Running into Fire(wire)

We have cold, rain, and snow in the local forecast this week.  Yesterday was chilly, but sunny and i decided to sneak in another run.  Three days in a row at this stage is probably not the best idea, but i did ok and feel fine. I did have to stop a little shy of the mark i hit the previous two runs, but all-in-all, a good run.

1.83 miles, pace 9’04” – these numbers mean i am making good progress towards the goals i set.

Techwise, i am up against a space crunch, an improper/incomplete back-up system, and a sincere desire to take advantage of the speed and capabilities offered by my Mac.

My 1TB external Seagate drive is full. My 500GB external Seagate drive is about half full.  My 320 GB external Seagate drive is full (and still in India). The 1TB is all movies and tv shows, and it is not backed-up, it is simply storage. The 500GB does replicate critical stuff from my HD so it does serve as a backup.  Both of these are USB 2.0 drives.  Not the fastest things out there and they take 2 USB ports. While i do/have travel/ed with one or both of these, they are not the most portable things out there.  I usually wrap them in towels inside my luggage.

I have never played with firewire before, but i do know a little about it and what has always been the most attractive feature to me – even more than the fast transfer speeds – is the ability to daisy chain the drives together.  You plug your first firewire drive into your computer’s firewire port, and the next drive gets plugged into the first drive and so forth

After loads of research, i have this drive from iomega on the wish list.  It got super reviews and survived amazing amounts of damage and still functioned. Seriously, watch the video on that link. The firewire 800 version is almost $200 for a 1TB model. That is a big chunk of change to throw down to not meet my back-up needs.

Which led me to the old stand-by – Lacie. After some interwebs research, and then a check on all the local stores, i made an online purchase last night that gives me great pleasure – the Lacie 2TB Quadra External Hard Disk Drive!

I will be able to back-up all my current files, and have a little room to grow as well. By the time i need more space, i should be able to get another 2TB for less than $100, or 4TB or more for about the same price. And hopefully, by the time i am in need of a small, portable, rugged external drive for travel, the iomega w/firewire will have a larger storage capacity.  If not, 1TB to travel with should be fine, and it can plug into the Lacie Quadra!

I hope to transition into a true desktop system at home and an iPad on the road with no laptop.  The jury (and the capability) is not yet in for how the iPad will be able to interact with portable external storage without recourse to another computer. Maybe that issue will be resolved before it comes up for me as well.

I will be listening for official news about the iPad2, which should come out today! (The official news, not the device)