In Valid Logic

After talking about Windows Home Server yesterday, I've been looking at my opinions for data backup some lately.

My current data needs are about 100gb (around 50gb photos, and 50gb other files).  They tend to expand by approximately 50gb per year (about 40gb of photos, I take a lot of photos, and 10gb of other files).  So in 3 years, I would have about 250gb, and in 5 years I would need about 350gb.

I am looking at 3-4 different options.  First, keep the RAID NAS box that I have already.  It will cover my needs beyond 5 years, provides redundancy, and has low power consumption (an important thing to take into account).  Power consumption on the NAS box is about $10-12/month, as it tends to use about 55-70 watts.  However, it doesn't mean any sort of off-site backup, so Mozy may still be a good option with it.

Option 2 would be to use Windows Home Server in conjunction with a service like Mozy.  As I mentioned previously, I don't like its redundancy options as much, so I would probably pair it with Mozy (which is only $5/month).  However, it would have to use a full computer.  I could either use one I already have or build a low power one like my Media Center PC, though either way, it would definitely use more power than my NAS box, so its monthly costs would likely be $20-25/month for power.  Additionally, it would be a server, and I rarely keep servers for 3-5 years… I'd be lucky to go 2 years without an upgrade bug.  So that adds to the costs.

Third, I could ditch the NAS box and move its HDs into my main desktop, and then use Mozy to back those up.  This would be much lower power consumption than even the NAS box, I could sell the NAS box and probably an HD or two, and would just have the $5 cost of Mozy.

And finally, I could use a service like Amazon's S3 which has a flat cost of $0.15/gb/month and $0.20/gb transferred.  S3 is attractive since it has no start up costs and is cheap to begin with, though as time goes on, its costs will be ever increasing.  There is some talk about how it will likely get cheaper over time, as HD costs go down and the costs are spread out more over their systems, but that has yet to be seen.  Another mixed result is that it doesn't require local copies.  I don't always need to have a local copy of all of my photos for instance, so my local storage capacity needs are lower, but the disadvantage is that I don't have it locally when I might need it, such as when my connection goes down, or if S3 goes under.  Additionally, I may not want to pay that much for some of the important files I want locally, like ISOs and such.  Those aren't worth $0.15/gb/month, but I want them backed up, so would maybe need a S3+local+Mozy option.

Most of the options involve Mozy, and there could be some uncertainty about Mozy lasting.  They are very cost effective for the consumer, but don't know how that carries over to their business model.  However, those options with Mozy all involve local copies, so I could easily migrate to another easily.  Mozy is VC funded, so that could always dry up, or they could always be bought out or something and have their service suffer.

Cheapest by far would be to move the HDs into my desktop and just use Mozy.  The easiest option would likely be to keep the NAS and maybe use Mozy with it.  I like the NAS box already, and it kind of a sunken cost since I already own it.  Selling it would have an uncertain cost as I don't know how easy it would be to sell or how much I'd get for it.

Overall, they all are close to each other and could easily be swayed depending on a number of factors.  I think it ultimately comes down to what your priorities are and what you are comfortable with. IE, want to maintain local copies, or comfortable not maintaining a local copy to lower your capacity needs.

Recently, wish my talk about backup strategies, I was looking at Windows Home Server.  One thing that has kind of put me off about it is its idea of doing redundant storage.

Currently, I use the Infrant ReadyNAS NV and love it so far.  It uses "X-RAID", which is basically just RAID5, though they like to sound fancy with X.  It supports 4 drives, and with RAID enabled, you essentially get the capacity of 3 of the drives.  This allows for better cost per GB than some alternatives like RAID1.  But the disadvantage is if you eventually max out your drives, you can't dynamically expand beyond the 4 drives, and it is difficult to remove the drives and replace them while preserving the data.

Windows Home Server's concept of storage is to treat it more like a pool.  You don't have drives, it simply collectively manages the drives, no matter how they are connected (SATA, USB, etc).  With this, you have much better expandability.

