[Tfug] NAS again

[Bexley Hall]

Hi Harry/Leo,

On 2/3/2014 8:52 AM, Harry McGregor wrote:
> On 2/3/14 8:50 AM, Leo Przybylski wrote:
>> I'd like to recommend the Drobo Mini.
>
> I am not seeing any ethernet connection on that Drobo, thus it's not NAS.

Agreed.

One *could* argue that an alternative to a stationary NAS that you
access from afar would be a portable drive that you could *bring*
to wherever you are.  I have several 160-500G "portable USB laptop
drives" that I could use for this function (though they are considerably
slower than portable 3.5" drives)

[I keep my "MS Updates" on such an external drive to save the trouble
of using MS's "Update Service"]

But, that's not what I'm looking for.

As I said, this is for "tertiary" storage that is seldom accessed.
Think of it like you think of a desk drawer vs. a file cabinet vs.
a safety deposit box.

I.e., you keep your favorite pen in your top desk drawer -- because
you use it *often* and want it accessible easily.  You keep your
bank statements in a nearby file cabinet because you access them
*less* frequently -- yet often enough that you want to be able
to get at them *easily*.  Finally, you keep the deed for your
property in a safety deposit box because you access it *rarely*
YET WANT TO BE DAMN SURE IT DOESN'T GET LOST -- or, damaged because
it was left in an "unfortunate location" even temporarily!

E.g., I have to draw a floor plan this afternoon.  I will power up
the box that has the "commercial software" archived.  I'll decide
which product I'm going to use.  Then, I'll transfer the ISO(s) for
the CD/DVD(s) onto the target machine where I can mount them for
installation.  At the same time, I'll power *off* the box from which
I retrieved the ISO(s).

When I'm done drawing the floor plan, I'll "uninstall" the program
knowing that it's still available in the archive when I next need it.

The same is true of (work) projects:  download the most recent
snapshot from the archive, make changes, upload result back to
archive (possibly many months later -- time that the archive was
NOT powered up)

This is a different usage model than, for example, a traditional
file server that you treat as *secondary* storage -- "on-line".