FireWire

How To Move OS X Time Machine Backups To A New Disk

July 26, 2008 by Stephen 33 Comments

It turns out that you can move Time Machine backups easily, with included OS X tools, and without breaking anything. My old backups are still visible, and I have another 40 GB to work with. Read on for the details!

Drobo 2: Apple Doesn’t Fall Far From the Tree

July 8, 2008 by Stephen 1 Comment

Data Robotics today introduced the second generation of what I think of as a personal storage array, but although the Drobo 2 offers great enhancements, making it a top choice for those needing massive and protected storage on a single computer, it’s still not what I’m looking for in a home storage device.

Low-Power USB Ports Haunt My MacBook Pro

July 4, 2008 by Stephen 9 Comments

It turns out that Apple made at least a few errors in designing the hardware of the MacBook Pro. After living with it for a solid week, I can report that, along with the useless ambient light sensor and wimpy power cord, both of the ‘Pro’s USB ports are compromised! The left side doesn’t have the power […]

Upgraded! 320 GB in a MacBook Pro!

June 25, 2008 by Stephen 10 Comments

I know I’m not the first to do this, but it does make me chuckle to have upgraded a brand new machine less than a week after buying it. That’s right, my brand new MacBook Pro now has 4 GB of RAM and a massive 320 GB of disk space. If you’re thinking of upgrading your […]

Custom Icons Keep Removable Drives Straight

May 27, 2008 by Stephen 3 Comments

Update: I have created another page for custom drive icons in Mac OS X If you’re like most people, you have accumulated a large number of removable USB storage devices over the years, from flash-based thumb drives to external hard disks. I have seven of these things sitting on my desk or in by laptop […]

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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.

The 2018 iPad Pro is a Beast!

The third-generation iPad Pro is a great machine but also a bellwether of change at Apple. It will be very hard for the rest of the mobile and client computing industry to keep up with this kind of progress!

The Four Horsemen of Storage System Performance: The Rule of Spindles

August 25, 2010

Why do some data storage solutions perform better than others? Mechanical performance, RAM caching, I/O capacity, and the intelligence of the system all have a part to play. Today we examine the rule of spindles: Adding more disk spindles is generally more effective than using faster spindles.

Virtualized and Distributed Storage: This Time For Sure!

September 2, 2014

We were never able to achieve storage virtualization in mainstream enterprise IT because we lacked the ability to identify and move data non-disruptively. This has been solved by caching and distributed storage solutions, and it’s only a matter of time before the legacy need for centralized storage falls away.

What’s the Difference Between a Jailbroken and an Unlocked Phone?

May 5, 2012

If you’ve traveled much, you’ve probably run across â€œunlockedâ€ mobile phones and devices. If you own an Android or iPhone smart phone, you probably also heard about â€œjailbreakingâ€. It seems like lots of people are confused about these two things, so I decided to write down a quick post explaining them.

The Terrifying True Story Of Virtual Machine Mobility

December 22, 2011

Virtualization of server, network, and storage services illuminates the link between physical resources and functional applications. A running virtual machine can instantly move from one server, network adapter, HBA, or LUN to another. And when it happens, traditional components have no idea how to react.

Are You a Hypervisor Hugger or a Storage Stalwart?

November 14, 2011

The time has come to take sides on the core question of storage for virtual servers: Do you want storage intelligence to live in the hypervisor or the array? Most administrators are already lining up on one side or the other, unintentionally casting their vote while the rest flounder. But the storage industry must wake up and embrace the divide.

Co-Processors, GPGPU, and Heterogeneous Computing

June 26, 2017

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about microprocessors, from the many-core CPUs that AMD and Intel introduced recently to the massively scalable GPGPU processing that’s taking machine learning by storm. After years of consolidation on commodity x86 CPUs, it seems that the computing paradigm is turning again to specialized offload processors. This trend towards heterogeneous computing will change the face of hardware, from mobile devices to the datacenter.

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!

Why Buy a NEX-7? Why Sony NEX At All?

October 17, 2011

Your tweets about your NEX have intrigued me a bit…I get tired of lugging my Nikon D90 around with my kids, yet I find the quality of most point-and-shoot cameras terrible…so the NEX seems like an interesting compromise.