine on Split Day 2. I’ll soon be writing up about Split Day 3, Dieting and Supplementation, and one more on Advanced lifting details/mindsets. There’s other stuff I’ll get into too maybe like a Beginner’s/Starter Lifter guide, my experience from moving from Intermediate lifting to Advanced lifting, and more.

These things take time to type up, they are very long, and there is a lot of information to convey. I won’t be able to link in the individual studies and research parts for every why so don’t come to my blog posts expecting BioLayne Norton level PhD discussions on why I do a certain thing. But details do matter, so I will try to explain as much as possible and try to remember the details as I go.

Thanks for reading this post, I’ll get another out as soon as I can and I hope your lifting improves from what I have learned and shared.

It’s important, in my opinion, to understand that a routine isn’t just a list of motions to do. It’s almost a lifestyle you perform in and out of the gym. You can’t just go – “Oh give me your routine.” and copy another successful person’s lifting routine. You need to understand why and how to do the routine correctly too.

For these first few posts, I will go over my routine in the gym. Starting with…

Monday and Thursday – Chest, Triceps, and Delts

I split my lifting days into 2 split sets of 3 days, Monday – Saturday, 6 days at the gym. The first day of the set is Chest, Triceps, and Delts which I do every Monday and Thursday. I go for about 1.5 – 2 hours.

Here’s a quick overview of how today looks for me:

• ****Incline Dumbbell Chest Press ****– 4 sets x 10-14 reps- ****Skullcrushers ****– 4 sets x 10-14 reps- ****Rear Delt Flyes ****– 4 sets x 10-14 reps- ****Butterfly Machine (Pec Flyes) ****– 4 sets x 10-14 reps- ****Tricep Pushdown ****– 4 sets x 10-14 reps- ****Delt Side Lateral Raise ****– 4 sets x 10-14 reps- Front Dumbbell Raise – 4 sets x 10-14 reps- Cable Crossover – 4 sets x 10-14 reps- HIIT Cardio – 15-20mins (Optional, very good for cutting fat with little muscle loss)

That’s what a Monday and Thursday lift day looks like to me. Read on more for the details, I highly recommend doing so ->

The muscle groups for the split day

I specifically chose to have Chest, Triceps, and Delts all on day 1 of my split because they share 2 similar things.

• They are similar working groups. When you do chest, you work your triceps and or your shoulders (delts) in too. Same for Triceps. The shoulders are most used on a Chest day so it makes sense to put them in on this day too.- They are all categorized as PUSH days. Every single exercise I listed above requires my muscles to PUSH out. This compares to the PULL day, which is Day 2. Next post will go over that.

Sets and Reps (and the warm ups)

Notice how I do at least 4 sets for each exercise. What I do for every exercise is I do about 30% less weight on my first set and pump out 14-20 reps. It doesn’t matter to me if I am fatigued or not at the end. I want to get the blood flowing into the muscles before I start. The blood flow will allow me to 1. Lift more 2. Recover faster (even start recovery between sets).

The mystical Pump Arnold talks about has other benefits besides feeling really good. More blood flow helps get nutrients to the muscle to recover between sets and the long term recovery. Recovery is the key to fitness. A muscle’s recovery starts as soon as your set is done. To help with getting the most out of my sets, the warm up set gets my muscles ready to take on the heavy load and recover faster.

Each set, I aim to do 10-14 reps. This means I am not lifting 100% of what I can do. In fact it’s not even 80% of what I can more. Hypertrophy happens best at higher reps between 8-14 reps. So I use whatever weight I can use to make sure I stay in that range. But I always do as many reps as I can put out. I always go to failure basically. If I hit 10, I hit 10. If I hit 8, I hit 8. But I shouldn’t be going below 10 before Set 2 & 3. That means it’s too heavy. I want to touch on this on a later section. It’s important.

I take a certain amount of rest between sets. Most recommend 1min between sets. I do 1 1/2 minutes. This gives my muscles ample time to go a good full round next and enough blood to flow around. If I wait too soon, I feel I am not rested enough to take on the next set with the amount of reps I want to do.

Separating the lifts

I don’t know if you noticed, but I do each exercise basically in isolated groups. I give time for a muscle group to rest before working it again in the same session. But that’s not all I do. The very first lift I do at the gym will be my main and biggest lift, always. It takes the most energy and it is the most demanding lift of the night so I need to do it first or I won’t be able to do it well at all.

