USB power

Here’s Something Your Raspberry Pi Can’t Do: Gigabit Ethernet and SATA in the Olimex A20-OLinuXIno-LIME2

May 25, 2016 by Stephen 3 Comments

I’ve really enjoyed experimenting with the Raspberry Pi, and have even deployed a few as UNIX servers in my home and office network. The quad-core performance of the latest Pi models is awesome, but serious I/O limitations remain. With just one USB 2.0 interface shared for all network and storage operations, you aren’t going to […]

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.

Go Get a ProtonMail Account and Protect Your Online Life!

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!

Regarding My Symbolic Links and Good Reads

April 16, 2015

I’ve been told that my shares drive traffic to the blogs I read. I’m thrilled that I can share great writing with you in this way, and I hope you find it valuable! But just in case you don’t, I hope you’ll take advantage of the fact that I filter these posts for you into “Symbolic Links” and “Good Reads” so you’ll find it easier to ignore them.

Infographic: Real-World Port Throughput Relative To Thunderbolt (Formerly Light Peak)

February 21, 2011

Just how fast is 10 gigabits per second anyway? To help out, I’ve prepared another napkin-tastic infographic!

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.

EMC Redefine Possible (TL;DR Edition)

July 9, 2014

EMC made quite a few announcements today at their “Redefine Possible” event in London. There’s a lot of coverage out there already, so I decided to present a summary of the whole thing in “too long; didn’t read” (TL;DR) fashion.

Cisco’s Trojan Horse

September 15, 2014

Industry watchers like me have long wondered when Cisco will transform itself into a full-line IT infrastructure vendor. This strategy was tipped in 2009 as Cisco barged into the server market with UCS. But one leg of the stool is still missing: Storage remains the province of Cisco partners like EMC and NetApp.

Frequent Flier Kung Fu for Novices

March 12, 2012

If you’re careful, even an infrequent flyer can rack up valuable points and maybe even elite status. But don’t do anything foolish, and don’t be fooled by the promises of first-class treatment. Even top-tier frequent flyers sit in coach most of the time!

ZFS Is the Best Filesystem (For Now…)

July 10, 2017

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 office/home office (SOHO) environment. Here’s why.

What is VMware VASA? Not Much (Yet)

November 11, 2011

VMware is adding storage integration features to their flagship vSphere server virtualization product line at a rapid pace. From backup to enterprise array offload, VMware is staking their claim. But information about one new storage feature in vSphere 5 has been scarce: The true nature of the Storage API for Storage Awareness (VASA) is only just beginning to be revealed.