Critical mass (storage)

Stop shirkin' and start workin'!I’ve been calling for backup for months, and at long last, backup has arrived.

I’ve spent most of today transferring files to a new 1 terabyte network drive that’s now sitting on my network. It’s a nice LaCie “big box ethernet drive” (hey, that’s what it says on the box!), which, I’m going to say judging by the size of the casing, is probably two 500GB hard drives in a RAID configuration. It’s got a lovely big blue eye that flashes when it’s being accessed. It hasn’t gotten extraordinarily warm, despite the fact that it’s sitting in a warm corner of a warm room (said corner also contains 3 other PCs and 5 LCD monitors, along with speakers and other gear). Very importantly (at least to me), you can configure whether or not you want it to be media-streaming capable. Remember the whole blow-up a few weeks ago with the crippled cell phones? Mass storage devices like these are starting to fall victim to the same problems: my friend Kent has a similar device, except made by Western Digital, which he got at a fire-sale price right before Christmas. But the pricing wasn’t just seasonal: WD wanted to clear the decks of inventory and get a revised version of the MyBook 1TB ethernet drive in the stores, which came with complimentary crippleware demanded by the RIAA which prevents the drive from streaming music or video files. Hey, thanks, RIAA, for assuming that the consumer’s a crook! Maybe we’ve ripped our own CDs to our own hard drives for use in our own home, ya know? Inconceiveable, sure. But it might happen. You never know. This LaCie drive has no such crippleware; those wishing to use it in a small business setting have the option to switch media streaming off. The security is scalable, you can assign passwords and user accounts from an insanely intuitive admin console accessed via browser, and for someone like me who might want to use it as a “breakout drive” (i.e. turn it off, pull all the connections, and evacuate with it in the event of fire, tornado, etc.), it’s not overwhelmingly big or bulky. I hope I never have to do that, but it’s yet another option to have in mind. I’m terribly pleased with it.

Anyone wanting to snatch one of these puppies up is more than welcome to pick it up in theLogBook.com Store; I managed to find the links for it in nearly every country except Canada, whose Amazon subsidiary doesn’t do the electronics thing. (What gives, Canada?) I heartily recommend it. It’s not cheap, but for someone like me who’s got a heap of media crowding out the other computers’ drives, and occasionally keeping work from getting done (this thing even takes up some slack for the Avid), it’s a beautiful thing. Should I ever completely fill the thing, additional storage can be added via a USB port on the back of the drive, and the casing is designed so that the additional drive – well, assuming you get the LaCie 1TB USB add-on drive – can simply slide into place on top of this one.

Home of the WOPR
A shot of the newly revised desktop on the Avid, which I network to the other machines to shoot graphics, audio and video files back and forth so often that I leave permanent shortcuts on the desktop. (For those occasions where I have to pull something from a less-frequently used directory, I keep the ol’ Win2K Network Neighborhood icon around under “Home of the WOPR” – WOPR being what I call my LAN.) As you can see, I very quickly named the new network drive Queeg – so stop shirkin’ and start workin’!

Oh, in case you can’t tell from the funky wide angles in these photos and yesterday’s accidentally humorous shot of Evan vs. Bowser, I’ve also replaced the fisheye lens I misplaced in Las Vegas. That helped to turn what would’ve been an otherwise innocuous shot of Evan chattering away into everyone’s favorite photo of the day. đŸ˜† Speaking of which, you’d better believe that the gobs of baby photos have migrated to the new drive too.

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