http://www.idkfa.com/v3 idkfa: syndicated http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4584&msg_id=5458 About a month and a half ago, the hard drive on my Macbook Pro started acting up. I'd been taking frequently backups, so I wasn't going to be losing anything, but it's still a pain to pick up and put down elsewhere whenever you have to do it. I transferred a subset of my files over to my netbook, and have been using it as my daily driver since. The user experience is... well, shit, given the cramped keyboard, the bad touchpad, and the screen with about 2 degrees of viewing angle, but it would do. Getting back from the trip, I ordered 250GB SSD as replacement (the original drive having the same capacity). It got in yesterday, and I spent the evening trying to put things back together. Here's what happened. Spent two hours doing a bit-for-bit copy of the original drive onto the new drive using the Mac OS X installer tools. This failed miserably, despite being as close to the original disk configuration as possible. The machine would only bootup and give the vague "folder with a questionmark" response. Re-installed Mac OS X Snow Leopard on top of the original (leaving my original user and application files in place). This yielded a successfully booting machine, but logging in to my user account, all functions that required encryption of any kind were broken (including: HTTPS traffic, verification of system updates, etc.). No amount of keychain repair seemed to address the issue, and I was forced to create a new user account alongside the second one. Cruising around for a while, putting configurations back into place, I was finding that a number of files were corrupted (more specifically, filled with "zeroes"). These are files that were transferred directly from the original (though, somewhat questionable) drive, and should have been identical to their original contents. This made for some interesting behavior, as very basic files within the machine were completely broken, yet didn't really indicate kaiden@idkfa.com (kaiden) Indiscernible from Magic Fri, 20 Sep 2013 12:59:06 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4584&msg_id=5458 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4584&msg_id=4738 (sigh) Yeah, that's true. A thought I had, while not an ideal implementation, is if you had an old desktop computer with extra hard drive bays, it wouldn't be terribly difficult to set up your own NAS. I think Windows Home Server even makes it stupid simple to set up (maybe even with a RAID setup), as well as to be somewhat accessible from the web. Unfortunately, I don't think the Windows Home Server setup has the potential to be as feature complete as the rest (lack of Time Machine backups, may or may not provide UPnP local network file streaming... and it's Windows). kaiden@idkfa.com (kaiden) Indiscernible from Magic Thu, 08 Nov 2012 14:15:09 -0900 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4584&msg_id=4738 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4584&msg_id=4737 Looks like you gotta pay premium for a NAS with RAID. Because the cheaper of those is out of stock, and the other one has a 3x price increase. Oi va. Scrotor@idkfa.com (Scrotor) Indiscernible from Magic Thu, 08 Nov 2012 14:05:54 -0900 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4584&msg_id=4737 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4584&msg_id=4734 Not that model, no. It provides an alright feature set, but it doesn't provide disk redundancy (a RAID setup). However, some of their other models do: http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?id=10477 http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?id=10579 kaiden@idkfa.com (kaiden) Indiscernible from Magic Thu, 08 Nov 2012 12:15:37 -0900 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4584&msg_id=4734 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4584&msg_id=4732 Would you recommend something like this? Scrotor@idkfa.com (Scrotor) Indiscernible from Magic Thu, 08 Nov 2012 11:50:52 -0900 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4584&msg_id=4732 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4584&msg_id=4614 I'll certainly get back to you once it's back up and running how I want. I think my mistake was not upgrading the software on it before inserting the new disks, despite the compatibility documentation on my drives recommending I do so. kaiden@idkfa.com (kaiden) Indiscernible from Magic Tue, 18 Sep 2012 15:23:12 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4584&msg_id=4614 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4584&msg_id=4613 Well damn, you work out the bugs and then I will later bask in the glory of your unfortunately gained knowledge. I'm a ways off from implementing any kind of NAS so I am confident that in due time all will be right in your world Josh. MrFood@idkfa.com (MrFood) Indiscernible from Magic Tue, 18 Sep 2012 15:01:48 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4584&msg_id=4613 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4584&msg_id=4612 Also, successfully inserted and built new RAID array out of new drives alongside the old. ~20 minutes in became unresponsive. kaiden@idkfa.com (kaiden) Indiscernible from Magic Tue, 18 Sep 2012 02:17:50 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4584&msg_id=4612 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4584&msg_id=4611 Let us hope the OS update fixed whatever nasty bug that was. I don't want to think about a NAS meltdown. Ever. conrad@idkfa.com (conrad) Indiscernible from Magic Tue, 18 Sep 2012 02:17:42 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4584&msg_id=4611 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4584&msg_id=4610 Was at 4.0, now at 4.1 after reinstall. kaiden@idkfa.com (kaiden) Indiscernible from Magic Tue, 18 Sep 2012 02:16:17 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4584&msg_id=4610 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4584&msg_id=4609 Did you just drop the two new drives in and let it try to figure out how to copy everything over? Are you running DS 4.0 or 4.1? conrad@idkfa.com (conrad) Indiscernible from Magic Tue, 18 Sep 2012 02:14:41 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4584&msg_id=4609 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4584&msg_id=4608 My sin appears to be pride. Rebuilding the NAS device from component disks and laptop backups. No data loss, but a good 8 hours until it's usable again. Can't speak as to what went wrong. System just seized after building the new array, and never came back. Bleaugh. kaiden@idkfa.com (kaiden) Indiscernible from Magic Tue, 18 Sep 2012 02:12:29 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4584&msg_id=4608 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4584&msg_id=4607 Uh... stand by. New disks appear to have cratered the NAS device. kaiden@idkfa.com (kaiden) Indiscernible from Magic Mon, 17 Sep 2012 23:48:07 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4584&msg_id=4607 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4584&msg_id=4605 Oddly, the only one I'd consider from Costco's Western Digital line-up would be this guy, which while it can do the right RAID1 mirroring between disks, it's only available with a Thunderbolt cable (Apple's new proprietary cabling standard, currently somewhat unavailable outside of the Apple world). Additionally, this doesn't appear to be network accessible, meaning that it would only be a higher-reliability external drive. Not a bad thing to have, but having something available for services on a home network is pretty valuable (to my use cases, at least). Costco looks like it has the "storage routers," which allow you to replace your router with a device that can have an external hard drive connected to it, and serve up files and services from that drive. However, no telling if these support the kind of RAID1 redundancy one would want to pursue. kaiden@idkfa.com (kaiden) Indiscernible from Magic Sun, 16 Sep 2012 22:26:24 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4584&msg_id=4605 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4584&msg_id=4604 I don't know much about any of these systems, but Costco does have some Western Digital products at decent prices. This is the one Travis and I were looking at, but they have some fancier versions as well. Again, I don't know much about these and I'm sure the advice from Kaiden and Conrad is much more helpful, but I thought I'd throw in what I'd seen recently. norwaygirl@idkfa.com (norwaygirl) Indiscernible from Magic Sun, 16 Sep 2012 17:15:38 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4584&msg_id=4604 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4584&msg_id=4595 I'm running two Western Digital Caviar Green 2 TB drives. I haven't had any issues (yet). They're also reasonably quiet. My "server space" is located in the master bedroom, due to available space. As long as I keep the serious backup activity scheduled outside when I want to sleep, I've never had an issue with noise levels. conrad@idkfa.com (conrad) Indiscernible from Magic Wed, 12 Sep 2012 14:42:46 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4584&msg_id=4595 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4584&msg_id=4594 I went with two of these: Western Digital 2TB WD Green SATA III Intellipower They have nice "low power" modes, and seem to be fairly reliable, and are listed among the compatible drives on the Synology site. They aren't industrial grade, but two of them cost almost as much as a higher classification one, which unless you're planning on 24-hour, sustained reads/writes by multiple users for months at a time you probably don't need anything more expensive. kaiden@idkfa.com (kaiden) Indiscernible from Magic Wed, 12 Sep 2012 14:41:53 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4584&msg_id=4594 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4584&msg_id=4593 I've always kind wanted something akin to this, but through complacency due to lack of drive failures I have never made backups a priority. Its always on the edge of my mind though. I think the DS212j is more my style and needs. I don't need a ton of space but I can see the need for the redundancy of at least two drives. Costs does not seem extreme, I'm kind used to shelling out a bit of cash for things as outdoor gear can be quite expensive. Probably overkill, but it would be nice to have the safety net and then not really have to think about it ever again. A small dream of mine has always been to take our fairly large catalog of dvd's and put them on the network. But mostly I don't want to lose my music and picture library. Thoughts on reliable, and compatible drives? MrFood@idkfa.com (MrFood) Indiscernible from Magic Wed, 12 Sep 2012 14:30:50 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4584&msg_id=4593 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4584&msg_id=4588 Hi. Aforementioned friend here. I have a Synology DS411j. I have three computers (a Windows 7 box, a Macbook Air, and a small netbook running Ubuntu) that all talk to my Synology for backup purposes. Additionally, it serves as a media outlet for all of my music and movies, which I have streamed to at least four devices simultaneously with no performance degradation or serious issue. The nefarious bits of flotsam from the internet I feel the need to keep around (read: porn) are stored in a separate partition that is encrypted and