The problem is with how Windows Home Server does redundant storage.  You can mark certain shares as ones that will be redundant, so then WHS will ensure that all files are located on at least two drives, so if one fails, it can be replaced and repopulated with the files it stored.  The disadvantage is that this is essentially RAID1, where each file takes up twice its actual size.  But the advantage is that this is only for shares you want to be redundant.  Ones that aren't redundant will only take up 1x the space.

This makes sense and sounds pretty good, but then I was thinking about something.  Why would I put a file on a network share that I don't to be redundant?  Think about it… lets see what is on my network share.  System images?  Don't want to lose those.  Saved photos?  No, definitely don't want to lose those.  Archived documents?  Nope.  Financial data?  No. MP3s/videos I've downloaded or purchased?  Nope.

If you are going to bother with putting a file on a network share, where it is accessible, but not highly accessible (it is there when you need it, but network shares take a hit on performance vs. local)… why would I put it on a network and not want it redundant?

Overall, Windows Home Server looks attractive for its PC maintenance functions and expandability, but not really for data reliability.  Perhaps the better option would be a Windows Home Server married to a service like Mozy.  Though that may require another PC to be on to send the data.

Dan Hounshell was curious what the specs were on my Media Center PC, so I thought I'd go over it some.

My new box is absolutely rocking so far.  Overall, it has 4 tuners in it (2 standard cable, 2 HD), so we can essentially record up to 4 shows at once.  The main advantage is with the dual HD tuners, since we often times want to record two primetime dramas that are on at the same time (ie, wife likes Smallville, I like CSI, and CBS is funky in Sacramento where CSI is at 8 instead of 9).

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo T5500

After the older socket 478 Pentium 4 died, figured I should get a modern CPU.  I went with the T-series Core 2 Duo since it is the mobile series.  Uses about half the power as the desktop series, and is about the same price.  For Media Center, heat is more important than speed… it doesn't need a ton of power, and a dual core would fit nicely with Media Center.  The main thing is you want the PC quiet, so a mobile CPU will use far less power.

Motherboard: Asus N4L-VM DH

I always prefer Asus motherboards, and this is the "mobile on desktop" motherboard in Asus' offerings.  Overall, it is a very nice board.  Main pluses are passively cooled, mATX (fits smaller cases), integrated digital optical/coaxial outputs, 1x PCIe x16, 1x PCIe x1, and 2x PCI.  Only thing I don't like is the PCIe x1 is right next to the PCIe x16, so the two cards kind of rub against each other since the video card has a larger heatsink.

RAM: 2GB DDR2 (2x 1GB)

Nothing real big here.  Just using Kingston's Value series RAM.  I don't spend big bucks for top-end high-speed RAM.  Just get the regular stuff, from a name brand, and it works perfectly.

Video Card: GeForce 7600GS 256mb

This is kind of a mid-ranged video card.  Latest chipset, but not the one with all the bells and whistles.  Provides good power consumption with pretty good performance.  I went more on the side of consumption that performance.  Also, it is passively cooled.  This means less fans for less noise, though still need to pay attention to airflow in the case to ensure it isn't just sitting in dead air.

Standard Tuner: Huappauge WinTV-PVR-500MCE

This is a very nice dual-tuner PCI card.  With this card, you get two tuners in one, so you can record two things, or record one thing and watch another at the same time.  You can use two single-tuner cards, but with that you will be using more slots (on an mATX motherboard, don't have a lot of room for expansion) and using two cards will mean more power consumption, so more heat.  Very nice card, great quality, well recommended.

HD Tuner: Vbox Cat's Eye 164e

Similar to my standard tuner, this is the only dual-tuner HD card on the market.  It is my newest component (other than the stuff that died) since I wasn't content with just a single HD tuner.  I had one of Vbox's single HD tuner cards and liked it, and so far this one has been performing well (though the Vista drivers are still somewhat beta).  I definitely wanted two HD tuners as we watch a number of network dramas, and HD is just awesome.

Burner: Plextor DVD-R/+R/CD-RW Burner

Not sure exactly which model this is, but just a basic Plextor burner that I've had for a while.  Had a nice dual layer SATA Plextor burner in it a while ago and it died.  So bought my desktop a new dual layer burner and put the older single layer burner from my desktop in the Media Center PC.  It doesn't really need a dual layer, I don't burn much on it, mainly just play DVDs or CDs.  Probably hold out for a HD-DVD drive when they are actually reasonably priced.

