befok!

When the Vantec NexStar MX (NST-400MX-S2) first came out I was quite excited. A dual drive housing, “how great will that not be for backups?” Then I discovered that it did not have RAID 1 support. I then looked at some of the entry level NAS devices, but they were more than I needed and cost quite a bit more. Fortunately not too long after the S2 they released a new version the SR (NST-400MX-SR) which supported RAID 0 and RAID 1. I sent Vantec USA a few technical questions specifically around RAID rebuild times and what happens in the event of a disk failing. They were pretty quick to respond. The disk light would go off in the event of a disk failing and the rebuild time was about 1GB/m. I also asked if the drive would rebuild without being attached to a machine and they said it would.

So I recently purchased the SR version and proceeded to setup 2 x 250GB SATA disks in RAID 1 (mirroring). I initially flipped through the instructions and then installed the drives in the housing. Everything was easy to install and the manual was reasonably clear and I set the jumpers to RAID 1. When I first attached the housing to my machine and started up disk management in Windows I was presented with 2 drives. I suspected I had not set the jumpers correctly but proceeded to create partitions and format the disks anyway to test it out. I then shut the housing down and opened it up and checked the jumpers and found that I had in fact not set them correctly, so I set them and pressed the little reset switch as per the documentation, but was still presented with two drives in Windows. After going through all the jumper options I could still only get two single drives. I even went as far as wiping the disks with the Seagate tools and starting again, no joy. I mailed Vantec twice, but their speedy support was now something of the past and I received no replies whatsoever. I then sent the housing back to the supplier and asked them to make it work. Two days later the housing was back and declared working. So I started it up and sure enough it was now in RAID 1. I then queried the technician who had worked on it and the trick was to press the reset button while the unit was powered on! Something that was not stated in the documentation (they suggest you press it before installing the drives). So I tested it for myself and sure enough it worked. It was actually quite cool starting up disk manager, setting the jumpers, pressing the reset switch and watching the disk config change suddenly. Obviously doing this destroys any data you had on the drives!

So the next thing to do was to simulate a drive failure and the subsequent rebuild with RAID 1. What you will notice immediately when coping data to the housing is that both drive lights will burn solid, once the copy is complete they will turn off. I then shut the housing down, removed one of the drives and started it back up again. Contrary to what Vantec support claimed, the drive light did not go off, instead it would flash on/off. Thus I would suggest each time you start your housing up let it flash through the initiation sequence and wait for both lights to stop flashing. If one continues to flash on/off at steady intervals, you have a failed drive. If you copy data to the housing while a disk is in a failed state the good drive will burn solid and the failed disk will continue to flash. I then shut the housing down reattached the drive and started it up again. It probably took about a minute or two before the rebuild started. Both lights will burn solid similar to when coping data. I did also test ejecting the housing while a rebuild was in progress (I used USB) and as soon as I did that the lights would stop flashing, so I had no idea if the rebuild was still running or not. I suspect that once again Vantec were incorrect and it’s best you leave the drive attached while the rebuild runs. I would also advise against copying data to the housing during the rebuild as this will only slow the rebuild down and potentially cause other unforeseen problems.

After all that struggling I am however very happy with the unit. The only minus (and most of the reviews mentions this) is that the fan is quite loud. I don’t leave the housing on for long (it’s just there for backups) so I don’t have to bare it for long

I hope this post helps someone  else in the future!

I decided it was time to start printing some of my pictures. So I went to Canal Walk and gave Kodak and Photo Connection the same 15 photos to print as a test. The results were rather surprising. The prints from Kodak were really dark, something which is probably fixable. The pictures from Photo Connection, in stark contrast, were crisp and bright so it was not difficult to pick the winner.

One thing that I did however notice was that there was a serious amount of cropping and resizing going on. Kodak had cropped the top and bottom and Photo Connection had resized them to fit leaving large white borders on the sides. Both of these options did not really thrill me and what thrilled me even less was the thought of having to go and crop/resize all my pictures manually for an optimal fit.

So I went digging to find out what the deal was. The “standard” print size nowadays is jumbo which is 15 x 10cm. If you divide 10 into 15 you get a ratio of 1.5. So I then took the dimensions of my digital images which, at its largest, is: 2816 x 2112. When divided it gives you a ratio of 1.3333. “Aha!” I thought, “this explains it all, but how does one solve this?”. So I started looking at simply changing the dimensions of my pictures to fit, but that looked terrible. I then started looking around for a bulk cropping tool, but I was not very enthusiastic about it. I then happened to notice on the Kodak envelope there was an additional size option listed: 18 x 13cm. This gave me a ratio of 1.3846 which was almost perfect. I then called Photo Connection to find out if they could print this size, I was informed they did not, but there was a digital print size called 6DSC which is 15 x 11.25cm and when I crunched the numbers it worked out to a ratio of 1.3333. Horaay!

So it was off to Photo Connection with about 500 pictures. The following day I received a call to find out if I was sure I wanted all the pictures printed (I did). After all they had a special on and at R1.39 a print it was a great deal. Oh no, that only applied to the Jumbo size, this was going to set me back R2.90 a print (for a mere 1.25cm extra). I did however manage to talk them down to R2.40 a print. So I went ahead with the order. I was not disappointed. They did an excellent job, and while it cost me a lot it was worth it not having to look at cats with missing ears and people with no foreheads. I also bought photo albums specially for the size which set me back R100 each, but can take 300 photos.

So photography is working out to be an expensive, but enjoyable hobby.

Something else that Leon showed me is the ability to compile your own photo book. You can download free software from My Photo Book to compile your book, then hand in a CD at any participating store and they produce a bound book with the cover of your choice. Pretty nifty!

I went to the Sony South Africa Promotion at V&A Waterfront on Saturday. I have been keen to see what the hype is about High Definition (HD) technology and I like Sony’s products. Unfortunately it seems that either I was expecting to much or the hype of HD and Blu-Ray is, just that hype. There were a number of large LCD HD TV’s on display. Some were even displaying teasers driven by Blu-Ray. Standing 1m from any of these TV’s you could easily spot grainy-ness in background objects like cliffs. Even when applying a more realistic 4-5m viewing distance you could still see blocks and grain in a lot of the scenes. Yes this is still way better than what we were watching 5 years ago but this is not really what I was expecting at all. I was sold on the concept of clear, crisp immaculate imagery.

I got a chance to pick up their new DSLR-A100. I couldn’t really play with it so I can’t really comment on it, except on the weight and feel. The display model with a flash attachment on it seems to weigh about the same as my boss’s Nikon D70 which in my opinion is rather heavy. It does however have a nice solid feel to it. The Canon 350D is still my choice in SLR, and the new 400D is looking very hot! What I did think was very cool is the new HDD Hanycams with built in hard drives. Finally! I don’t know who would bother with the Mini-DVD cameras when they can only hold 30min of footage on a single sided disk? For the console junkies they also had PlayStation 3’s on display but you could not actually play any games on them (what may I ask was the point then?). Sadly none of the phones were on display so I could not get my hands on a P990. Which is top of my list of upgrade options in the new year.

I very recently acquired a iPod Camera Connector for the purpose of storing the pictures I take while in Europe. I tested it yesterday and while not being as quick as copying from my camera to the laptop it works very well. My iPod has a nice slide show feature and you can even select a music to play while watching pictures scroll by. This is a great piece of tech, it’s small, easy to use and the best of all works as described!

PS. There is a Contiki link on the right detailing the dates and locations we will be at during our tour through Europe.