Storage @ Work

A defunct PC with a Zip drive, an Apple iMac gathering dust in the basement on top of the dehumidifier, one semi-current PC waiting
to be upgraded with 2 500Gig SATA drives, wife's laptop, Tivo and Comcast DVR... Yeah, I've got media storage needs.

1. Sun E4500 (8 CPUs)
2. Supermicro - GL88 - dual proc server running linux
3. D220 - STK branded FC disk array
4. SN10k - STk branded Crossroads SCSI-to-FC bridge
5. QLogic SANBox 2
6. Jog-a-dog - you'll have to figure out what that is on your own.
7. A bunch of PCs
8. A few obsolete laptops
9. Washer and Dryer

What do you use that washer and dryer for?

What do you use that washer and dryer for?

I'll only fill this out if everyone promises not to tell my wife. . .
1. Hacked XBox to watch/listen to all my media
2. AMD64/2GB RAM/1-160GB HD and 2 500 GB hard drives.
3. Old P2-450 sitting in our kitchen.
4. Original pizza box NeXT Workstation - 16Mhz - 32MB RAM - Black and White.
5. Old Sony Viao laptop that no longer works.
do odds and ends of pc's count?
- I have a Quad CPU Pentium Pro board with 4 Pentium Pro CPU's that I never got around to using.
- One old cable modem. One old DSL modem. Various NIC cards, video cards, and one perfectly good 120GB IDE that I swear I'll
put in a pc someday. Oh yeah! and I have a wireless router that I got from Verizon that I never used.

Oh I forgot a few things...2 cable modems, a VEO Observer IP camera, hot water heater, furnace, a whole storage room full of
holiday tyes of stuff, and a SUN Ultra 10!!! There is also an older Nexsan ATABoy that has seen better days! I think I need to have
an IT garage sale!

If my wife ever sees this I'm going to be in big trouble. I also have an Amgia, a StarMax (Apple Clone, for those of you who might
remember those), an abacus (why, becuase I like to say I have an abacus). When I went back a reviewed the video blog I realized
Marc meant through-out the house. It is pretty scary, and I'm very greatful that most of these ralics aren't plugged in!

Steve, that is so wrong! OK new rules for this - leave out the electric lawnmowers and remote controlled flying saucers. Cell
phones too. We don't need to know about the cell phones. And those Sharp PDAs in your underwear and sock drawers - we don't
need to know about them either. Abacus - abacus - that counts, but it is wrong. I have a Tower of Hanoi puzzle, not much of a
calculator, but it did come in handy for tape rotations once upon a time.

A Pro-380 (10 MHz) with a 33 MB disk and a spare 10 MB disk. A 486 with as much memory as disk (384 MB DRAM, 400 MB
disk). And a slightly newer PC that ate *two* CD-ROM drives and has been demoted to firewall duties. I'll avoid going into detail
about assorted old electronics/ham radio gear... 73, ni1d.

My list was just too long, Marc... But it's easily 1.5 TB!
Stephen

Stephen, I am quite sure that your list would be lengthy, but how about some highlights? AN old Everex maybe? A Compaq
luggable? Even a Commodore you just picked up on e-Bay as a guilty pleasure!

Stephen I know the comment capability on this blog sucks, but I was really hoping that you - the pack rat - would lay down a killer list
on this blog. If anybody wants to see it, they have to go to his "Stephen Foskett: Pack Rat" blog. Dude, I've got to say that 3 Ataris is
probably some sort of digital fetish. Pack Ratedness!

I'm not trying to one-up the Pack Rat, but my wife collects old shoes and purses in the basement so I stake out my space with
retired computer hardware (purely out of defense!).
OK - what's NOT on my network: an old 40GB Packard Bell PC that doesn't run (but that I haven't thrown out), 2 TiVo Series ones
(each with 2 80GB drives), about 8 old dead or too-small-to-be-useful hard drives (4GB-->30GB), 4 more 80GB drives removed or
replaced from the upgraded TiVos, an old cartridge tape drive plus a stack of 60-100 tapes (that I know I could never recover). Also
in my basement is a box of about 200 3.5" floppies with misc software and backups, another box of about 200 CD's of backups
(plus another 150 or so with all the software I've purchased or received with the systems I've purchaed), and now a growing stack of
4GB & 8GB DVD backups. A laser printer and a photo printer ON the network, plus 2 old color printers stored away for no particular
reason. Two old zip drives. 3 dead USB CD/CD-R/DVD drives. At least 2GB of DRAM/SDRAM swapped out of laptops and
desktops for larger sticks. An more dead mice than you can count (plastic kind with buttons, thankfully).
ON the network at the beach cottage is nother AudioTron, plus 2 printers on a D-Link print server (one all-in-1 and one high-qual
photo printer).
To all this, add a couple of old routers, a few dead USB drive enclosures, a dead monitor or two, a Garmin StreetPilot III that won't
work off batteries any more, an old Coleco-Vision set (complete with infrared wireless sensors). A retired complete component
stereo (receiver, turntable, CD jukebox, DVD player), Bose AMS3 speakers. I won't count my kids' notebooks, since they live 99% of
the time at school, and only "visit" the home network.
As my first step to recovery, I'll admit I have a problem. And as soon as I can wade through all the shoes and purses, I promise I'll
throw something away! :)

And you're right - this blog systems' comment engine is worse than mine!

Just checking - did you get the list I posted, or was it too long for your comment system (I entered it earlier this morning). I'll post
under my blog, if necessary (I think I'm at least a close second to Pack Rat).

