Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A startup should create this storage device. I would buy it.

arnorhs.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 77 posts

Re: A startup should create this storage device. I would buy it.

#51

Post by ttol »

nzmsv wrote: post #49
ttol wrote: post #31

What you're looking for is Windows Home Server. It's amazing. Stores all the media you need, plus has streaming capabilities over the net. Able to expand perpetually -- no need to reformat or anything like that. I have it running with 10TB of space. It has a great front-end UI, and as close to zeroconf as you can get with this type of service. See exampel screenshot: http://ivivo.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/windowsho…

I know WHS is probably easier to set up, but Microsoft did not pioneer the concept of "drive extender". Linux had something called LVM since 1998. According to Wikipedia, IBM AIX had a similar feature in 1989. MS also had similar capabilities in NT for quite some time now (disk volume sets), they just weren't shown to the home users. Autobackup can be done by rsync, file access by Samba, printing through CUPS. Oh yea…

Yea, the allure to WHS for me was the zeroconf and that it all just works with all the devices/terminals I already have with minimal effort.

RE: concept, understood it may be used for other OS's. Was pointing out that WHS uses a different file system than normal windows, one built to scale in terms of drives.

Re: A startup should create this storage device. I would buy it.

#53

Post by uptown »

asnyder wrote: post #40
uptown wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree. Part of their problem is absolutely a branding thing.

Yep, the problem with their brand is that it's not Google or Apple. If Apple or Google were to release a clone of Opera tomorrow it would have significant higher usage stats and buzz. Lets face it, as much as we would like to believe we judge technology based on it's merits, the truth of the matter is we're just in High School 2.0 and what really matters is that we're hanging out with the cool kids. In this case Oper…

Google and Apple also have the advantage of being able to promote their respective browsers through cross-marketing. Safari is the default browser for any Apple device, and Chrome is the promoted via other Google properties. Internet Explorer has the obvious Windows advantage. Only Firefox really succeeded in fighting the same fight that Opera was fighting, and it's not surprising that both Chrome and Safari tried to ensure Firefox didn't win by improving upon the browser in one of its biggest weaknesses .... speed.

Ultimately, competition is good for the user, but a nightmare for the web developer. It was hard enough dealing with the multitude of IE versions, but today's developer needs to support the entire cross-section of users on a variety of platforms ... most of which command a non-negligible user-share.

Re: A startup should create this storage device. I would buy it.

#54

Post by johnfn »

asnyder wrote: post #40
uptown wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree. Part of their problem is absolutely a branding thing.

Yep, the problem with their brand is that it's not Google or Apple. If Apple or Google were to release a clone of Opera tomorrow it would have significant higher usage stats and buzz. Lets face it, as much as we would like to believe we judge technology based on it's merits, the truth of the matter is we're just in High School 2.0 and what really matters is that we're hanging out with the cool kids. In this case Oper…

I don't think this is true, at least in the general case. When Chrome first came out (and I was still using Firefox), I downloaded it to test it out, but didn't stick with it, because it wasn't immediately compelling. I came back to it occasionally, and after about 6 months they had turned it into a really great browser, much speedier than Firefox.

If you look at the usage trend during the first few months, you'll notice that it starts high and curves down, then slopes back up again. I think this supports my argument. The reason that it gets a lot of share has little to do with branding so much as the fact that they made it in to a great browser after a lot of hard work on their part.

The litmus test to my observation is that if this is really true, then Opera should pick up a lot of usage share from people like me who switch between browsers based on the latest and greatest. I remember trying out 10.10, and although it was good, it was no where near this good.

Of course, Opera doesn't have that nice bump that Chrome does where Google puts "Hey you! Try Chrome!" on incredibly popular websites, so we'll see.

Re: A startup should create this storage device. I would buy it.

#55

Post by nzmsv »

brianwillis wrote: post #30
johnfn wrote: post #24

This sounds a lot like Opera Unite, which was sadly totally ignored 5 seconds after it came out. http://unite.opera.com/ (As a totally tangential rant, I've been using Opera recently for no particular reason, and it's been frustrating me how left-behind it's been, even by the tech crowd. The latest version is both faster and more responsive than Chrome, which had been my browser of choice.)

I've had similar feelings. You would think that products that are superior from a technical standpoint would be enough for them to get some traction in the technical community. I can't quite put my finger on why, but Opera always seems to get ignored.