rights-managed so that only my account can even see the partition. Overall, for many home users, the Synology is probably overkill. However, once you get used to the convenience of backups and centrally located media and files, there's no going back to the old way. Everything is so much easier now (and, with the RAID configuration, a single hard drive failure would be a minor annoyance and not a Major Emotional Event). I'm a pretty big believer that you aren't truly living in the future until you've connected all the gadgets in your home to a NAS. But, then again, I'm a huge nerd, so your mileage may vary. conrad@idkfa.com (conrad) Indiscernible from Magic Tue, 11 Sep 2012 22:16:50 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4584&msg_id=4588 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4584&msg_id=4586 Certainly. I'm a fan of my own Synology device, the DS410, which has capacity to hold 4 disks, and has all of the features I mentioned in the root post. It's a few years old, and has one or two revisions after it, but they were mostly just performance bumps (for which, I've never had performance issues). I also have a friend (who may or may not chime in), who owns (I think) a DS411 or a DS412, and has had similarly enjoyable experiences. A smaller device, the DS212j, has the capacity for 2 disks, but has the exact same software capabilities (as well as the same hardware encryption capability). I believe my dad is running this at home. It won't be able to support a bunch of concurrent access, but that's fairly rare in the instance of a backup device for a home environment. I'm a bit of a Synology fanboy, as I like their interface, and the relative "hackability" of their platform (to get it to do *exactly* what I want, with the types of programming interfaces that I want), but generally it is extremely friendly to anyone who has operated a web browser before. The devices require a bit of setup (putting in disks, plugging a computer into the device, running its install process, ~30 minutes), but afterwards, it has a number of fun capabilities: Easy setup for both Windows and Apple file sharing, as well as the DLNA sharing required for Xbox and PS3 devices. The ability to set up passwords, etc., on most any shared drive. Fun "applications" embedded in its web interface for specific things like photo browsing, audio playback, file browsing, or surveillance (talking to a security camera and the like). A number of iOS and Android phone applications such that you can manage/peruse the device through one's phone. Fairly straightforward automatic backup applications (I haven't used them myself, but from what I saw it looked alright.) Also, support for the Time Machine backups kaiden@idkfa.com (kaiden) Indiscernible from Magic Tue, 11 Sep 2012 16:29:44 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4584&msg_id=4586 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4584&msg_id=4585 Say for the average home consumer, who doesn't think too much about security or worry about losing data, but knows they should have backups. What are systems that are very affordable and easily forgettable once in place? I know that a drive failure on our main computer would be catastrophic in terms of losing important documents, though mainly 10+ years of digital family photo's. But I'm really too lazy to set up any kind of back up system where I have to do anything. I also don't worry a lot about security. Really it would be nice to have something automatic and worry/thought free. Any advice? MrFood@idkfa.com (MrFood) Indiscernible from Magic Tue, 11 Sep 2012 15:43:50 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4584&msg_id=4585 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4584&msg_id=4584 A few months ago, I was looking to perform off-site backups for friends, and found that I could no longer do the "wholesale" backup I'd intended, as I was running out of space. After clearing out some of the more ridiculous things I was storing, I recorded a mental note to look at purchasing new hard drives for my NAS (Network Attached Storage) device, and promptly discarded the note. A few weeks ago, I found cause to log into the interface for the NAS device, only to find that it'd been trying for a while to send me emails telling me that it'd detected a bad sector on one of my disks, and while recoverable, needed to be addressed. I cleared the errors, recorded a mental note, and promptly forgot about it again. I was home sick most of this weekend, with not a lot to do other than sneeze and watch The West Wing. Something about the rhythmic blinking lights of the NAS reminded me to look into hard drives again, and I ended up finally purchasing the new drives. For a $200 upgrade, I'm going to be able to: Double my storage space, while still potentially maintaining the drives I have currently for "transfer" drives. Fix my configuration to allow for the hardware "accelerated" folder encryption built into my device to encrypt my sensitive data to eliminate the possibility of unwanted persons gaining access to my data simply by taking out my hard drives and putting them into a computer they control. Do a "live" transfer of data from the old redundant disk array to the new redundant disk array. It will be slower, for sure, while I'm doing the transfer, but in theory, I should still be able to operate on the device reasonably while the transfer occurs. There, of course, will probably be snags along the way, but I'm posting this for everyone's benefit/edification, less so me touting my technological conquests. These types of technology are available for the kaiden@idkfa.com (kaiden) Indiscernible from Magic Mon, 10 Sep 2012 17:38:20 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4584&msg_id=4584