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Dropbox is one of my favorite tools to manage shared stuff – and I was happy with 8GB for free… 2GB with the Basic Account type and 6GB when promoting dropbox to friends. Currently I own 5.25GB there.

But these days there came BOX.NET to my recognition – they through 50GB to you for free!

How to get it? Really easy going – just download and install the iOS App here and create a free account within the next 48 days.

There are rumors in the air that Apple plans an update for the AppleTV box:

• based on iPhone OS 4
• flashmemory at 16GB only
• streaming content from the cloud
• 1080p HD video
• connectivity to TimeCapsule for local storage extension

And all this on a price of $99 – introduced on WWDC 2010? Sounds promising – and would tell us what Apple plans to do with it’s new datacenter 😉

Waiting now for the WWDC…

Apple started to seed now the new Mac OS 10.6.3 update to their customers. One of the mentioned issues is maybe solving my ongoing troubles with my TimeMachine / Drobo setup:

Time Machine fixes and improvements provided for:

• reliability from Time Machine-to-Time Capsule backups, including multiple computers.
• an issue with Time Machine in which system backups could be restored onto unsupported Mac configurations.

I’ll keep you updated 😉

Come one, come all!!! Roll up, roll up, roll up!

 Come and see the new Bloody Bold Brilliant Basics

 Boldly go where no others have been before as you enter the new world of storage consolidation. This Brilliant storage and backup option will save your unit $$$[1]. Its Basically a steal[2]. 

Don’t be the last to get yours!

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[1] To be defined by a P*Q matrix which will be available only months after your purchase (subject to changes reflecting margin requirements).

[2] Customer Quote: “Its stealing!”

Reference: Darren R. Halford aka “The big Australian”

On Jan. 1st my TimeMachine Sparsebundle which is hosted on my DROBO 2TB via a Apple Airport Extreme AirDisk crashed. The directory of the SB showed several issues when I checked it with ‘Disk Utility’. I then tried to repair the image several times – under different conditions. So I tried it connected via AirDisk, accessed locally via FireWire connected DROBO, via USB connection… I also copied the image to an additional USB drive other than the DROBO… but it didn’t work.

I googled a little bit and found that ‘Disk Utility’ is not the right choice to repair images which are showing such issues. Mostly users refer then to ‘DiskWarrior’ – this piece of SW should be able to correct the errors. But is it really worth $ 99.95? There’s no trial version so I couldn’t test it – and by the way: the things stored on the TM-image are only things I’ve already wiped out of my MBP. And the other things are perfectly stored securely on my DROBO. So I just loose some convenience on deleting the corrupt image if I’m not able to repair it – but nothing which is worth $99.95 to spend 😉

So it was clear for me what to do: delete the sparsebundle TM-image and check what I can to to prevent further issues.

I checked the DROBO-Support pages – and hoped that since my last visit there they realized that there is a problem by using the DROBO in such a constellation like I do.

And yes – they have checked their user-discussion-board and come up with solutions now:

1. There is now a document showing how to setup the DROBO correctly
   (yes, I know – there was one in the past too… but this one now is different)
2. Mac OS Extended (Journaled) is now supported
3. a new DROBO Dashboard version 1.6.6 (release notes) is available (firmware is uptodate:  1.3.5)

The new point is that you have to partition the DROBO into two segments. One – the FIRST one – for TimeMachine use, the second for all your other data. In the past this was not supported and recommended.

How to proceed here is really simple – just follow the documentation. What’s not really clear on this document: keep in mind that the FIRST partition is the one you will use for TimeMachine and it’s new Sparsebundle image. This partition will keep it’s fixed size (e.g. 200GB out of 930 GB with a 2TB setup of DROBO).

So – if you expand your DROBO (e. g. with one additional disk, cap. 1TB) later on with new drives the FIRST partition will not change – only the SECOND partition is expanding then:

Partition A (for TM use): 200GB
Partition B (for data): 1.6TB

Following this guide I realized one thing: DROBO Dashboard again is only recognizing ONE single partition. But that’s not the problem at all 🙂

I also found now several documents at their knowledge base showing how to handle the DROBO in case of disk-problems… and – yes, you can believe it – now you are not only allowed to maintain you DROBO with third party tools (DiskWarrior, Disk Utility, TechTool Deluxe / Pro) – it’s now recommended!

I’m using my drobo 2nd gen. now for exactly one year and was facing multiple problems during this time.

First of all I had troubles with the vents – they are too loud to use the drobo in a ‘silenced’ area like my living room.

