Photography, geek, gadget stuff and life.
Geek stuff
Expanding capacity of Synology DS1010+
Aug 31st
I’m a huge consumer of data; typically my data storage hovers around the 2.5TB range with most of that being my archive of photos. So as the Synology DS1010+ is to be my main file server I needed to feed it with drives. Yesterday after noon (approximately 20 hours ago) I added a 2tb drive to compliment the other 4 2tb drives already in there. It’s taking much longer than I anticipated but at least it’s doing it’s job. I’ve been having issues with the DS1010+ and Apple Macs which I’m hoping to solve. I have been in touch with Synology tech support but they have been very slow to respond and not up to the standard I would expect. Time will tell, I will keep you updated.
Synology DS1010+ a few days on.
Aug 23rd
I received the Synology DS1010 less than a week ago. I’ve not really had time to put it through it’s paces, but I thought I would write about my impressions so far.
The unit itself is heavy for it’s size, sleek and does look the business in an understated fashion. I initially loaded it up with three 1TB drives; one Western Digital WD10EACS-65D and two Hitachi HDT72101.
The DS1010 took around six hours to build the Raid 5 volume, after that I decided to run some very short tests; I wasn’t impressed. The unit is attached to a gigabit Netgear switch, I made sure all the a cables were quick enough by testing it on other Gigabit capable machines. However when transferring files across to and from the DS101 the speeds were well below par, only reaching around 20mb/s. Sometimes it would burst to an unbelievable 100mb/s but only for short moments.
Since then I’ve put in two 2TB drives and as of right now it’s rebuilding the Raid 5 volume which does take a long time.
I shall post some benchmarks when I have a bit more time.
Upgrading 2006 Mac Pro 1.1 – 2 months later
Apr 14th
I can tell from the amount of traffic I get about upgrading the 2006 Mac Pro that there is alot of interest. So I thought I’d give you an update.
First and foremost, my Mac Pro has been stable. It has not wobbled once since the upgrade. I was originally worried about the heat before I did the upgrade but the temperate has remained the same, even when pushed by HandBrake or Final Cut Pro 2. In the first month I ran a battery of real world stability tests by opening up multiple applications while copying multiple files and folders to my drobo and to other internal hard drives. The heat only went up a few degrees.
The speed increase has been amazing, especially when my applications utilize multiple processors! The following isn’t very scientific but I’ll do my best.
- Handbrake – uses multiple cores. Speed increase isn’t quite halved, but realistically I just leave that running and do something else. I don’t tend to sit there watching it. It is noticeably faster.
- Final Cut Pro 2 – uses multiple cores. Rendering previews is much quicker, I would say again it almost halves the time which is damn important as I do alot of rendered previewing when I’m editing. When I try to view the edits with effects, then it does drop frames alot (which is why i render). However, when I edit HD material then it really does struggle, I can’t view the previews properly unless I render.
- Photoshop CS4 – recently composited some magazine covers for a band at full resolution. I could see all 8 cores doing something but I couldn’t tell if anything felt quicker.
- Parallels – just for a test I wanted to see if Half Life 2 would run in Parallels which was running Windows XP. It ran fine. Also in the background I ran a YouTube video and a BBC iPlayer video simultaneously all running in the background. I could see no lag while editing photos in Lightroom. I believe a faster HDD would make a siginificant difference.
- LightRoom 2.0 – editing individual photos show no significant increase in speed, if anything Lightroom hits the Hard drives harder than the CPU. However, when bulk exporting files it does feel alot faster than before. Since I work in Lightroom 80% of the time this was well received.
Without doubt, it’s a worthy upgrade. If you have any questions, then leave comments below and I’ll do my best to answer them.
Antec 300. My messy case!
Apr 6th
I’m an Apple Mac fan. Although I own three Apple computers I still can’t get away from Microsoft Windows. I’m quite happy with the latest incarnation Windows 7 which is the only reason I have it around.
Built around the Antec 300, it has become my third backup solution of my photos.
As you can see from the photos, it’s full of cables; I’m ashamed of my cable management skills. It was tidy, but after consistantly inserting and pulling out components I gave up!
