I like it in theory but in practice I fear it is fraught with danger. How exactly is this meant to work. How does the server know that two files from two different machines is actually an identical file. Does it apply this to only OS files (where the version number etc is known). If not then how will it determine that two mp3's with the same name and size and actually the same song?

Maybe they've made an acquisition.

Yep.

We have 6 here at work. I go visit them at lunch times

Yes, but where there's a beauty there's usually a beast If they really want to make something useful I would hope that this server has archiving abilities to DVD, HD-DVD, even tape (for those of us lucky enough to have it). I wish someone would make a half decent home Tape device with enough storage capacity to handle a decent media library, that way not all your eggs are in this one basket.

But you and I know that modern computing simply put, is not turnkey. I hear the term often but the reality is that very very few (if any) products in todays IT world actually function as designed without specialist intervention. Windows/Linux/MacOS they are all too complicated for it to work. We've had discussion before about how "Anything with an OS is going to crash" and sadly, this thing has an OS. It's not about if it will crash, just when and how badly.

No probs. On that point though, this thing is marketed at the average Joe and advertised in the manner we've seen thus far I think data loss is inevitable. People with average knowledge don't back up their stuff in duplicate. I guess you can say their better off than they were before, I just hope they aren't lulled into a false sense of security by this. Similarly for the people that due duplicate important files (digital photos etc), what if they think this solves all their problems and the stop backing up to DVD as thins thing is so safe? Scary.

I'll definitely have a look if I can find enough hardware to do so. I certainly won't be blowing away my current server to check it out.

Much of this thread is speculation given the product is unseen and unproven. Healthy skepticism is a good thing though.

Cheers,

Arkay.

No probs. Was just wondering what you were getting at.

In Unix (linux included), they are called run-levels. The systems typically are fully up at run level 5. At each runlevel step more applications/services are start/stopped.

When the system comes up it runs each level consecutively (shutting down is the same in reverse).

It's a very handy thing to do. You have full control over the boot order and can streamline application/system startup/shutdown.

I have rarely seen a box fail during this process. At any rate Windows can also fail mid shutdown or startup.

Much of the faults we see are hardware related and all running OS's suffer them. How they recover from them is the real evidence of good design.

Cheers,

Arkay.

I would rather have a http://www.thecus.com/products_over.php?cid=1&pid=8
and Acronis on PC's. With 1TB drives it will give you 4TB of storage. I have only 2TB of RAID at the moment.
Ultimately it would be nice to have 2 of them and sync files between.

Tape drives - so sweet yet so freaking expensive

I think there's about a snowflakes chance in hell of a goodly sized tape drive beig available for home users (at a home user price point).

What's everybody's average media size/archive at at the moment. Mines at about 400gb without even trying. That's about $2k for a LTO2 and another $55 per tape.

But then, tape drives are meant to be used for removable backups - so where r u going to remove them to? (just throwing this up in the air, wondering at the future of home backups)

That I do agree with
Backups are a huge problem, they always have been.
Ive owned a 30 Tape Robotic DLT drive since the day I could afford one.
Its a real problem backing up.

Ive got at least 1TB of data thats core data and when I do video projects thats another 300-700GB per project (not even taking into account HD video) that needs to be stored somewhere.... Its starting to get impossible.

Ive ended up purchasing 2 systems now for my media and file backups.
My media gets backed up by pushing media to my main media centre from my media server. There are many plus's to this.. I can accidentially delete folders of photos and they will get automatically restored that night, but there are also downfalls like having the 2 machines always up and never really giving them any chance to go into standby as they always seem to be doing some tasks.

And even doing it this way means all your data is more than likely in the one physical location, another disaster waiting to happen (fire, robbery etc).
Its getting to the point where we are spend way too much time at home supporting the home infastructure..... something Im sure no one really wants to do.

Ive even gone down the path now in getting core files (documents, photos etc) backed up offsite... I have a media centre box at my parents which I record all my Foxtel shows on and I back up nightly to that over a ADSL2+ connection, in addition to backing up at home. Even that is starting to be an issue with photo libraries growing to upto 100GB.

Ive decided though I have all this CPU power lying around so I might as well use it, so now Im using vmware more and more and utilising the media server to also perform tasks such as be a virtual PBX and virtual exchange/sbs server. This at least makes backups simplier by allowing a backup of a folder of a few files that hold the VM, rather than backing up the entire box in a lengthy backup procedure.

Ive ended up waiting desperately for Blue Ray and such to hit the markets.. hoping that the price will be affordable for backup means...well at least for some of the smaller tasks like photo and general document backups... but to be honest, even that is no where near enough to do real backups.

If anyone hears of a SAN going cheap, drop me a line

I take copies of my core media and lock them in my desk drawer at work.

I do agree though that the one tech missing from the digital age is decent backup for the home. You just can't possibly find anything cost effective. LTO2 is probably not bad at $2k if you're serious about it but then the amount of work in running home infrastructure these days is just getting ovr the top.

I think what is needed is community based servers. I've often thought of having one for the street complete with file storage for each household, a central repository for all those media files we all have copies of (useless waste of space there) etc etc. Someone would need to back it up and store the data off site but for a nominal fee it could be a workable solution.

I think in the future we won't need such massive data requirements. IPTV and serices like Bigpond and Reeltime are offering will eventually become the norm (but not at current pricing). So then all we'll need to store is personal "core" media, digial photo's, docs and home video etc...

Cheers,

Arkay.

Hahaha I must admit this is what I have in mind for backing up my doc server at home once I grab a tape drive.

I agree - some sort of community storage, where local traffic doesn't count towards download limits. Small fee per month would buy a hell of a lot of relief

Probably lucky people don't realise how underprepared they are