So here we have first exercise being Incline Dumbbell Chest Press. This is my main focused lift of the night and the most demanding one. Then the second lift is not a chest exercise, I do a tricep exercise now. And I also pick tricep vs delt because if I did triceps before chest, the chest is going to be affected by this fatigue.

Chest -> Tricep -> Delt -> Chest (repeat)

This goes back to giving rest and recovery time. We’re staggering what muscles we workout to get the most out of our 1-2 hours of lifting.

Why I chose these specific exercises

Incline Dumbbell Chest Press – You will not believe how people ignore their upper chest. The upper chest is half of the muscle on your chest and the size of it make make or break your physique. Incline Dumbbell Press will help develop the upper chest and your shoulders in one go.

Skullcrushers – It is my belief that skullcrushers are in the top 2 best tricep exercises. Make sure you do these the RIGHT WAY. Do not listen to a bunch of small personal trainers who say you shouldn’t bring the bar to your face. NO. These guys have small triceps and don’t know shit. Bring the bar, while keeping your elbows in around the same spot, bring the bar down to your FACE (your eyes) and back up again. If you can’t get it back up again, just hold the bar at your face, don’t let go. Now rock yourself back up and push the bar up at the same time like a bench press.

Rear Delt Flyes – This is real simple to do. These hit your delts on the backside of your shoulder. This shouldn’t really be a back exercise but it is all in that area. But whatever. There’s gray areas. This exercise goes great just before the next exercise because it’s usually the same machine that does the Chest Flyes too.

Chest Flyes Machine (Butterfly) – I prefer a machine that has handles with fully extended arms and not the pads you put your forearms on. This, in my opinion, gets your chest better. And really I don’t care if you use cables for this, the motion counts. From what I understand, the chest really builds well with across chest squeezing motions, not pushing motions. Pushing is the triceps for at least half of that push. The end of a push is done by the Serratus muscles. But a Pec Fly motion gets the chest and gets it well. This is by far my favorite lift to do all week. Your elbows do not have to locked and arms completely straight for this. You don’t want your arms to go back too far either. It isn’t helping your chest when the bar comes too far back. Even at chest level it may be too far back. Smash out as many of these as you can and hold the squeeze at the bottom for 1 second before releasing back. At the last set, when you’re completely done, IMMEDIATELY turn around, change the weight to the WARM UP weight and smash out as many more reps as you can. Now you’re done.

Tricep Pushdown – I said skullcrushers were top 2, this is the other exercise in that top 2 lifts for triceps. This exercise got me the most gains in my triceps compared to any other lift. But this is another one that you can mess up very easily! You want to stand fairly straight up and for me I bend my knees and wait a little. The very top of this lift, my elbows are tucked in at my sides/lats, but not forced there. My hands allow the bar to come up all the way. Then in a single motion, I use only my triceps to push the bar down. Do not use your body weight to push it down. Do not use your lats to push it down. At the bottom, your arms should be FULLY extended and your triceps completely flexed/squeezed. Hold it for 1 second and slowly come back the other direction.

I like to use a V shape handle bar for this. Others like to use the rope handles or just a straight bar. Pick what you want. The angle may affect what part of the tricep is worked out the most but this is negligible. And because this exercise is done so poorly by people, I am posting a video along with it. Yes it it that hard for me to find a gif of someone doing this the right way.

Delt Side Lateral Raise – I had a hard time getting delts to grow. This year I changed to do delt side lateral raises and I haven’t regretted it. I finally have delts coming in! These are fairly simple to do. In my opinion, they work the delts better than a shoulder press would. It does for me at least. Don’t be fooled into think you need a ton of weight for this. But don’t be fooled into doing too little weight. It’s easy for this exercise to fatigue the muscle with much less than what you can actually do at 10 reps. Experiment until you feel comfortable that you hit the sweet spot of weight to reps. I like to reverse my breathing from OUT on the Push and IN on the inverse to breathing IN when I bring the dumbbells out and OUT when the dumbbells come back down. Your lungs have a harder time expanding and contracting the opposite way. It’ll feel more comfortable this way. This lift will work the main/bulk of your deltoids. This is the mass gainer for them.

