Backup Pains

To follow-up on my post about WD's new 200GB drive, ArsTechnica has a thread mentioning the difficulty in backing up vast amounts of storage. Consumer-level backup technology is woefully inadequate for today's quantities of data; even the cheapest systems from Dell and eMachines have 20GB drives.

Tape technology has advanced greatly over the years, but little has filtered down to the consumer-level. An OnStream 15/30GB tape drive is $240, the seven tapes needed to back up 200GB are another $250. Backing up data to tape is literally more expensive than storing the data in the first place.

Using a lower-capacity medium (older tape technologies, CD-RW, DVD-RW, etc) can be much cheaper, but the number of media changes required makes them useless for full system backups.

The only practical option for consumers is to have multiple drives. A "backup drive" in a removable sled or Firewire/USB enclosure is fast, convenient, and affordable. IDE RAID has become popular amongst the Geek crow, but it is a poor choice as a sole means of backup because RAID only protects against physical drive failure. RAID won't protect against filesystem corruption, virus attacks, or "user error."

Is it any wonder that few people perform backups at all? Have you backed up anything recently?

6:36:19 PM | Comments: | Topics: storage 

ZDNet: Linux takes the game to Microsoft

The Xbox Linux Project, drawing on the skills of programmers in the UK, Germany and the United States, released a pre-alpha version of the new BIOS on Sunday. When complete, the BIOS will give programmers control over the Xbox's components and peripherals and allow the rest of the Linux operating system to boot.

[via ActiveWin]

5:47:05 PM | Comments:

Honeyspots?

Sifry and Slashdot cover a SecurityFocus Online report of a WiFi Honeypot project:

The goal, says Lee, isn't to set up D.C. hackers for prosecution, but to research the state of real life wireless hacking in a city considered by many to be a hot spot for laptop-toting cyberpunks. Lee hopes to learn who's conducting 802.11b attacks, how many hackers use wireless access to anonymize attacks on other Internet-connected systems, and what the ratio is between intruders, and those who simply drop onto nearby networks for convenient Internet access, sometimes unknowingly. Ultimately, Lee would like to be able to passively identify the various scanning tools hackers and others use to find vulnerable wireless networks. "There may be signatures that they give off that could be incorporated into a wireless intrusion detection device looking for these active signals," says Lee.

5:39:44 PM | Comments:

infoSync: Bye bye digital cameras?

Strategy Analytics today released a new Market Forecast report entitled "Strategic Perspectives on Cellular Camera Phones." The report notes that 16 million camera phones will be sold worldwide in 2002, growing strongly to 147 million in 2007. By comparison, although 22 million digital still cameras will be sold worldwide in 2002, their slower growth rate of 34% will result in only 95 million sales in 2007.

Interesting.

5:33:06 PM | Comments:

PDABuzz: Lexar Media to Unveil 256MB SD Card

5:07:33 PM | Comments:

Qualcomm will add Wi-Fi to CDMA chipset

“We plan to have a device by next year that combines CDMA or W-CDMA and wireless LAN networking. Our approach is similar to the one we have taken with Bluetooth. Many of our parts include that already on chip, though it is up to the customer whether they actually use these networking capabilities”, said Siegmund Redl, director of European marketing at Qualcomm CDMA Technologies.

[via 80211b News]

News.com follows-up with possible uses for WiFi/Cellular hybrids.

4:58:33 PM | Comments:

Slashdot: Internet Security Standards. The Center for Internet Security has released a set of security standards and tools for several operating systems. Here's the ZDNet story.

4:56:04 PM | Comments:

Frank McPherson points to a short howto for configuring Windows XP as a VPN Server. This is an easy way to help secure a wireless access point, and Pocket PCs include compatible VPN client software.

4:54:59 PM | Comments:

My cousin Chris has a new website for his band.

4:45:16 PM | Comments:

I've added the AmphetaDesk "XML Pill" to my templates, allowing AmphetaDesk users to easily subscribe to my RSS feeds (similar to the "XML Coffee Mug" for Radio users).

To add an "XML Pill" to your Radio Userland site:

1. Download xml_pill.gif to your www/system/images/ folder
2. Download workspace.xmlPill.ftsc
3. Open workspace.xmlPill.ftsc within the Radio Userland application
4. At the "Name for imported object" prompt, enter workspace.xmlPill
5. Add <%workspace.xmlPill () %> to your templates

 

2:51:34 PM | Comments: