Terabyte home

Sprint USB EV-DO + Cradlepoint personal hotspot = sweet!

Goodbye, AT&T 3G! After a year of hoping coverage would improve, I finally jumped ship from AT&T’s 3G network and moved my mobile wireless broadband service to Sprint. I grabbed a refurbished USB EV-DO device and signed up through a no-contract reseller and couldn’t be happier with the service so far. And I picked up a Cradlepoint router at the same time, giving me a portable Wi-Fi hotspot so any device I have (or a friend has) can get online at broadband speed from anywhere. Awesome!

So, yeah, my headline is a little misleading. But it’s true - rather than buy a 3G iPhone in my 3G-starved hometown, I decided to kill all of my mobile connectivity woes at once, including stepping up to 3G speeds on the iPhone. Read on for details about what was wrong with AT&T Laptop Connect, why I selected Sprint, the Cradlepoint PHS300 router, and how to get all of this with no contract.

Continue Reading »

I recently mentioned how impressed I was with the speed of my MacBook, even when running Windows in Boot Camp. Of course, this was a subjective feeling, so I decided to try timing some events to see if the clock agreed with my brain. Sure enough, the Mac is faster than my Dell XPS M1330 by a good margin. But I was surprised to learn that Vista, even in Ultimate guise, wasn’t half bad, either. The root of my performance gripes seems to be what happens after Vista is booted - after the desktop appears, all OSes spend time doing something in the background, but Vista spends much more time.

My test was simple: I used the iPhone’s stopwatch to time the following key events after startup:

1. The Mac Gong or disappearance of the PC or VMware BIOS screen
2. The appearance of the login box (I paused the timer at this point to give me time to enter my password)
3. The appearance of the desktop
4. I then clicked on the icons to launch my mail and web browser apps, assuming this would be the first thing most people would do on startup, and timed how long it took for each to load and present content
5. Finally, I stopped the clock when the system appeared usable - hourglasses disappeared, the disk stopped chugging like crazy, and all background apps had loaded and were running
6. I also timed how long it took for the system to power down after ordering a shutdown

Not surprisingly, the MacBook with OS X was fastest, though it took a surprisingly longish time to get Mail and Safari launched compared to Firefox and Outlook in Windows. OS X also excels at knocking off the backup tasks and giving a stable, ready-to-use system.

Booting Windows Vista Ultimate in Boot Camp was surprisingly speedy, too, and this was the core of my test. The Mac gave me a working Windows environment in just 2:15, compared to 1:40 for OS X and 3:10 for my Dell XPS M1330. I’m not sure exactly what the Dell is doing, but it churns and chugs for quite a while on bootup, even after I stopped the clock, and it’s got a nice clean install with few apps running.

Finally, I timed my Boot Camp volume in VMware Fusion (1.1.3) and found that, although it was speedy enough when it was running, it took 30 seconds longer to get started than booting natively. But even Fusion was quicker than the Dell.

My feeling is that Microsoft has spent some time optimizing the startup experience in Vista, trimming the time it takes to get a login window and desktop by shifting some work to background tasks that interfere with usability once the system appears to be running. A clever trick, that, but one that frustrates me on a daily basis as I stare at a desktop full of icons that I can’t use quite yet.

Once again, this is not the most scientific test ever, but it helps to show what I feel about the Mac:

• It’s quicker when I want to sit down and start working
• Windows is much quicker on the Mac than the Dell, despite only slightly better specs (2.2/4 GB vs. 2.0/2 GB)

I ran each test a few times, and although they varied by a few seconds they were fairly consistent.

I’ve now been a Mac user for two months. Since I switched primarily to get access to Apple’s excellent hardware, I thought I would issue an update on my observations about it at this point. I should note that I’m limiting this post to the hardware (maybe I’ll cover OS X some other time), and that I’m using a maxed-out Late-2007 2.2 GHz MacBook Pro.

