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It's hard out there for a geek
Dec. 9th, 2008 12:40 amHello, my name is Phil, and I have become addicted to hard drive space.
*Hello, Phil*
It didn't used to be like this. But ever since losing quite a bit of irreplaceable data (pictures, music, whatever) on several occasions due to sudden crashes and lack of backup discipline, I've been on a recent quest to have everything I (and Jeff) have in the digital domain backed up in multiple and redundant areas. This meant building two new servers as well as adding redundant internal storage on two other PCs plus a couple new external drives for 'near-line' storage and backups. All tallied up, it comes to a bit over 20 terabytes worth of hard drives I picked up this year to integrate into everything here to use for current and future storage and backups and a great deal more peace of mind.
Since I find more and more of my entertainment and memories being digital in nature, and the file sizes only increasing, I wanted to have some infrastructure put in place where I can automate backups and keep stuff at hand, and also be able to protect much of the important stuff in case of some unforeseen disaster. My shoeboxes of pictures and slides, books filled with newspaper clippings, and racks and boxes of tapes, records, DVDs and CDs are giving way to ethereal, virtual representations that only exist if they are stored somewhere. I lost pictures of Mom I will never see again. Music and jam sessions between me and friends/exes. Fun or thought provoking bits and pieces collected from the web and email, as well as deeply personal things. All got lost. Not any more.
I want to keep the pieces of my digital life in safe keeping. I also upload some of this to various places on the web such as Flickr, but I have distrust for any online services as a whole. Will they be there in the long run? Will they respect my privacy? Will they keep my digital stuff from falling into the wrong hands? These days, I doubt any and all of that, so it's up to me to go it alone. So, the Great Home Network Upgrade of 2008 will hopefully meet my needs for many years to come. The only work remaining is running a bunch more Cat5e/6 around the house and a gigabit ethernet switch. Then I hope to sit back and enjoy the results of all this work.
*Hello, Phil*
It didn't used to be like this. But ever since losing quite a bit of irreplaceable data (pictures, music, whatever) on several occasions due to sudden crashes and lack of backup discipline, I've been on a recent quest to have everything I (and Jeff) have in the digital domain backed up in multiple and redundant areas. This meant building two new servers as well as adding redundant internal storage on two other PCs plus a couple new external drives for 'near-line' storage and backups. All tallied up, it comes to a bit over 20 terabytes worth of hard drives I picked up this year to integrate into everything here to use for current and future storage and backups and a great deal more peace of mind.
Since I find more and more of my entertainment and memories being digital in nature, and the file sizes only increasing, I wanted to have some infrastructure put in place where I can automate backups and keep stuff at hand, and also be able to protect much of the important stuff in case of some unforeseen disaster. My shoeboxes of pictures and slides, books filled with newspaper clippings, and racks and boxes of tapes, records, DVDs and CDs are giving way to ethereal, virtual representations that only exist if they are stored somewhere. I lost pictures of Mom I will never see again. Music and jam sessions between me and friends/exes. Fun or thought provoking bits and pieces collected from the web and email, as well as deeply personal things. All got lost. Not any more.
I want to keep the pieces of my digital life in safe keeping. I also upload some of this to various places on the web such as Flickr, but I have distrust for any online services as a whole. Will they be there in the long run? Will they respect my privacy? Will they keep my digital stuff from falling into the wrong hands? These days, I doubt any and all of that, so it's up to me to go it alone. So, the Great Home Network Upgrade of 2008 will hopefully meet my needs for many years to come. The only work remaining is running a bunch more Cat5e/6 around the house and a gigabit ethernet switch. Then I hope to sit back and enjoy the results of all this work.
