The first time I saw an announcement for the CTERA CloudPlug, I was puzzled. “Cloud-Attached Storage” is a catchy phrase, but what did it mean? Could I just plug the device into a wall socket, connect it to my computer, and send my data into the cloud? So naturally when CTERA’s PR agency offered me a chance to examine the CloudPlug, and interview a representative of the company, I said yes. … [Read more...]
Backups on the Run
I spent last week bouncing around between conferences and meetings, which meant there was no time to review any new backup software, but all that zipping back and forth with the netbook and the iriver (does anyone else hate it as much as I do when companies refuse to capitalize their brand names) gave me plenty of opportunities to make backups and to think about backups. Normally when I record … [Read more...]
Just Add Water? Memeo Instant Backup
When I first heard about Memeo Instant Backup, I objected that no program that backed up your entire hard drive could possibly be “instant.” Hard drives are getting bigger and bigger, so copying them takes longer and longer. Robert Phillips explained to me that the “instant” part refers to the fact that the backup process starts instantly: as soon as you install the product, it begins backing you … [Read more...]
Buffalo Goes Metro in San Francisco
A few days ago I got a phone call from my BFF Jay Pechek at Buffalo Technology, apologizing profusely for not responding immediately to my initial queries about Raid Troubles in Europe and his DriveStation. It turns out Jay was on vacation in Colombia and completely without Internet access for a few weeks. But no sooner had he landed in New York than he was off on a product launch tour and … [Read more...]
Adventures in Data Recovery
A couple of years ago, an associate of the Ur-Guru’s in Europe bought a 1 Tb Buffalo DriveStation Duo to back up his business data. Last week it stopped working. “I've been using it in a RAID 1 array for the past two years, and it's just failed,” he wrote. “Three different Windows PCs here see it as unallocated space.” Bad news. And while Buffalo offered to replace the hardware, since the … [Read more...]