Power Supply: Coolmax "EZ Wire" 400w

This is one component that may be upgraded next… if needed.  I don't need more power, and certainly don't need 400w, but it works well.  Coolmax isn't really one of the main name brands (in my opinion at least) but it seems to work ok so far.  One thing I do like that is being done on more and more power supplies is the modular cabling.  Instead of having that mess of unused cabling you need to tuck away somewhere, you only plug in the branches that you need, so you don't have that left over bundle.  Works great to cut down on the clutter.  Less clutter means cleaner layout and better airflow.

Case: OrigenAE H6 (Silver)

These days, you can go pretty crazy with HTPC cases, as they have ones with built in touchscreen LCD displays and such.  I don't really need anything like that.  I just want a simple case that will match style of my stereo receiver and not be an ugly beige PC case.  I am not a big fan of the SilverStone cases (my old one was a SilverStone, didn't care for it).  This case has a built in LCD (just a little character one, not the full color graphical ones) and an IR module.  The LCD works pretty good, but the IR is a little funky, and doesn't burst as well as the default MCE IR receiver, but overall the case is much better.  Pretty good hard drive mounts with rubber grommets, grommets on the fan by the hard drives, very light weight, well laid out.  Only complaints are would be nice if it has some rubber shims for the rear fans.  It didn't have a fan spot on the side opposite the hard drives, but I was able to cut out of a hole for a 80mm fan and add one there.  The case is very simple and has an appealing look though.  I like it.

Main thing I am still working on fleshing out is the system monitoring.  Just recently got the system how I want it, so just now moving over to concentrating on the software.  Also need to look into adding the ability to get fan reporting on the additional fans.

This morning, Scott Hanselman posted about his revised backup strategy after inadvertently losing some data for a family member.  It is surprising how often people overlook their own backup fallacies.  It is too easy to figure "ohh, I'll do it later, it won't die now" or assume keeping a second hard drive is enough.

Recently I was talking to a friend of mine.  His wife just gave birth to their second child, and he had recently lost a bunch of pictures of his first daughter due to a hard drive failure.  With Trish now being pregnant, he was saying it is absolutely crucial to have a sound backup strategy, and those baby pictures are absolutely invaluable.  His strategy, similar to Scott's, is to keep a safe deposit box with a spare hard drive and regularly backing it up.

With our first child on the way, it has had me thinking a lot about ensuring our important memories (pictures) and documents are all documented, secure, and backed up.

To give a brief synopsis, here are all the things I am trying to account for:

• Eliminate any "single point of failure" for important data (ie, nothing in just one physical drive).
• If our house is broken into, is everything that is important locked up, encrypted, or otherwise inaccessible.  Ever watch It Takes a Thief?  If they snatch my computer tower, do they get my entire life history with it?  They better not.
• If our house is burned down to the ground, is that data stored somewhere off site?  Insurance aside, it is easy to lose irreplaceable things this way.
• In our house, I take care of all the finances.  If I were to pass away today, would Trish have access to our finances?  Would she know where all our money is?  How much we have?  When bills are due?  She may know which banks we use, but does she know the account numbers or current balances?  What about the password to my computer or email?  Who to contact at work or otherwise to inform them?

I've been working on coming up with a life backup strategy.  It involves not just having all your data backed up, but the important things in your life that your significant other would need to know in your absence.  Bank information, passwords, etc.  This can be the hardest part to do, simply because you want it easy to update (otherwise you won't keep it up to date), secure (so it isn't "too easy to update" like leaving it all written down on a piece of paper on your desk), but also accessible to the right people, so Trish knows everything it contains and how to use it if it was ever needed.

Kids can be a real eye opener to some of these things, since you realize how important those baby pictures are, but also how important it is to ensure they are ok in the event you aren't around.

Since my post about my MCE system going boom was two weeks ago, figured it would be good to post a little update.

