One of my criticisms of ZFS is that it's not flexible: Once you set up a dataset, you're pretty much stuck with it. But this isn't entirely true: You can add a mirror or stripe to an existing pool without destroying the data. Since this is quite a common operation, I decided to write it up for posterity. A Very Simple ZFS Pool Let's say you built the world's most basic ZFS … [Read more...] about Add a Mirror to an Existing ZFS Drive
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How To Remove Raw Images From Apple Photos and iCloud
Apple Photos isn't the best application to manage a large digital photo library, but the integration with iCloud, iOS, and macOS is extremely useful. But even though Photos can process and store raw images, it is severely lacking in terms of library management: Smart folders don't properly recognize them and there's no easy way to remove them from your library so these huge … [Read more...] about How To Remove Raw Images From Apple Photos and iCloud
Recalling An HP MediaSmart Server To Active Duty
I was recently given an old HP MediaSmart EX470 server along with some other junk hardware. Although it has no graphics, a slow single-core AMD Sempron CPU, and just 512 MB of RAM, I was able to revive it quite satisfactorily. Here's how I upgraded the hardware and software. Remembering the MediaSmart HP released the first MediaSmart server in 2008, and there was much … [Read more...] about Recalling An HP MediaSmart Server To Active Duty
Go Get a ProtonMail Account and Protect Your Online Life!
I don't usually advocate for specific products, but I'm 100% on-board with this recommendation: Stop what you're doing, go get a ProtonMail account, and use it as the verification account for your online self! ProtonMail is much more secure than any other mail provider and is the ideal place for password resets and bank account statements. Best of all, it's free! Insecure … [Read more...] about Go Get a ProtonMail Account and Protect Your Online Life!
ZFS Is the Best Filesystem (For Now…)
ZFS should have been great, but I kind of hate it: ZFS seems to be trapped in the past, before it was sidelined it as the cool storage project of choice; it's inflexible; it lacks modern flash integration; and it's not directly supported by most operating systems. But I put all my valuable data on ZFS because it simply offers the best level of data protection in a small … [Read more...] about ZFS Is the Best Filesystem (For Now…)