Front Dumbbell Raise – Now I do something different in the order. Instead of letting my delts rest and the blood flow out, I immediately (after a rest period of course) go to Front Dumbbell Raises from The Lateral Raises. I’m almost done with my session and I want to finish it off on Chest. The delts will be completely fatigued though so I want to do these before the blood flows out of the delts. I usually don’t even use a different weight for these either. These will work the front of the delts.

This picture is not the exercise being described, only showing the muscle group of the FRONT DELTS

Cable Crossover – I love to finish chest day on this. Great finisher and way to push out what’s left. It also targets the lower pectoral muscles on your chest better than most other exercises. And again we’re getting that chest squeeze and not the push here.

You want to come out from the starting positions a little, have one step forward, and lean forward a bit. You don’t want your arms to come out perpendicular to your body, aim your arms to where it’s like you’re doing a Most Muscular flex to show off. This where you’ll hit the lower chest muscles best. Do as much as you can and hold the squeeze at the bottom for 1 second before releasing back. At the last set, when you’re completely done, IMMEDIATELY turn around, change the weight to the WARM UP weight and smash out as many more reps as you can. Now you’re done.

HIIT Cardio post-workout

Okay, you just spent an hour and a half doing a great chest session. If you have time, and you feel like cutting down fat, you can add in a 15-20min HIIT Cardio session IMMEDIATELY after your last exercise.

A HIIT Cardio session after lifting is one of the best ways to shred fat without your body losing muscle mass. Normal cardio sessions will eat away at your muscles gains. Cardio is BAD for keeping muscle. But HIIT (and Sprints, which is a type of HIIT) are good. Don’t do HIIT before lifting. It will not work well and you’ll reduce your energy levels needed for lifting at your maximum performance.

Do 15-20 minutes of very intense cardio. It can be a stairclimber, high tension stationary bike, sprints, or full on 20 minutes of running. I don’t care. But it has to be 15-20 minutes STRAIGHT of non-stop high intensity cardio.

Done

That concludes this blog post about my lifting routine on Split Day 1. I’ll be writing up about Split Day 2, Split Day 3, Dieting and Supplementation, and one more on Advanced lifting details/mindsets. There’s other stuff I’ll get into too maybe like a Beginner’s/Starter Lifter guide, my experience from moving from Intermediate lifting to Advanced lifting, and more.

These things take time to type up, they are very long, and there is a lot of information to convey. I won’t be able to link in the individual studies and research parts for every why so don’t come to my blog posts expecting BioLayne Norton level PhD discussions on why I do a certain thing. But details do matter, so I will try to explain as much as possible and try to remember the details as I go.

Thanks for reading this post, I’ll get another out as soon as I can and I hope your lifting improves from what I have learned and shared.

Some of these are common and widespread to be known as complete bullshit. Some are less known and they took either experience to realize or reading through medical research information. I’m not a very organized writer so whatever order these come in has no significance.

Toning – There is no such thing as toning. It is bullshit.

Your body does two things really during exercise. You gain or lose muscle. You gain or lose fat. Now there is different types of Muscle fibers but they don’t affect anything. Toning or getting toned is a made up word. If you want to get what people consider “toned”, you have to lose fat. Doing really lightweight and super high reps to “tone” won’t really do that.

Speaking of fat loss.

Fat in Food (Reducing Fat consumption) – This isn’t how your body works. When you eat Fat, it doesn’t magically turn into fat when you eat it. Your body works by Calories In and Calories Out. Protein, Carbs, and Fats make up these calories. Taking in too much protein will turn into fat. I’m not going to go into a whole chemical lesson on how this all works, maybe in another post. But do NOT reduce Fat intake with the idea it helps you lose weight. It is important to have an intake of Proteins, Carbohydrates, and Fats every day. You need to take in certain fats to be healthy and additionally Fats help you feel full after eating. There is other positives too. But remember this. With that said.

Carbs in Food (Reducing Carbs) – Again, this isn’t how your body works. Carbs (complex sugar molecules) are necessary for your body’s energy and other functions. Please take in a balanced nutrition of Proteins, Carbs, and Fats everyday. Reducing any of these is not good for you or healthy.

Carb Loading – This is more of a thing for professional and competing bodybuilders. You won’t believe the bullshit broscience that these PROFESSIONAL athletes buy into. One thing they believe is that by taking in little to no carbs for a week or two, your muscles will look more define and bigger or something. This is actually not true and in studies on this exact idea, it was proven to be bullshit. It affects these bodybuilder’s health to where some collapse on stage. After a show they’ll eat a ton of food and notice a day or two later how they look even better and bigger than their competition physique.