These photos were taking with a Nikon 10.5mm Fisheye lens and a D300.
More photos can be viewed here
Canon 5D Mark ii gets a new firmware update to allow 25fps
Mar 16th
I cannot say enough how jealous I am that this awesome mid range camera is able to smoke Nikon at video. However I have faith in Nikon that they will deliver!
The Apple Start up sound: the story from it’s creator
Mar 1st
If you’re reading this on a Mac then you’ll be familiar with the boot up sound that it makes. If you’ve ever wondered who created it and how it was made then view this very revealing video from the sound engineer himself Apple sound designer Jim Reekes. He talks about his other sound creation “sosumi” which has a very funny origin. Play and enjoy.
OMT in San Francisco #3: ‘Let it beep’ from One More Thing on Vimeo.
Windows Mobile 7 will fail.
Feb 17th
Once again Microsoft have not heard what the customers want. They failed with Vista because they thought they could dictate to the customers and look how that turned out.
With Windows Mobile 7, they have made the mobile phone the everything device when it can’t be that. Whenever you try to treat a small device as a big device you just get programs trying to run faster than the hardware is able to; Microsoft’s previous solution to this is to make the HARDWARE more powerful when they should be making the software simpler.
Windows Mobile 7′s interface is a barrier, it makes me think about where I want to get to when really I just want it to run the program I tell it to. There are too many buttons, options and ‘things’ cluttering the OS that the human eye doesn’t know where to look. Many people have complained about the iPhone’s simplistic interface but believe me that although it does look easy it take someone who KNOWS User Interfaces to design and implement, it also takes the vision of Steve Jobs to implement that and produce it for the masses.
One thing Microsoft must sort out is their message; what are they trying to say by releasing WM7? Are they targetting iPhone users or are they aiming for the corporate stuffy suit market? Whatever it is, right now Microsoft is saying an awful lot, but the message is lost to most of us.
Mac Pro upgraded with 2 Intel Xeon x5355 processors
Feb 12th
After months and months of searching on Ebay and Gumtree I finally bagged the two x5355 processors at a reasonable price! But even when I received them it wasn’t just a case of inserting it in.
I didn’t have thermal paste, acetone and a very long screwdriver to reach down the heatsinks to unscrew the CPU.
I also had a massive issue trying to get the memory cage off; the screws that hold them in place strip very very easily. In a matter of minutes I manged to completely render them useless. In the end, I read an article where they had a similar problem so they just used a bit of brute force to remove the heatsink cover, the front fan assembly and a memory cage slot holder.
I am very happy with the results. I have put new life into a 4 year old Mac Pro. I didn’t have the finance to upgrade to a 2009 Mac Pro but I have no regrets, it is far more rewarding knowing that I upgraded it myself.
My one advise is to don’t bother trying to unscrew the front screws on the memory cage, just unsrew the back ones so you can lever it out to pull out the plastic heatsink cover. From there on it’s easy peesy, so long as you have the right tools.
Mac Pro opened. Memory module, front fan assembly and heatsink covers removed.
Side view of heatsinks with lots of dust collected over the years. Easily removed with compressed air.
As you can see, I could not remove the memory cage assembly so I had to use brute force to remove everything except the memory cage.
So much dust!!
The pair of Intel Xeon x5355 processors in place.
Heatsink with all the old thermal paste still on.
With a bit of Nail Polish remover, I cleaned the heatsink plating.
2 Quad core X5355 processors in place
Intel Xeon x5355 Quad Core 2.66GHZ Processor
GEEKBENCH RESULTS: 52% speed increase
MAC PRO 1,1 QUAD CORE – 4952
MAC PRO 1,1 EIGHT CORE – 9436
Please leave comments below. I’d like to hear your experiences in your upgrade.
Very cool IronMan decal for Macbook Pro!
Feb 3rd
When I saw this I couldn’t believe someone had etched it on a MacBook, but it’s only a sticker but oh boy what a sticker! IronMan fires the Apple Logo!! Sweeet!!!
