February 2008 Archives

I have a problem with always wanting to create the “perfect” solution to whatever issue, problem or project i happen to be working on. Most recently, i’ve been obsessing over how to get our digital media, mostly music and video, distributed around the house, and safely backed up. My “perfect” solution for the storage side (the display/playback side of things will be another post) was to build a file server, using low-wattage parts, and setup some kind of RAID system. Anyway, this would have been expensive and time consuming. Part of my perceived “need” for this kind of a setup was that i wanted to store all our music in a loss-less format, rather then lossy mp3s. Of course this causes other problems, notably deciding what format to use, and then what bits of our hardware will play these files, etc etc. It just maked more work for me.

So, i realized that i don’t have the time, or care that much anymore. High quality, 256bps vbr mp3s will be fine. And pretty much every thing under the sun can play back mp3 now.

Also, i don’t need a whole new computer to run as the fileserver/NAS. It would just be another box that i’d have to administer. So, i went out and bought a Qnap TS-109 NAS, which has pretty much everything i want and need on it, notably a bit-torrent client, for TV shows (more about this in another post), and slimserver software for my slimp3 player. It is simple, self-contained and reasonably cheap, especially compared to building a whole new computer.

The only thing that is still missing, and still picking away at my brain, is that there is only 1 hard-drive in the NAS. This is a worry to me, as i’d like all my important data (notably all our digital photos and home movies) backed up in more then one place. This is solvable. I could just attach a second HD to the TS-109 via USB or eSATA. However, my main work machine has gotten quite crufty, and it is time to reinstall the OS. I’ll take this opportunity to add a couple of hard-drives i’ve got sitting around into the case, and will use those as a secondary backup to the NAS. Problem solved!

So, by spending less money and time, i’ve managed to solve most of my network, data backup and storage needs.

I’m also trying to apply this new way of looking at things to all parts of my life. Using the “its good enough, and with two kids who has time to make the perfect solution work, let alone appreciate it” filter i hope to move myself forward, past some of the old sticking spots i’ve had in the past.