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Showing posts from May, 2012

Group-based filesystems and JBODs.

As of now, there is no automatic recovery of JBOD parameters. At least, I'm not aware of any automatic software that really works. With a filesystem which stores its metadata all in one place and close to the start of the partition, like FAT or NTFS, you only get the data from the first JBOD member. All the files on the second and further members is lost. However, with a group-based filesystem, like Linux EXT-series, you can get much of the data by just feeding JBOD members to the data recovery software in turn. In group-based filesystems, metadata is spread evenly across the partition, and file contents are put close to their corresponding metadata. So, if you scan separate JBOD members and then combine the results (skipping empty files and correcting for a loss of folder tree), you can get most of the files out. You cannot recover files which have contents and metadata on two different JBOD members, and also parent-child relationships crossing the disk boundary will be lost.

NETGEAR ReadyNAS

Q: What is the best feature of NETGEAR ReadyNAS? A: A carrying handle at the back of the unit. Ease of setup? There isn't one. Performance? We got, like, 3MB/sec out of it. The network is Gigabit Ethernet, serverd by D-Link switches. Not a best thing there is, but QNAP manages to pump data at least ten times faster on the same network. What model? ReadyNAS NV+ v2. Overall impression? Not quite good.

Fake hard drive

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Now there is a fake of the rotational hard drive. OK, we've seen fake flash already, but this one is new Note the nuts and bolts added so that weight and balance match the original. The only way you can quickly tell there is something fishy about it, is to plug it into USB - it does not actually spin up because there is nothing to spin.