the last word

I just returned from a five day trip to the East Coast. I went to my 50th high school reunion, and I captured some images in New York City. I traveled with both my iPad and a ThinkPad X300, and it was a good opportunity to see which things each computer did best. It would’ve… [Read More]

I got a call from Data Robotics tech support. The tech said that, although it was a long shot, that I should download the disk diagnostics for the Western Digital web site, and run them on the four disks that had problems in the Drobo, both the disks that kept the Drobo from booting and… [Read More]

I called Drobo customer support. Actually, I called Drobo sales, since there doesn’t seem to be a separate customer support operation. The salesperson was very helpful. He said that normally they tell customers with disk failures to go to the manufacturer for replacements, but, since I’d had four out of five fail, he’d call the… [Read More]

The new Drobo FS is indicating yet another hard drive failure, bringing the total to four out of five. I have loaded two more WD 2TB Caviar Green disks from my stock of spares, so I have three working disks at this point. I’ll let you know how I make out with Drobo customer support… [Read More]

I’m just a glutton for punishment. Last week, I struggled with getting a USB-attached Drobo to allow a server to boot properly. Yesterday, I unpacked a new Drobo FS. I’d like to tell you about it. The Drobo packing is not in the Apple league for style and elegance, but it’s darn good. They printed… [Read More]