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<div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><div><p style="margin-bottom: 0.12in; line-height: 100%">
Yes, simple external USB drives are the EASY button.
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<p style="margin-bottom: 0.12in; line-height: 100%">Several TB flash
drives will cost much less. They don’t take up desk space, don’t
consume power when not in use, and don’t have proprietary software.
What’s not to like?</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.12in; line-height: 100%">The boxes sold as
low cost NAS are apparently targeted at people/families who mostly
use their cell phones.
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0.12in; line-height: 100%">BTW, Central
Computers does not have any flash drives in stock. They do have
larger form factor drives, but those seem to feature Seagate or WD
proprietary software.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0.12in; line-height: 100%">Thanks everyone for getting me refocused.<br></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0.12in; line-height: 100%">I like the
bicycle analogy. I know from my own experience that a $1000 bike is
much better than a $200 bike. And a $4000 bike is even better. But
if you don’t do much bike riding you won’t get the benefit of the
more expensive models.<br></div>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.12in; line-height: 100%">What really gets
my ire is seeing a family riding and the parents don’t have
helmets. They think they can’t have an accident. The adults don’t
consider what might happen if there is a careless car and they are
unable to support the children.</p></div><br></div><div><br></div>
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On Saturday, September 25, 2021, 10:46:25 PM PDT, Rick Moen <rick@linuxmafia.com> wrote:
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<div>Quoting Paul Zander (<a shape="rect" href="mailto:paulz@ieee.org" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">paulz@ieee.org</a>):<br clear="none"><br clear="none">> Either way, I need to go shopping for some sort of box with at least<br clear="none">> 2 bays for drives and a power supply and a processor board and drives<br clear="none">> and maybe Wi-Fi and ... Often buying the pieces separately costs<br clear="none">> more than buying a thing all put together. In my case, I'm more<br clear="none">> interested in the Easy Button since I have enough other electronics<br clear="none">> projects where no ready made box exists. <br clear="none"><br clear="none">As usual, the _first_ question you need to address, before "What do<br clear="none">I buy?" is "What problem am I trying to solve, and why?"<br clear="none"><br clear="none">As I mentioned earlier, the simple solution -- and cheaper, and easier<br clear="none">-- to your "How do I do backup of my 1/2 terabyte memory stick, without<br clear="none">getting a different laptop?" is: buy a pair of large-ish<br clear="none">USB2-connectable external hard drives, and rsync to them both,<br clear="none">alternating.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">That has the advantage of being actual _backup_. For reasons also<br clear="none">mentioned, a NAS isn't actually backup.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">There certainly are off-the-shelf NAS units that are _claimed_ to not<br clear="none">entirely suck. QNAP, Synology, iXsystems, Drobo....<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Looking over a sampling of QNAP and Synology units at NewEgg leaves me a<br clear="none">bit underwhelmed, but at a quick glance they don't look dreadful.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">The problem you face, as someone seeking to just buy a quick-and-easy<br clear="none">home-office-grade NAS without having to pick and choose what goes into<br clear="none">it, is that it's a category that suffers Moen's Law of Bicycles to a<br clear="none">considerable degree.<br clear="none"><a shape="rect" href="http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/lexicon.html#moenslaw-bicycles" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/lexicon.html#moenslaw-bicycles</a><br clear="none">Which is to say, most of the products are pretty dreadful because far<br clear="none">too many buyers settle for junk and cannot distinguish non-junk when<br clear="none">it's offered.<div class="ydp316b3a7byqt5945390708" id="ydp316b3a7byqtfd88697"><br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none">_______________________________________________<br clear="none">conspire mailing list<br clear="none"><a shape="rect" href="mailto:conspire@linuxmafia.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">conspire@linuxmafia.com</a><br clear="none"><a shape="rect" href="http://linuxmafia.com/mailman/listinfo/conspire" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://linuxmafia.com/mailman/listinfo/conspire</a><br clear="none"></div></div>
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