So originally, my video card had crapped out as a result of overheating due to a dead fan and lack of notification about it.  Turns out I had to get a new CPU and motherboard as well.  Yeah, they don't really make socket 478 Pentium 4s anymore.  It was kind of dated when I first bought it, but they were cheap.  Now, when the CPU poops out, not going to be able to find any new ones.

But now I have a nicely refreshed and cooler system.  It isn't quite 100% finished off just yet.  I like the case that I got, but still need to make a few modifications.  The case only has a front fan on the right side, in front of the hard drives and over by the power supply.  The cdrom is in the middle of the case, so it acts as kind of a barrier.  The left side doesn't get any airflow.  It has no fans, no air vents, nothing, but over on that side is the video card, cable tuner, and HDTV tuner.  So no airflow, but some heat generating parts that have no fans.  My plan is to cut a hole in the bottom of the case to mount a fan to add some airflow on the left side of the case.  Second, it has nice rubber grommets on the hard drives and the fan by the hard drives, but nothing for the rear fans, and they seem to generate almost all the noise so far.  Want to find or make some rubber shims to quiet them down.  And third, the motherboard only has one system fan connector, but I'm going to be having 4 system fans.  Need a way so the other fans can still have monitoring on them, but don't want one of those extremely ugly fan controllers.

The other thing I am battling is with my HDTV antenna.  I finally replaced my crappy old indoor antenna with an outdoor one.  I took the old satellite dish off the house and put the antenna in its place.  The problem is shows are a little choppy.  HD is an "all or nothing" so you don't get fuzziness like with standard channels.  Instead, it will play fine, and then pause for a second or so.  It can get really aggravating through.  The antenna has a recommended range of 30 miles, and using AntennaWeb, I know which direction it needs to be pointing, and that they are only ~18 miles away, so right in the sweet spot.  I think I may need a signal amplifier, since the cable distance may be too long.  Hopefully a quick run up to Radio Shack will solve that.

So far, I love Vista Media Center.  Far improvement over MCE 2005.  A lot of it are simple little things.  When watching something and you hit stop, it goes back to the menu instead of showing the boring "resume, restart, delete" screen.  When watching live TV of a show you are also recording and you hit stop, it actually just stops playing it.  Before, it would ask you to stop recording instead of stop watching.  And a number of other excellent usability tweaks.

Earlier today, we posted CS 2007 Beta2.  Coming soon, the add-ons.

Tomorrow, I think should also try and get some of those skins I've done posted, and probably post my Lightbox module for CS 2007.  Have been using it on here for about a week now with no problem.

Anyway, long day, all I have time for right now.  Between work, play, and relaxing, I'm tired (sorry, no link for tired).

As I am sitting on hold with Comcast Customer Support, let me briefly go over how screwy they are, as I haven't received an accurate bill since I moved in January:

• I was double billed for service in February.
• I was sent a past due notice before my bill was ever due (ie, my bill was due 2/13, and payment was already in the mail, but on 2/11, they sent me a past due notice).
• I was billed an "installation charge" for them to come out, take the bad modem they gave me back, and give me a new working one.  They didn't install squat.  Got them to waive that charge.
• I had a credit on my old account that was never carried over to my new account.  Actually, the credit turned into a charge.  I was supposed to be credited like $90, but was instead billed for $90, for a net difference of about $180.

Hopefully I can one day get back to a normal, accurate bill.  Suppose it is a lot to ask to just be billed what I am supposed to owe.

Please please, pretty please vote Sanjaya off of American Idol!  He should have been gone a long, long time ago.  We should still have Sundance on the show, but no… thanks to people like the crazy girl who was in tears during his performance tonight, he is still here.  I am quite literally at my wits end with this show.  How many more deserving singers will go home before Sanjaya leaves the stage for good?

Monday night, I had an interesting happening with my Media Center Edition PC.  I've been using MCE2005 for two years now and absolutely love it.  I wouldn't imagine going to anything else.  The system has run quite well for the last two years, but I was planning on making a few minor upgrades before putting Vista MCE on it.

Then Monday night, Trish and I were watching the new episode of 24 (we love 24) and we were down to the last 5 minutes of the show… you know, the time when they do all the big things that make you anxious to watch next week's episode… when all of a sudden POOF!  The screen goes blank.  I jump up like "WTF!"  After breathing for a second, I just start laughing.