Although some shortcomings have appeared, I’m pleased with the Mac overall. It definitely met my expectations and continues to meet my needs, mixing portability and performance in an excellent package.  I am impressed by Apple’s hardware design and component choices, especially when compared to other computers with similar specifications that I have used.  And, as noted by Tom’s Hardware, the specification of the machine was reasonably priced, especially since I purchased it at a substantial discount and upgraded it myself.

Continue Reading »

It’s Olympics time, but despite high tech elements, it’s still tough to watch what you want.  NBC has scheduled more coverage than ever, but much is delayed and none is properly listed in guide services.  And TiVo’s Olympics Guru Guide is worse than useless in so many ways.

Here’s the rundown about what you have to do and why:

1. If you have an HD TiVo, don’t use the Guru Guide.  It’ll only record in SD, even if you removed those channels from your lineup!  Oh, and that Guru Guide doesn’t show up on the TiVo web site anyway!
2. Consider getting a DVR Expander hard drive for your Series 3 or HD TiVo (if you don’t already have one) because NBC is scheduling their Olympic coverage in massive 5- to 7-hour blocks and cutting between sports.  So if you want to watch anything, you’ll be recording multiple blocks at 35 GB to 49 GB a pop!
3. Olympics coverage is showing up on NBC, Universal, USA, CNBC, MSNBC, Telemundo, and Oxygen, as well as two new special HD channels that you probably don’t receive.  Good luck keeping it all straight!
4. TiVo has the coverage on NBC HD, Universal HD, and USA HD listed as “XXIX Summer Olympics“, but with conflicting episode numbers.  So there’s an episode 1 of this “show” listed on each of the three channels and all are different!  This will break your season pass.
5. How about a wishlist?  TiVo is including individual sports events in the “show” descriptions, so you could set a wishlist for “Olympics Swimming”, but again, it’ll record a massive 8-hour chunk of programming on Saturday, taking up 56 GB of disk space for a single event.
6. I decided to set a max-priority season pass for the main NBC HD channel for “XXIX Summer Olympics”, keeping 5 episodes and recording only first-run, which will get the main popular/USA-dominated sports and the opening ceremony.  I also set lowest-priority “record all” season passes on UHD and USAHD keeping 2 to catch some more.  This ought to slurp down the space on my Series 3’s 500 GB Western Digital expander drive in no time!
7. If you want to get really tricky you could consult NBC’s online schedule and set manual recordings for events.  But don’t count on NBC actually showing things when they’re scheduled…

What are your ideas?  Or will you just give up and watch the games on YouTube, Bittorrent, or follow on the official site?

Although it’s been available for a while now, Windows Server 2008’s storage changes aren’t widely reported. TechTarget’s Dave Raffo wrote a piece about it today, Windows Server 2008’s hidden storage features, including some quotes from me, but it’s still less than clear.

So let me sum up:

1. Server Message Block (SMB) 2.0 is probably the biggest news.  Microsoft re-worked this protocol for Vista and 2008 to reduce chattiness, combine multiple commands in a single packet, and allow larger packets.  This should improve performance for just about everyone, but is only in those two operating systems right now.
2. The excellent multi-path I/O (MPIO) driver from Microsoft is also included right out of the box, including device-specific modules for both iSCSI and Fibre Channel.  This is the first version of Windows to come with MPIO, though it’s available with the iSCSI initiator and OEM drivers for other versions.
3. As in Vista, Server 2008 allows you to shrink NTFS filesystems on the fly.  It’s not quite as flexible or forgiving as some third-party tools, but it’s certainly easy to use!  Just go into the disk administrator snap-in and try it for yourself.
4. Windows finally has the option to leave new LUNs alone instead of trying to mount them.  This was one of those things that gave Windows a rep as a bad neighbor in SAN environments.
5. NTBackup is gone, replaced by a new Server Backup MMC snap-in.  I haven’t tried it, but I hope it’s better than the one that comes in Vista!  I ended up keeping NTBackup around on my laptop…
6. A new MMC snap-in called Storage Explorer lets you manage WMI-compliant SAN devices.
7. The Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) and DFS interfaces are improved and are now scriptable.
8. Server 2008 now automatically aligns filesystem boundaries with storage, which was one of those dark and secret skills us storage guys used to share amongst ourselves.  This can increase performance in high-I/O environments.
9. NTFS (in both Server 2008 and Vista) now has symbolic link support, just like UNIX and Mac OS X.  Note that this got mangled in the TechTarget article.
10. NTFS was also tuned and tweaked a bit for better stability and crash recovery.

