[Dave Rice]

Kingston do an SSD Manager here

However I think it’s unlikely the SSD is behind it, if they fail they go spectacularly. Have you checked what your antivirus is up to?

[Dave Rice]

America’s reputation just went down the pan and round the bend.

[Dave Rice]

Hi Dave
I am back in hospital (Grimsby) had yet more scans. They think they can cure the blockage without surgery. However there may be more cancer.
Just got to await the outcome. Downers keep coming!

[Dave Rice]

I’m sure they will appear to but won’t actually be. That’ll be enough for the mad heads who just believe whatever is put in front of them but not anyone in the judiciary.

They all have to keep the grift going for as long as possible and show their loyalty enough to get pardoned for the illegalities they get up to doing so. Drain the swamp, what a laugh.

[Dave Rice]

I’ve just had the email, it’s just a readme and you don’t need to log in to PayPal.

[Dave Rice]

John, log into your PayPal account directly yourself, don’t click on any links. If they need you to do something you will be prompted to do it when you log in.

I haven’t had an email and I’ve just logged into PayPal and nothing waiting for me to do, so I suspect your email may be dodgy.

Whilst you’re there I’d set up two factor verification, your mobile phone will be used to give you a unique code to use when you log in:

1. Go to Settings (cog wheel).
2. Click Security.
3. Next to ‘2-step verification’, click Edit.
4. Choose to receive a text or use an authenticator app, then click Next.
5. Follow the prompts to link your phone or authenticator app.
6. Set up a back-up method in case you can’t access your primary cell or authenticator app.
7. Click Done to activate 2-step verification.

Personally I use Google’s authenticator app (it produces a 6 digit code that changes every minute) but if you’re more comfortable with a text message that’s fine.

[Dave Rice]

@RSB I’ve messaged him

[Dave Rice]

Bob messaged me earlier, trying to get on here but having issues. Suggested he tried another browser and / or clear the caches. Anyway, I expect he’ll be popping by soon.

[Dave Rice]

It’s really splitting into two product lines, the + with their Intel CPUs for business and the ARM for more basic needs. Being able to host the PiHole as a VM really has been useful.

[Dave Rice]

I think that’s what SHR does so you can add a drive later without having to build an array. As you (& I) have found, out one of the best ways to transfer data is to an unencrypted external EXT volume. A Hyper Backup single version job is good way of doing it.

I put 3 x 3TB in the RackStation (leaving a slot free) but decided to go with RAID 5. The reason being I want to use that spare slot to muck about with things like iSCSI without having to touch any volume with data on it. All EXT4 as it’s not an Intel CPU so no BTRFS. 6TB + some for experimentation will do me just fine. I have plenty of old but not quite knackered spinners hanging about.

The plan now is for the RackStation to take over the general day-to-day duties of a backup target, ISO download server and general F&P leaving the DS218+ to do the things that only a +box can or does better (like on-the-fly video transcoding).

Between them that’s 9TB of storage, should be enough for a while. Our first NetWare server only had 8GB (that never got anywhere near full) that ran the Post Office South Wales & South West Region for over 5 years before NT took over. It serviced nearly 200 PCs in the end with data increasingly being downloaded from mainframe / AS400 platforms for analysis in Windows spreadsheets. 8GB would probably last a morning now, if that. I’ve seen swap files bigger.

[Dave Rice]

Ah OK. I moved off Plan 1 ages ago. Looks like you’ll have to wait 30 days then it’ll drop out.

[Dave Rice]

Yes it’s been a crap year but there you go. Seasons Greetings to all and hopes for a happier 2021.

[Dave Rice]

I’m on 2TB now, the surveyors take 100+ photos on every report and even reduced to 1080P (which took me ages to convince them to do) consumes 200GB just in the working set. There’s a 700GB archive (backed up locally, twice) that they are working through shrinking the photos that will end up in C2 too, considerably reduced in size.

They are the ultimate client for Hybrid Storage when their 3TB runs out, but how do you back up the in the Cloud files? Once DSM 7 is released I’ll be upgrading the 218+ and finding out these things but unfortunately not a zero cost (the beta gives you 1TB for free).

With regards deleting files from the backups, surely if you’ve set a retention policy they will eventually drop out? I can see occasions when retention periods wouldn’t be a good thing though, but that would really be for archives which I do as one offs.

I’m certainly not regretting choosing Synology over Qnap, it was a 50 / 50 decision, and the roadmap for the future looks good. I’m going to start evaluating Synology Office as a collaboration tool as Google Workspace has convinced me that you do not need Microsoft, indeed Teams is getting ridiculously complicated. MS are turning it into the fully fledged Domain in the Cloud but bringing all the legacy with them. You need to understand all that MS terminology.

[Dave Rice]

These boxes seem to last forever.

[Dave Rice]

I added an 8GB sodimm to my D218+ with no problems. I just made sure the specs were the same, got that off a You Tube somewhere.

I’ve got all my customers on C2 now, after the initial backup it’s processing most daily backups within 10 minutes.

DSM 7 on the rackstation is tootling along with no dramas. The Hybrid Cloud features look good (endless storage) but need BTRFS which I can’t do on the RS. That RS chassis has been in use 24/7 for 5 years+ (new drives recently) and just shows what value these boxes are. It’s only a 1.3Ghz dual core ARM with 1Gb ram.

[Dave Rice]

I didn’t know that, just read up about it. Synology layers BTRFS on top of mdadm (Linux software RAID) and BTRFS RAID isn’t stable enough yet. BTRFS does the checksumming and bit rot detection, md provides the redundancy.

I always use some sort of RAID, usually SHR, so doesn’t apply. Having owned a + box for a while now I am convinced the extra £ are worth it, mostly for the Business Backup suites. The ability to backup Teams and Workspace for my customers (in real time) is invaluable and the bare metal PC backup with automatic deduplication is working well.

[Dave Rice]

Stop eating the banana splits Bingo.

[Dave Rice]

Steve, you can do it with a Draytek router and a Web Content Filter license (£25 pa) https://www.draytek.com/support/knowledge-base/5205 The DrayTek Vigor 2762AC is £190 with the first year’s licence.

You should be able to add social networking sites to a Pihole blacklist but it’s easily got around by changing the DNS on the client. The Draytek is blocking the actual connection and the black list is maintained in real time (that’s what you’re paying for). It also parses the whole url and not just the top level plus embedded links.

[Dave Rice]

Tier 3 doesn’t look so bad now. However we are an island in a Tier 2 region which is ridiculous. Bristol has the hospitals, we have the shopping mall, so never mind the exchange of workers each morning there’s a massive movement of people every day. There’s s strip of South Wales that a dormitory area for greater Bristol too. We should all be in the same Tier.

Lots of pubs and restaurants in the newly released Tier 2 areas haven’t reopened. My mate is the manager at the Legion and he said they cannot plan properly as the rules change at the drop of a hat. They’re not going to risk buying a lot of beer only to have to chuck it down the drain in 2 weeks time, never mind working out how to deal with the meal rules. They have written off this year and probably the first quarter of next.

A bit more light relief  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPDkCOJO3pc

[Dave Rice]

Hope you had a good day.

[Author]

Posts