The video card in the system had been acting up some by showing some artifacts on the menu overlays when watching a show.  It hadn't been a big problem, just a bit of annoyance.  So I knew the video card was probably on its way out, but I couldn't help but laugh at the irony.  It was down to the pivotal moment in 24 when it decides to finally give out.  Luckily we were recording 24 and we were about 15 minutes behind, so it did record the whole thing.

The other part of the irony is that I was planning on ordering a new video card for it that night.  The two things I wanted to upgrade it to Vista MCE were a new video card and more RAM (512mb didn't quite cut it too well when I tried MCE on Vista RC1).

So what happened to cause it to blow?

After taking of the covert to put in a spare video card, the insides were practically red hot.  Being that it is out in the living room, most HTPC computers are built to be nice and quiet.  Quiet doesn't really mean cool though.  Apparently, the fan on the front of the computer had gone out (don't know when) so it was getting less air flow through the cause and over time, heat built up and the video card was just the first thing to go.  The motherboard has temperature sensors and would shut the computer off if the motherboard or CPU got too hot, but there was nothing for the video card, and no fan monitors set up so I'd know it died.

In order to rectify the situation, looking at making a couple changes with the components in the computer and how I have it configured:

1. New video card, duh.
2. More ram, might as well upgrade to Vista MCE now.
3. Dumping the HTPC case I currently have.  I haven't liked it very much since I got it.  Several reasons:
1. Front fan has poor airflow.  HTPCs aren't always good coolers, since they more for aesthetics than performance, but its positioning wasn't good.  Also had a bad fan shroud manufacturers always put over fan slows.  I tried to take the case apart to cut it out when I first got the case, but couldn't get to it.
2. The case has this huge support bar going directly over the CPU area, preventing your from using any of the nicer CPU heatsinks that are built for silence.  They are usually larger heatsinks with bigger fans, but the bar prevents you from using any of them.  Poor design.
3. It has this stupid LCD screen that was supposed to be MCE compatible but isn't, so for the past two years, I've been staring at "Welcome iMON Home Theater PC" (yes, with poor grammar too!).
4. Currently, the system has a 40gb HD for the operating system and a 250gb for music/recordings.  There really is no need to separate them.  Two HDs means two sources of heat, when only one is really needed.  Will take out the 40gb and just use a single larger one.
5. Too much case clutter.  The built in LCD added a bunch of stupid cables and everything.  Should find a way to minimize the clutter so it gets better airflow.  The new case will hopefully have less, but if not, will do some cutting.
6. Add system monitoring.  Have it running software to monitor temperature and fan speeds, and either pop up a notification or email me when something goes wrong.  More than likely, it won't need immediate attention, but that way I could take care of it before something dies.  Would be nice to find one that integrates with MCE, though don't think there is one.

So, ordered some new stuff yesterday and it should be here tomorrow (Newegg rocks).  In the meantime, have a spare video card that just barely handles HD in MCE, and only running the system when needed and with the case off for now.  Tomorrow night will put together the new and cool MCE box.  Probably post more once I get it up, test it out, and know its working well.

Was out in the backyard snapping a few photos with my marco lens yesterday and kind of liked this shot (note, it is an artistic rendering).  I got this nice Canon 100mm f/2.8 Macro lens for Christmas, but haven't had much of a chance to use it yet.  Kind of interesting though.  At 100mm with something right in front of the lens, depth of focus can be wafer thin.  A mid-range aperature of 4.5 (mid-range in my opinion) is still wafer thin.  For something very up close, you almost need to do f/8 just to get the whole object itself.  Also, for macro, you need to be very concious of your breathing and stability.  When you're up that close, with the thin DOF, the slightest movement can cause your focal point to change entirely.  I found I kept focusing and then I'd sway back just a hair and would be out of focus.

Having a backyard now will be nice.  Should be a lot to take photos of, provided my allergies don't kill me first.  After spending some time on the weekend weeding and cutting out some dead growth, things are really coming back quickly.  With spring upon us, it is interesting how a little bit of TLC in the yard and a few days later, it can really look outstanding.