Since the first weeks of usage the firmware of the drobo has now been updated several times and the vents are now blowing not as much as at the beginning… but:

The main problem here is still unresolved because the drobo still doesn’t go into standby (drives are, drobo not) when used as airdisk in combination with a airport extreme. So in addition you are also vasting energy because the system is ALWAYS available.

Second issue I had was drive and not drobo related – I bought my drobo preconfigured with two seagate 1TB drives – and one of these drives failed.

What I was missing here are two things:

• The problem was known at Drobo support, but customers have not been informed automatically – so I ran into a problem here and lost  really time because I had to organize ANOTHER drive to backup my data (had to reinitialize my drobo!).
• I was not able to find out what happened – Drobo Dashboard told me the drives are fine…

You shouldn’t copy too much files at once to your drobo – I’m still facing freezes here. Here again it’s not really visible for the user what exactly is freezing… But after a while and dozens of freezes I found out that the problem is that the drobo is not really interacting well with my airport extreme —> the USB hub of the airport extreme freezes on pushing too much files there.

And another really big problem in my eyes can be read at www.suitetake.com …

[polldaddy rating=”465216″]

Dropbox claims to get rid of different storage locations for data by hosting the data on the web and synching it via little apps automatically.

There are three basic pricing models available:

Basic…..2GB ………. free of charge
Pro 50…..50GB …… $ 9,99 / month
Pro 100….100GB … $ 19,99 / month

and one possibility to expand the Basic model:
refer the service to your friends and get extra space for free…

Installtion on the Mac:
Easy and fast – just download the app and move it from the diskimage to your application folder; start the application and follow the few steps for setup. I’ve choosen the ‘Basic’ version for free.
The sync app is also available for Windows and Linux…

A dropbox folder was created automatically and is shown up in your MacOS X navigation pane of the Finder-Windows. Within the Dropbox folder two additional folders have been created: Pictures and Public – and for sure you are able to create addtional folders…

Usage:
Putting files into these folders are recognized by the Dropbox app which is running in the background – little icon with configuration and information menus. Synchronizing runs really fast and smooth 🙂

I’ll test the system now during the next weeks and will come back later with an review and the experiences I’ve made.

The drobo dashboard told me today that there’s a update available for the dashboard itself – but not for the drobo. Johannes told me these days that there’s a new version 1.3.4 available for the drobo’s firmware… and he was right.

But the dashboard is not recognizing it automtically – so I had to install it manually. Not the first time, yes.

I downloaded the firmware, started the install process and seconds later the installation finished… without errors 🙂

After a reboot the new version was shown up in the drobo dashboard:

First impressions:

Nothing special occured after the installation up to now. So now let’s see what happens during the next days…
Don’t expect that the drobo will go into standby now when connected to the AirPort Extreme via USB – nothing changed on this side.

And again I have troubles with two items in my flying circus.

The brand new Philips Latte Select failed now the second time – after it was delivered the first time by amazon.de I had to return it immediately because the watertank was broken (the water indicator).

They sent me a new one and everything worked fine – until yesterday evening. We made two cups of Latte Macchiato – but then the machine stopped working. Normal coffee worked, but as soon as a ‘milky’ version was selected the start/stop button light was just flashing… not the fast flashing indicating that milk or water is missing – no a slower one which is not described in the manual…

But not enough – I started to move large files to my drobo (about 5 files each about 2GB). While the move was performed my MacBook Pro decided to start a backup via TimeMachine to my drobo. After 2mins the light indicators of the drobo where black. It just stopped working.

I disconnected the drobo from the Airport Extreme, pulled out the power line, waited some minutes and then re-powered the device. Re-connected it to the APE and tried again. Same procedure… this time much faster :-(… after seconds the lights where black and the drobo didn’t respond any more.

Because it was already two o’clock in the morning I decided that I wait until the next day to try it again.

This morning I connected the device directly to the MacBook Pro because it was not possible to restart the drobo again while it was connected to the Airport Extreme – and it worked.

So I think this time the Airport Extreme seems to be the device to blame. I restarted the device and then reconnected the drobo – and now everything worked. Strange behaviour….

The Airport Extreme was not dead during this time – everything else worked fine…

Update:
The Philips Senseo LS has been picked up yesterday (Aug., 3rd 2009) evening to take a little repair session… we’ll see how long this session will take.

Update 2:
As promised by Philips Support the Senseo was sent back within 10 workdays. And works great 🙂

Seams to be a lucky day 🙂
Today I restarted a trial on the backup of my MBP via AirportExtreme and the Drobo – and it works…