This is the part I like: Unpacking the new machine. Hooking it up to the cheap mouse and keyboard that it comes with. Plugging in the power cord, hitting the switch, and breathing a sigh of relief as it boots into the setup screen. Configuring a few basic options. Right-clicking on the Computer icon, selecting… [Read More]

I’ve enjoyed writing about the Drobo experience last month. I hope some of you enjoyed reading it. I’ve decided to keep posting about some of my tussles with the technology of digital photography. Jerry Pournelle used to call his column in Byte “Chaos Manor”. I think I’ll call mine “The Bleeding Edge.” It’s not that… [Read More]

I’ll need a few months of glitch-free operation before this is more than provisional, but it looks like the Drobo is a pretty good solution for off-site backup. The good: Using bare drives is a real plus. There’s no time wasted bolting the drives into trays, and they take up the least room in the… [Read More]

When we last looked at the Drobos, one of them was causing the OS to insert disk errors in the error log. I had also noticed that VVEngine couldn’t complete one large file transfer. It turned out that the two events occurred simultaneously, suggesting a common cause. I used Windows Explorer to transfer a much… [Read More]

Anybody remember Jerry Pournelle’s column in Byte Magazine? In the spirit of that long-running account of Jerry’s struggles with technology, here’s a blow-by-blow of my experiences with the Drobo boxes. You are welcome to enjoy a bit of schadenfreude. Conclusions in the next post. I ordered the first box from Amazon. It arrived in two… [Read More]