I don't think there is a single reason Opera is unpopular. It just doesn't have a single stand-out feature people can associate it with.

Firefox's thing was openness, and an ecosystem of extensions. Chrome's is speed (and openness, and being sponsored by Google). Opera? It's fast, but not as fast as Chrome. Not open. No extensions. Built-in mail client? Gmail is better and easier.

When switching to a new browser, people have to put up with the inconvenience of some sites being broken, in return for some payoff. With Opera I can't see an appealing reason to do this.

Finally, I think Opera has given up on desktop users and concentrated all efforts on sales in the embedded market.

Re: A startup should create this storage device. I would buy it.

#56

Post by Terretta »

thoughttank wrote: post #28

I like my thecus for much of this. Basically it has every need filled. The only exception is the playback I handle through a ps3/apple tv's. Home NAS storage. Easy. Plus it's built on linux, modules are easy and fantastic. www.thecus.com

I also like both Thecus and ReadyNAS, with Mac Mini or Xbox 360 as head-ends at the TV sets. Been using these for years. The (add-on|plug-in|module) community for both NAS servers is great.

That said, both Microsoft's Media Center and Home Media Server are also fantastic and extensible.

Re: A startup should create this storage device. I would buy it.

#57

Post by baddox »

ttol wrote: post #31

What you're looking for is Windows Home Server. It's amazing. Stores all the media you need, plus has streaming capabilities over the net. Able to expand perpetually -- no need to reformat or anything like that. I have it running with 10TB of space. It has a great front-end UI, and as close to zeroconf as you can get with this type of service. See exampel screenshot: http://ivivo.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/windowsho…

I've been tempted by WHS for a while now. I have a few questions for you, since you seem pretty experienced with it. How does the file system deal with failure? What if one of my drives fails? Can I set it up to be as redundant as RAID 5 (i.e. I can lose any one drive and it's okay)? What if my motherboard or OS installation fails? Can I reinstall the operation system and have it recognize my file system (assuming I still have all the drives from it)?

Re: A startup should create this storage device. I would buy it.

#58

Post by danohuiginn »

edanm wrote: post #27

I just upgraded my Dropbox account to 50Gb, and for me, it covers a lot of needs. I keep all my important files in there (my mp3 collection, projects, documents, etc.). I have Dropbox set up on 3 machines (main machine, family computer and my laptop), so I get automatic syncing of all these files, plus backups of all the files on 3 computers, plus access to all these files in the cloud. As far as I'm concerned, it's…

yes. the problem with all online storage services is keeping multiple copies of the data to protect against disk failure. I wish there were a dirt-cheap service which said "we'll shove your files on a drive and keep it online. You'll lose data when the hardware fails; that's your problem". For most of my audio/video files, it'd only be a minor inconvenience to have the online version explode through hardware problems. As it is, I end up paying for reliability that I don't need.

Re: A startup should create this storage device. I would buy it.

#59

Post by scarlson »

I can understand wanting 1 ring to rule them all, but having specialized devices has been the solution for a while now.

1 = Server

2 = NAS

3 = HTPC or Server w/ dongle

4 = HTPC again (any XBMC variant, with a receiver for audio)

5 = XBMC remote apps, I like Boxee's remote for iPhone

6 = FTP, VLC broadcasting, VNC

7 = FTP

8 = Capture Card, streaming to mobile = VLC/justin.tv http://apiwiki.justin.tv/mediawiki/index.php/VLC_Broadcastin...

9 = NAS

rsync for backups

This is all tech that's been around for a while.

Re: A startup should create this storage device. I would buy it.

#60

Post by sjs »

ttol wrote: post #31

What you're looking for is Windows Home Server. It's amazing. Stores all the media you need, plus has streaming capabilities over the net. Able to expand perpetually -- no need to reformat or anything like that. I have it running with 10TB of space. It has a great front-end UI, and as close to zeroconf as you can get with this type of service. See exampel screenshot: http://ivivo.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/windowsho…

I can't seem to find info on whether WHS's filesystem checks for corruption or not. One thing ZFS has going for it is detecting corruption, and when you're storing 10TB of your most precious media to a single machine you really need to trust the filesystem.

Do you know if it verifies data integrity? I have heard about WHS from a few people now and it seems like the best solution. I don't even have a Windows machine so that may sound odd, but afaik there's no Unix-based equivalent available today.

Post reply on HN