Archive for July, 2008

Drobo Again

As previously discussed I’ve been gradually moving data over to my Drobo. I recently invested in a DroboShare, which lets me share the contents of the Drobo as NAS. Although I run my data through a Windows Server, I have been toying with the idea of having a large majority of the content available...
July 30th, 2008 | Uncategorized | Read More

The cuts are happening again

The Register has reported that some UK banks are forcing their contractors to take a 10% pay cut or take a hike. It is usual for contractors to take the hit first as they are an easy target compared to terminating permanent staff and to be fair, as a contractor/consultant myself, if the chop comes...
July 29th, 2008 | Uncategorized | Read More

Size of the Storage Blogosphere

I use Feed Demon to track all of my RSS subscriptions. The product integrates with Newsgator online and now with the iPod Touch. The benefit of having an online location for synchronising my feeds means I can run multiple Feed Demon copies from the different laptops I use on a daily basis. I need...
July 28th, 2008 | Uncategorized | Read More

Enterprise Connectivity with iPod Touch

Last year I blogged about my replacement iPaq after my previous one failed. As I said at the time, it was dull, dull and more dull. Earlier this year I bought an iPod Touch while in the US. It is a wonderful device. The screen is fantastic, the quality of the applications is great and the video is...
July 25th, 2008 | Uncategorized | Read More

A Dying Industry (slightly off topic)

The BBC reported today of the next stages of the government and record companies’ attempts to crack down on illegal file sharing. Persistent offenders will have their internet connections cut off. Unfortunately, the genie is out of the bottle in terms of the ability for music to be copied and...
July 24th, 2008 | Uncategorized | Read More

Recycling Drives – Update

Last week I posted about wasted hard drives, removed from arrays and crushed to prevent the leak of sensitive data. I contacted HGST and Seagate to get some additional background. Here are their responses, slightly edited to correct any spelling mistakes but otherwise intact. Seagate (a) when will...
July 23rd, 2008 | Uncategorized | Read More

Five Storage Strategies that *May* Save You Money

Infoworld have a great article here discussing how to save money on storage in these tight times we are experiencing. Here’s a summary – with my opinions of course! Play Hardball with Vendors. Ah if it was only that simple. It may be possible to find another vendor selling hardware marginally...
July 22nd, 2008 | Uncategorized | Read More

The Defrag Debate

I was asked again this week whether defragging of hard drives on Windows servers is really necessary. This is quite pertinent as the cost of deploying an enterprise-wide defrag tool can be significant and any opportunity to save money has to be a good one. I discussed fragmentation last year (here)...
July 21st, 2008 | Uncategorized | Read More

Why Tape Technology Just Doesn't Cut It

There have been a raft of tape announcements in the last week, most notably the two 1TB wannabee’s IBM and Sun. For around a mere $37,000, plus the cost of a cartridge, I can backup 1TB of my most precious data. HP have also announced plans to extend the life of the DAT/DDS tape drive. If you...
July 17th, 2008 | Uncategorized | Read More

Destroying hard drives, what a waste

Many financial and government organisations choose to destroy the hard drives that are declared as failing and removed from their arrays. They use products like this which make the hard drive unusable. What happens to these hard drives? I presume they just end up in landfill and aren’t recycled....
July 16th, 2008 | Uncategorized | Read More
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