data backup

Input Needed: How to Back Up Big Filesystems?

February 9, 2008 by Stephen Leave a Comment

I’ve just started writing an article for Storage Magazine on the topic of large filesystem backup. It’s always been difficult to handle really big filesystems – whether they contain lots of little files or a few big ones. There are parallelism issues, latency, throughput/streaming, etc. If you have experience with this topic, I’d appreciate a […]

Online Storage? Hardly!

August 16, 2007 by Stephen Leave a Comment

Robin Harris blogged today about Google’s pay-for-storage service, and he hit the nail on the head. It (and pretty much every other current online storage service) is nearly worthless to most folks because it lacks one simple thing: A usable interface. Set aside Google’s traditionally horrid (lack of) marketing and you’re left with a service […]

NetBackup 6.5 Spreads the Love Around

August 14, 2007 by Stephen 2 Comments

Symantec announced availability of the latest NetBackup revision today, version 6.5. This release is nearly complete in its buzzword-compliance, with enhanced support for VTL and backup to disk, data deduplication, CDP, LAN-free backup, SharePoint and Exchange, and even VMware! What’s the matter, Symantec, was Thin Provisioning not ready for release? How about green computing? Holographic […]

Thoughts on Mark Lewis’ Future Storage

August 8, 2007 by Stephen 2 Comments

EMC’s Mark Lewis posted another thoughtful “blog episode”, outlining five predictions he has for the next few years. I don’t really agree with him much more than I did the last time, but it’s an interesting read nonetheless!

Big Little VMware Update (VCB and iSCSI!)

August 3, 2007 by Stephen Leave a Comment

VMware released version 1.0.3 of VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB) today. While a minor software rev wouldn’t normally warrant a blog post, this is anything but minor. VCB was a good idea, but implementation experience found it lacking. For one thing, it didn’t support iSCSI, which is a major omission in the world of Windows and […]

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GPS Time Rollover Failures Keep Happening (But They’re Almost Done)

This is week “1111111111” in the GPS system. Tomorrow morning it will roll over to week “0000000000”. How well will various systems handle this change? Not well, judging by what we’ve seen so far!

Ranting and Raving About the 2018 iPad Pro

I remain enthusiastic about the iPad Pro, despite getting a scratched screen and my concerns about durability. It’s a worthy successor to the original and offers enough improvements that I’d recommend the upgrade for just about anyone who uses their iPad for serious work. It’s still not yet a laptop replacement, but this is due more to a lack of desktop-class software for iOS than anything in Apple’s control.

Fasting to Mitigate Jet Lag: Surprise! It Works!

February 11, 2013

I’m a frequent traveler, and thus a frequently suffer from moderate jet lag. It’s just so hard to adjust to a new time zone! But I recently stumbled on a simple method many claim helps your internal clock re-calibrate to travel. After trying it out on my trip to Australia last week, I’m convinced it can help!

It’s Time To Move Beyond Passwords (Especially On Web Sites)

January 8, 2016

Sure, single sign-on puts all your eggs in one basket. But this is vastly preferable to trusting that hundreds of third-party baskets are secure, especially when they prove on a weekly basis that they aren’t! It’s time to put distributed passwords behind us and switch to systems like SAML, both for businesses and consumers.

A High-Tech Water Heater? Yep! Introducing the A. O. Smith Vertex

November 15, 2012

I justify spending six times more on the Vertex 100 for a simple reason: It’ll keep up with the heavy water use in my house. I’m hoping I’ll never have to worry about hot water as long as I live here. The fact that it saves over $100 per year due to energy-efficient design is just icing on the cake.

Deduplication Coming to Primary Storage

September 16, 2008

Although deduplication of storage is nothing new, with Data Domain and other making hay with the technique for years, it has never been ready for prime time – reduction of active primary storage applications like email and databases. Instead, deduplication has been relegated to second- or third-tier status, deduplicating archives and backup data. But change is in the air, and deduplication vendors are starting to bustle towards the bright lights of primary storage.

Go Get a ProtonMail Account and Protect Your Online Life!

July 19, 2017

It’s an easy decision: Get a free ProtonMail account and use that as your verification address for important financial and social media accounts. Keep using whatever email account you like for regular communication, but don’t mix security and communication!

What’s (Still) Wrong With Dropbox For Business

April 17, 2013

I am a heavy (and paying) user of Dropbox, using it both for business and personal storage and synchronization. Although I find the service incredibly useful, Dropbox is far from perfect, especially for business users. So I thought I would take a few moments to talk about what I’d like to see Dropbox improve.

Donate Your Swag to School Kids In Need

July 28, 2010

Trade shows are a veritable swag-fest, some with great loot and some with junk. I’ve been critical of the booth babe and chotchkie phenomenon, but my friend Kevin Houston has a better suggestion: Donate your (useful) swag like backpacks and pens to school kids in need.

How Will Cisco Recover From The Consumer Strategy Blunder?

January 2, 2013

Cisco made a massive strategic blunder in the last decade, aggressively moving into consumer devices rather than focusing on their core enterprise and service provider markets. It seems that Cisco is now in the process of rectifying this mistake, but charting a path to growth is an entirely different matter!