Monthly Archives: January 2008

Drobo get’s connected!

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Data Robotics today announced the availability of Drobo Share, an add on to existing Drobo units. Drobo Share allows 2 Drobo Devices to be connected to a network, turning the DAS (Desktop Attached Storage) device into a NAS (Network Attached Storage) device.

In the first 6 months of it’s release the Drobo has received high praise for it’s simplicity in setting up and maintaining a raid storage system. It is expandable, currently up to 2 Terabytes (soon up to 16 TB) simply by adding hard drives. Unlike other storage systems the Drobo can be set up and expanded with drives of different sizes. As well the Drobo features warning lights that indicate if a drive is going bad. When the indicator comes on, simply swap out the bad drive and Drobo will begin rebuilding the array. Drobo can be formatted with several file systems, NTFS, HFS, FAT32 or Linux to ensure compatibility with virtually any computer.

The biggest knock or disadvantage we had with the product is that it was a DAS device, meaning it had to be attached to one system. Today that has changed.

The Drobo Share is a small box that sits under the Drobo device. It comes with a y power adaptor and shares the power brick with the Drobo’s. There is also 2 USB ports to connect 2 Drobos to, (for a total of 32 TB) of storage, and a 10/100/1000 network port for attaching to a network. The Drobo Share and software will also automatically map drives for the users computer. This makes the Drobo a very powerful option.

In addition, the Drobo can easily be converted back to a DAS device for use with applications requiring higher bandwidth than a network will allow (Video Editing etc).

Drobo sells from Sysguy Consulting without drives for 525.00, and the Drobo Share Module will sell for approximately 199.00

Internet slow down with Shaw high speed

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We have been getting a lot of complaints lately about clients Shaw high speed Internet service slowing to a crawl suddenly, and Shaw support being no help in resolving the issue. The Shaw techs are quick to blame the clients router or tell them that they have a virus. I actually stumbled across the fix this past summer. I have implemented it at a few client sites with good success.

Shaw has been changing their network around in the Calgary area for the last 8 months or so. As clients are moved off the older network they are being moved into a new IP address range. These new IPs start with 70.xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx as opposed to 68.xxx.xxx.xxx. The problem occurs with Internet Explorer and one of it’s settings.

To see if you are affected open Internet Explorer and go to a site that lists your IP address like www.whatismyip.com or www.ipchicken.com. If you see an IP address starting with 24.xxx.xxx.xxx you will be affected.

In IE go to the Internet Options settings (in IE 6 click on tools, internet options, or on IE 7 press the alt key to bring up the hidden menu or click on the tools button). From the dialog, click on the connections tab, then click on the lan settings button at the bottom. Uncheck the automatically detect settings checkbox and uncheck the proxy server checkbox. Click OK then click OK again. Close IE and restart it. Your home page should load faster, and checking your IP address using one of the sites above, you should now see your IP address start with a 70 number. Your browsing should speed up and you should be able to access almost all web sites properly again.

Happy New Year!

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Let me start out by wishing a Happy New Year to all of Sysguy’s clients, friends and family. We hope that everyone has a safe, happy and healthy new year!

I have decided that one of the things that I am going to really focus on this year is my blog and trying to post a lot more new articles to it.

The last two months have been hectic and I have a whole slew of new products and gadgets that I have been playing with. These include a new Macbook Pro (yes I have joined the dark side), Adobe Lightroom, Microsoft’s Zune 2 80 GB MP3 player, some mac apps (although I need a good freeware blog writer) and some tips.

I am also going to add a few categories to write about. Two for sure are photography and video to share some of my expertise in these areas.

Keep watching this space for more soon!

 

Stephen