Category Archives: Technology

Google Drive is finally here

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Google has finally released the Google Drive service. If you’re familiar with Dropbox, Microsoft’s SkyDrive, Apple’s iCloud, etc, it’s the same thing. I’ve been using Dropbox for years and enjoy it a lot. The free service gives you 2GB and you can upgrade it with a paid subscription. There are already many advantages for me to switching to Google Drive:

  1. I already use many Google services and they are all integrated.
  2. I already have a Google account so I don’t have to sign up for another new account.
  3. Many of my friend’s already have a Google account so it makes sharing easier.
  4. You get 5GB for free. I know Microsoft and Apple start you off with 5GB+ but Gmail has always been friendly with all operating systems – which is another advantage.
  5. Cost. For $2.49/month you get 25GB of storage. You can quadruple that and only pay twice that per month at $5. I may save more money versus using Amazon’s S3 service.

As I mentioned above, I’m currently using Amazon’s S3 service to back up my photos in the cloud. I’m currently paying around $3-4 per month. It’s a nice service and it’s a pay for what you use service. Not only am I paying for the storage that I use, I also pay for the bandwidth and server requests as well. That, I didn’t like. So far, it looks like storage is all I pay for with Google Drive. I may make the switch after I do some testing.

Synology DS212J NAS Enclosure

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I read many good reviews on this Synology DS212J NAS enclosure over the internet and got interested. Before buying this, I’ve been using the Terastation TS-XE4.0TL/R5 for almost 2 years and it has been great. It has 4x 1TB drives. I have them set up in a RAID5 so I get a little over 2TB storage. It’s getting full and I wanted a cheaper and quick solution to expand it. Hard drives at this time are very expensive. I have 2x 2TB Hitachi Deskstar 5k3000 hard drives lying around that I got for $60 each a few months ago. I’m glad I bought those when they were cheap.

This NAS enclosure comes with 2 bays, perfect for my spare 2TB drives. I set them up to be in a RAID1. It’s easy to setup and configure, although the interface takes a few to get used to but that’s how it is with anything new. It has 2 USB 2.0 ports where I can plug an additional external hard drive or a printer and it can be shared as well. The NIC port is gigabit and seems to be faster than my Terastation with dual NIC gigabit ports (even with teaming enabled).

The current version of DSM is 4.0 and has many fixes that people complained about with the previous versions. The interface is intuitive and can be accessed using any browser. With this device, I can send my Time Machine backups over the wireless network. The power consumption is also low. I’m getting around 22 kwH watts. If you’re looking for a NAS enclosure and need only 2 bays, I highly recommend checking this one out.

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OCZ Vertex Plus SSD Fixed

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I posted problems with my OCZ SSD a few months ago here. I have gotten my drive back and it’s fixed. It didn’t take long for the RMA process, I just took a long time posting about the results. The whole RMA process took about a week. First I submitted a support ticket. I communicated with OCZ for a few days. Then they granted me an RMA number. I did have to pay for the shipping to send the drive back to them but it was only a few $. Here’s what they told me they did…

“We have received the drive from you. It has been extensively tested for data integrity in our equipment. We were unable to find any problems with the drive. It was tested on an Asus P8P67 motherboard using Windows 7 64 bit with an i7 2600. The way we test the drive is by filling up the entire drive with data. The data is then read back to ensure that we get the same thing we wrote to the drive. This process is repeated multiple times with the drive being entirely filled up and read back many times. This testing ensures that the drive is storing data accurately and that the drive can withstand sustained maximum IOPS over a long period of time. During testing a very large amount of data is written to the drive. Any failing or marginal drives are quickly made apparent during this testing process. After this has been done many times the drive is then reflashed to ensure it has the latest firmware, and it is also reset to wipe all of the "dirty" NAND to restore full performance back to the drive. All testing is done prior to updating the firmware. The firmware has since been updated to the current version and the drive has been reset. The drive will be prepared to be shipped back to you. If we have not heard from you within a week from today the drive will be shipped back to you.”

I asked…

“did you use it as a storage drive or did you install windows on it? i’m able to use it as a storage drive but not install any OS on it.”.

Their response…

“The way a storage device, such as an SSD works is that at the simplest level it just stores data, and then reads the data back when accessed. It doesn’t matter if it is being used as a boot drive or as a storage device, its still doing the same fundamental process. In the case of a boot drive that errors out the operating system will crash. If it is being tested as a secondary drive and it errors out, the process will fail though the entire computer will not crash. Some of the drives we test do indeed fail this testing and they are marked as bad. Your drive didn’t encounter any issues during the testing. Nearly 1tb of data was written to and then read from the drive as part of the testing.”

So it looks like it was just  a “dirty” drive. I know I’ve formatted it plenty of times but I guess not good enough? But it never worked even when I first got it and tried it. Anyways, it’s fixed now and I’m happy.

The process was painless with them. I now have it running on my HTPC with an MSI E350 motherboard. It works great and fast for its capabilities. Fortunately, this SSD drive was not meant for my more important machines so I had time to spare with troubleshooting and RMA. I wouldn’t buy an OCZ drive if it was going on an important machine. So far I’ve had good luck and experience with Kingston and Samsung SSD drives. If I come across another good deal on an OCZ SSD drive I wouldn’t hesitate to get it. I just won’t use it on my main machines.

Here’s a pic I took when I opened up their package. It was neatly packed and they even gave me a 3.5” adapter. Thanks OCZ.

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Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus

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I have been building another computer for a few months now that will be my transcoding machine. Here’s the latest addition. Newegg had this fan on sale and it has many great reviews. I was curious and figured it wouldn’t hurt to try it. Besides, I’m only running the stock heatsink (i5-2500K) and it does its job. I’m sure it’ll be better than what I have now. The installation was straight forward. My tower has access to the motherboard from the bottom side (motherboard) so it made installing the bracket easy. It comes with a 120mm fan. The heatsink can use another but you have to buy it. So I bought another. Once the heatsink is in place, it does move a little. I’m not sure if I installed it right but it seems secure enough. Here are some pics of the heatsink and one fan.

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I used this spray to remove the thermal grease from the old heatsink and the top of the CPU. It works well, just be safe with it because it is toxic.

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This is the old stock heatsink that comes with the Intel i5-2500K. Again, it does its job well but I was curious to try a different one. I measured the height just to give you an idea of the difference between the new and old heatsink and hope to show an estimate of how much clearance you’ll need in your tower.

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Here are some pics to show you the physical difference between the two heatsink.

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Make sure you have plenty of room in your tower. I have an Antec Three Hundred tower. It fits just right. I’m also using a Gigabyte GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3 motherboard. This is a micro ATX motherboard so it’s fairly small. The placement of the ram is very close the the Hyper 212 heatsink. There’s room, but not much.

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The temps using the stock i5-2500K heatsink fan.

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The temps using the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus.

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Temps with some load on the CPU. I get about 44* C on 96% CPU load with the Hyper 212 heatsink and two 120mm fans. The CPU is stock and not overclocked. Not too bad I think. It’s not as cooled as water coolers but I’m going simple for now and trying to get a better video card for this system that way I can use more CUDA cores than the 8400GS I’m using right now.

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Spotify’s Radio App

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I’m really liking the new apps you can install for Spotify. It gives you stations based on the mostly listened to artists. And because Spotify is online, it will track your listening activities throughout multiple devices. You can also create your own radio station. The monthly subscription fee is only $10. I figured it’s a price of a full CD every month. With a subscription, I can listen to any song I want. There are other apps as well, but the radio one is my favorite so far.

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