I certainly have a lot of disk space and most of it is for video and backup storage. My "server" laptop has 750GB external usb. The
kids game PC (also my video editing machine) has 700GB. My wife's laptop has 200GB (and is great for watching TV on the porch
via the slingbox) Have a Sony PS/3 with 60GB that also stores my authoritative HD copy of SuperBowl XLI for posterity (Go Colts!)
2 cable company scientific atlanta HD DVR's that have a few 100GB each and for me highlight the need for some kind of shared
storage in the home as unfortunately the one DVR can't even access shows recorded on the other...a pretty BIG issue...and of
course one can be full and skipping shows while the other is empty, etc. I have a slingbox connected to one of them so I can
access that content from anywhere local or remote. New PS/3 firmware allows streaming over the internet to Sony's PSP portable
(which I don't have). That said, I likely would use a cable company hosted DVR service if I could get benefits such as infinate
storage, access that content from any DVR, PC or mobile device, etc. I have used some online backup services such as Mozy for
immediate backup of pictures (they give 4GB for free!) and I've played with Jungledisk which uses Amazon S3 storage as well. In
the attic I've still got a Palindrome DAT drive and a box of tapes as well as a Travan drive and tapes that I've kept for some unknown
reason along with one old Compaq desktop and a few old Dell laptops. But on the original subject hey, if storage in the cloud
becomes cheap and fast enough and I could front end in in my home with an intelligent disk based cache (and possibly ssd/flash
tier) for performance or when my connectivity goes out...I would certainly consider it. WAFS for the home!

Anarchist - that is hilarious. IF I could do the Jim Rome bell on you, I would, and I'd say "rack that one"
The comment system is almost as bad on my end as it is on yours, but I'm feeling everybody's pain. It should change soon (on my
knees and begging fo' mercy)

And you Double D Dave Demlow - I don't know how you ever moved all that stuff when you left Illinois. Trail of Hanoi bouncing out
of the back of the moving truck as it bounded down the road? So, what you are saying is that we need grid DVRs. I suck, becuase I
don't even have one. I'm trying to build one with a spare unused Intel stepladder in my garage, but my wife doesn't want me to blow
another 5 bills on yet another science project.

Dang! Forgot my slingbox and the 4 ethernet switches that make up my home network (plus 2 more at the cottage). And my 2
flatbed scanners - the one that works and the broken one I didn't throw away. And my CardScan Executive. Did I mention the 2
hacked NSLU2's? The 4 different Palm PDA's I still have laying around (hooked on CrackBerry now). There's also a 10+year old 1.2
megapixel Epson digital camera around somewhere. WHOA!!! I really better find 12-step program for this ailment soon!!!

ARGGHH! This comment system is putting my own comments out of order!! I just hope my Jim Rome comment on Anarchist
doesn't continue to slide to the bottom. I'd like to get a word in here.

As an avid collector of old IBM ThinkPads (and yes I do have a relatively normal life), I believe active count is around 11 of
those...some of these ThinkPads more healthy than others. Of notority, I'd like to point people to models 570 and 701 (the 570 went
out in the late 90's at an inch thick, 4 lbs, 13.3" screen, with killer battery life / the 701 is that funky butterfly keyboard that's in
MOMA). Of course we've got the obligatory desktops, ipods, HDTV Tivo, sling box, routers, wireless bridges, wireless repeaters,
etc., and most of my son's toys have more technology than the Apollo missions. We just got rid of our Osborn portable PC, so that's
48 lbs of pure processing power no longer cluttering up the house. The irony is that I'm not a 'technical guy' (or anarchist for that
matter), so a home based storage appliance that could be a mass repository for my data would be really cool...and alliviate all the
running around from PC to PC with that darn thumb drive. A terabyte or two would be ideal.
Marc, thanks for the forum.

Okay, currently, after a purge a few years ago when I got rid of an old HP PC, a Macintosh, and some useless peripherals... I still
own a very shakey Windows 98 laptop with a lot of files on that I want to keep, a Zip drive plus a dozen Zip disks... funny thing is that
I even have my ex-wife's old laptop which I acquired in order to help her extract her old data, and it is still sitting on floor of my study
under a pile of my daughter's art supplies... my active machine is a Dell tower with 80 gig, but I've got two 500 gig drives just waiting
to be installed... In addition I have four printer, two 250 gig drives, an 80 gig external drive for my daughters iBook... and I don't know
what all else :-)

Ok..well in florida we dont have basements but i do have an apple 8600, Sun SparcServer 20, 2 x Sun Ultra 5's, SGI Origin 200,
Bunch of old pc's, busted cable modem routers..Oh.yeah and a sun StorEdge Multipack with 6 9gb 10K drives. And last but not least
is a really old hp "laptop" that had a monochrome screen and booted from a pcmcia card and had windows 3.11 on it.. i will get the
model and repost that..It still runs by the way.. can run a serial based modem!

Here is where you can find storage at my home:

1. MacBook Pro that I am using to write this note
2. Another MacBook on the desk right behind me
3. A Freecom NAS device, about 1/2 meter away
4. At least 10 SONY memory sticks in the drawer next to me
5. More than 10s of miniDV tapes in the same drawer
6. USB memories all over the place
7. An IBM Lap top, in the room next to me
8. An apple portable USB drive
9. iPODs coming off my ears
10. Apple mini connected to LCD TV
11. Satellite box and digital recorder with HD
12. My mobile phone with memory sticks
13. 100s of CDs and DVDs
14. Another IBM laptop, some where in the house
15. A Hitachi laptop, needing repair
16. and more

This is what I can think of right now. An absolute chaos and we talk about information management, consolidation of data and universal storage!!!