This should not come as a shock to anyone, as it has been proven before, but let me take this moment to say that, yes, despite their rated speeds, 400-megabit FireWire S400 (aka IEEE 1394) is faster than 480-megabit USB 2.0.

While swapping out disk drives (first to upgrade the internal drive in my MacBook Pro and later to give Time Machine more room), I took some quick performance snapshots with xbench and showed that, depending on I/O type, FireWire can be almost twice as fast as USB, but neither really holds a candle to SATA.

I also took the opportunity to compare the highly-integrated USB 2.0 controller in my Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini with the much more complicated FireWire/USB combo found in the Verbatim SmartDisk, as well as the performance of three popular notebook hard disk models.

Continue Reading »

With all the Apple-related content popping up on this blog, I decided to add an Apple-only feed to the mix.  Now, if you’d like to follow my adventures with the Mac, iPhone, and other Apple junk, and don’t care about all the enterprise storage and general home computing stuff, you can subscribe to just the Apple feed.  Most folks are subscribed to my Everything feed, which includes all posts, and won’t need to change a thing.

So here’s a summary of my feeds:

•  All Posts - Everything I post in any category
•  Apple - Posts related to Apple, the Macintosh, the iPhone, iTunes, and the like
•  Computer History - Posts about the old computer junk I love so much
•  Enterprise Storage - Posts related to my profession
•  Personal - Posts of interest to family and friends
•  Terabyte Home - Posts relating to the proliferation of storage and computer technology in the home

Bonus points to anyone who can identify the item pictured!

I’ve been running OS 2.0 on my (first-generation) iPhone for a week and a half now, and as I mentioned before, Exchange ActiveSync push email, calendaring, and contacts was one of the main things Iwas looking for when I upgraded.  That article on setting up ActiveSync has since become my top blog post by far, pulling in literally thousands of hits per day, so I must not be alone in wanting this functionality.

But it turns out that the green grass of iPhone/Exchange integration has a tint of brown.  Folks have experienced issues getting the service set up, and it guzzles battery juice like a toddler at a lemonade stand.  Read on for my notes and suggestions… Continue Reading »

I’ve been very pleased by Apple’s integrated backup application in OS X, Time Machine.  It cleverly removes many of the barriers to backup, and makes restore both simple and fun.  But I’ve noticed that it’s not quite perfect out of the box.  Two default settings in particular bother me:  It is set to back up everything, including OS files and caches, and spotlight needlessly indexes your Time Machine drive.  Luckily, both are easy fixes.

Continue Reading »

It’s finally here!  The iPhone now has most of the functions of the BlackBerry - over-the-air push and sync of Exchange email, contacts, and calendars!  Apple let the 2.0 OS out of the bag earlier today, and intrepid souls (and me) have taken the plunge and installed it.

While most people, including me, headed to the (also active) App Store to try out the native games, I quickly turned the other way - towards the new Microsoft Exchange integration.

Read on for my first impressions and instructions on getting it up and running.

By the way, the apps are great!  Sega’s Super Monkey Ball is touchy, but I think I’ll get the hang of it.  And my 4 year old loves Jirbo Match!  Too bad the Red Sox weren’t playing or my test of MLB At Bat would have been much more exciting!

Continue Reading »