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Memory upgrades

Screw it. I upgraded the RAM in my Inspiron 9300 from 1GB (2 x 512MB) to 2GB (2 x 1GB) Crucial DDR2-533 PC-4200. This started with a deal from Frys I found on dealnews.com. And I need to upgrade the 256MB of RAM in the Dimension 4700 as it’s going to be a file server soon. And perhaps an SVN server. =) 1GB extra for that baby (Corsair).

Once the new notebook memory is working, I’ll sell the old stuff, I guess.

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1TB MyBook World Edition II hard drive (Yuck!)

Today Best Buy had the Western Digital MyBook World Edition II hard drive for $329.99. That’s my breaking point. I bought one. I haven’t set it up yet. I’ll probably use it as a pair of 500GB RAID 1 (mirrored) drives.

27 June 2007 update: This kit has some serious problems.

  1. The ability to share files over the internet is based on a service, which means if that company (MioNet) goes away or drops support for my device, I’m out of luck. No, thanks.
  2. The MioNet software doesn’t recognize the drive, although I can browse it on the network with Explorer. I even mapped it to a drive letter.
  3. The MioNet software won’t accept a password with any special symbols in it. the only chars allowed are alpha and numeric. This bothers me.
  4. The delivered backup software (EMC2’s Retrospect Express HD) reports that there is no space on device, even when I tried repeatedly to backup a directory with just 118KB of files in it. Geez.
  5. The best speed I got to this thing (up or down) was 1.9MB/sec. That’s not fast enough. I have a 1GB drive to backup daily. Even if I’m just moving deltas, it’ll be slooooow. But that’s moot if I can’t backup to this drive because of errors from Retrospect.
  6. I’d like to have a swap-out drive on-hand. I couldn’t find this on WD’s web site. Nice. Perhaps I have to call Support to order one. No, thanks.
  7. The fan runs constantly, though I have only been actively accessing the drive occasionally.

The good news: Setting it up as RAID 1 (mirroring) was easy.

This drive is going back to Best Buy. I’m going to get a Western Digital MyBook Premium (FireWire400/USB2.0) 500GB drive instead, from Amazon.com, for about $175 with free shipping and no sales tax.