ZK

Calderglen Country Park Glasgow

I have been trying to get some form of central storage organised for all of my photos and family videos that i have. I have got 3 desktops, 2 laptops and a xbox360 and i wanted to be able to have a central storage where i can backup my stuff and then easily and also retrieve it easily when i needed it. I need a storage space which can easily do the following:

• Data that is accessible from the network
• Videos and pictures can also be accessed from any of my devices such as desktops, laptops and Xbox
• Is always on
• Has lots of storage and can take more storage
• Quiet and looks good in my home office (not essential but definitely a plus)

I used to have an external USB2 HDD which served the purpose fine, well for sometime. However where it was cheap to by, i couldn’t add more storage and it couldn’t of course go on the network on it’s own. With the above in mind i guess i needed another mechanism for storage.

DROBO

The first thing that came to mind was drobo. It meets most of my needs:

PRO

1. Works directly on the network
2. Always on
3. Storage space can be added as required - 4 HDDs totaling up to 4TeraBytes
4. Looks good

However due to the following negative points i had to look else where

CONS

1. Not directly accessible from Xbox360
2. Cost is a lot more than i am willing to pay at the moment (£1400 for a 4TB configuration)

HP Media Vault

A friend of mine suggested the HP Media Vault as an alternate solution. At first it seemed a nice idea as it was cheaper than drobo, would be on the network, can take extra storage (1.2TeraByte) ok still not as much as drobo but still not bad. Intrigued i decided to do more research on this. Lucky for me as there were a couple of things which turned out to be deal breakers:

1. Where HP says that the device is compatible with both linux and windows, it comes with setup drivers of only windows.
2. The device comes with a built in HDD from HP, which i have been informed can’t be replaced or upgraded unless another one is bought from HP. A search on the internet revealed a couple of people who had this device failing on them after the warranty period was up, the cost of replacement of the HDD supplied by HP exceeded the actual cost of the whole product, what is this? Also you can’t just replace the HDD with another one as it requires some version of linux configured by HP without which the device doesn’t work. There were a couple of other problems which i shall try and find and link them here for the benefit of others which stopped me from investing in this.

Windows Home Server

I thought that i had hit the jackpot with this one, a standalone box with upgradeable storage space, i can schedule backups and connect to xbox 360 or to any of the other machines from anywhere in my home, sounds very good but was it too good to be true?. After reading this and this i realised it certainly was. Hence i had to say goodbye to the Windows Home Server.

So where i am now, back to the drawing board. Either i spend a ton of money on drobo and find out another way to share media with xbox360 or find an alternative method of storage. I am leaning towards the second option, my search goes on and i shall keep everyone updated as soon as i have anything to report back.

Just one side of the 2008 anti terror campaign being run by Met Police, London. My ethnic origin is asian, i like taking photos, a lot of them, sometimes of things which others may not like lamp posts, or posters.

I fit the bill as described in the picture above, but am i a terrorist, NO. But can i be classed a terrorist with the above description, YES.
Should i put my camera away? No i am not going to.

Am i worried? Yes, i am worried. Now i have to remember that if i take my camera out with me, the chances of me not returning home are ever so great. Who is to say what will happen. Where are we going with the civil liberties these days? The full information on the campaign can be found on the Met Website

So what happens if i am standing on the side of the road taking photos of very boring stuff, and suddenly my mobile phone rings - my friend Jack is calling, and i say ‘Hi Jack’? and someone is sees me doing this? What then?