Calorie Intake – I’m going to say that if you’re eating less than 1600 calories a day, you’re doing something wrong. I don’t care if you’re short, skinny, inactive. Even 2000 calories is low in my book for a young person. Metabolism are affected by calorie intake as well as body functions and your muscle condition. Naturally more muscular and bigger people need more calories. Reducing your calorie intake too much is not good. The body adapts heavily to whatever nutrition it takes in. If it doesn’t gets enough it conserves and works with what it has.

This is actually a very large topic and I’m not organized for this right now. I will make a post at a later date about Calorie intake, metabolism, and more.

Protein Intake – No, you don’t need to have so much protein that you’re shitting out beef patties. The body can handle less than recommended dosage of protein levels and still make muscle gains. Now I recommend you stay at recommended protein intake levels as you’ll probably make optimal usage of your recovery. That’s about 1-1.2g of protein per imperial pound of body weight.

With that said. It has been shown in studies that spiked levels of protein intake through the day causes anabolic activity. I’ll go over this in another blog post.

Don’t lift for more than 1 hour, your body will eat muscle after that – I used to believe this. But it’s bullshit. I’ve started to lift 1 1/2 hours to 2 hours now. I am making more lean muscle gains than before. But how is that possible if my body is supposed to be eating my muscles after an hour? Well it’s not as simple as that. Additionally you can take certain steps to prevent your body from eating muscle mass in these times. A protein shake or protein rich meal before lifting helps. BCAAs too.

The time of day you lift matters – No it doesn’t for the most part. It’s whenever you feel like it that matters. If you feel better about being in the gym lifting at night, do it. If you’re a morning person, do that then. When you lift does not affect your gains really.

However, with that said, beyond the studies, I feel like lifting in the evening or at night is beneficial due to you immediately resting your body. Rest is very important. But I have not seen many studies that prove this to be of any significance.

Spot Reduction – I don’t know if I even have to say this. Your body does not reduce fat in a certain area of your body based on your exercise of that body part. It will burn the fat for calories quite evenly around your body.

Creatine is a dangerous chemical – Creatine is not special. It is not a magical over the counter steroid. It is something you can get from normal meat product foods and exists in your body already. Also it does not aid in actually building muscle itself, it helps with energy levels and what your muscles use as energy that helps in lifting. In my opinion creatine is not something really worth spending money on. My pre-workout supps have it already included. But it doesn’t hurt to add it to your supplement stack, it can help.

Supplements are dumb – I thought I was not being taken into mainstream thinking about supplements. But it turns out that we don’t really get enough nutrition in our diet to meet our needs. Protein shakes and vitamins help this greatly. To say you can just eat the protein needs with lean chicken is not that simple. Our bodies are different than our ancestors were when they were hunting. We have larger more nutrition needy brains, larger and taller bodies, and our activity is less now. We don’t run for our food in hunts, we shop. Supplementation of nutrition is necessary to get what we actually need. It seems cliche, but it’s true.

That’s all I got for now. I’ll start writing down stuff as I think of them. I wrote this real quick and now I have to run to the gym. But these points are some of the most common and biggest fitness myths I hear about that is relatable to beginners, starters, and intermediates. I’ll be back very soon to write more stuff up. I think my next post will deal with my lifting routine.

I have finished setting up the site’s blog just in time to go to sleep. I plan to shortly create my first real blog post soon. I hope people will enjoy it and learn from it.

I haven’t had much time for shore leave as I’ve been very busy. Perhaps writing my thoughts and ideas down may help ease my tensions.

On this site I plan to talk about a variety of different interests of mine including:

Fitness – Bodybuilding, weight training, dieting, routines, my experiences in lifting, guides for beginners and intermediates, science back researches I find, and more

Tech – Tech news I find interesting enough to write a post for, my experiences as a Linux Sysadmin, new things I learn I wish to share, and some various guides to doing things, and more

Games – I enjoy video games. I’ll talk about games I’m playing, what I think about them, and go into rumors, theories on upcoming stuff, and corporate talk

Star Trek – I post Trek stuff often, but I incorporate it into my posts, not isolated, usually

Opinions – Just a catch all category. Stuff I feel like talking about that don’t fit the other cats.

Captain’s Log – I’ll be using the Captain’s Log as a personal blog post entry category.

Computer,

End log.