A terabyte in the palm of your hand

This weekend, I assembled a 1TB hard drive for my Mac. I purchased a Seagate Baracuda ST310005 1TB internal SATA drive at Micro Center for $210. I installed this drive into a Vantec NexStar-3 360UFS external drive case, which cost $70. This is an all-metal case that provides USB, FireWire and eSATA ports. It is currently attached to my Mac via FireWire, that being the fastest interface I currently have. (I may install an eSATA card for better performance, but not now.)

Overall, installation was very simple. The drive just snaps onto the circuit board in the case. The circuit board is also attached to a metal frame that contains the case's external connectors. Thanks to the standardized (and simplified) ports used by SATA drives, there is no need for actual cables. Just a simple connector that mates with both of the drive's connectors. The drive then attaches to the board's frame with four screws. It was important to use the screws that came with the case, and not the ones that came with the drive. The former are pan-head, while the latter are round-headed. The round-headed screws scrape the bottom of the case when the drive is inserted. After attaching the drive to the circuit board, the assembly slides into the case. A single wire attaches the case's in-use LED to the circuit board.

After assembling the drive, I attached it to my Mac. Although simple from a technical point of view, this was tricky trying to find a place for it on my desk. My other external drives (two hard drives and a tape drive) reside on top of my Mac. When I tried to put the new drive there, however, the power cord proved to be too short to reach the power strip on the floor. I found another location, on my desk, behind the monitor, only to find that the bundled FireWire cable was too short to reach from there to my FW hub. Fortunately, I have other FireWire cables and was able to swap it for a longer one.

After physically attaching the drive, the rest was smooth sailing. As soon as I turned it on, Mac OS informed me about the new drive and asked me if I would want to format it. I said yes and the system's Disk Utility launched. The drive was partitioned and formatted in a few minutes. Afterwards, I chose to explicitly zero-out the partition - this is unnecessary, but I do it with new drives, to check for any damaged sectors. That operation took nine hours. (This is a trillion bytes we're talking about!)

After formatting, the drive appeared on my desktop and Mac OS asked me if I wanted to use it to store Time Machine backups. Since this was my purpose for buying the drive, I said "yes" and it was automatically set up.

Time Machine took about four hours to make the initial backup of my data (about 90GB). Subsequent snapshots (taken every hour) take only a few minutes, because they only back up files that have changed.

I don't yet know what the overall reliability of this system will be, since it's a new drive and a new case, but so far I am suitably impressed. The drive case has no fans, so it gets a bit warm but the aluminum case seems to dissipate the heat well. It does not get hot to the touch, and I don't have any other devices stacked on it. Mac OS X seems to have absolutely no problem supporting a single disk volume of 1TB.

Update 6/13/2008:
See also my review on Epinions

The self-peeling potato

The Japanese seem to have a miracle solution for everything, including a clean and easy way to peel a potato:

Breaking matza in half - the Japanese way

I posted this last year to my LJ, but what the heck..

Delicious irony: Sony caught using pirated software

Ars Technica reports: Sony BMG's hypocrisy: company busted for using warez

Sony BMG, proud RIAA member and supporter of thousands of lawsuits against people suspected of distributing pirated music, has been caught red handed using pirated software on some of their own servers.

Insert obligatory comments about people in glass houses, karma, etc.

PlayStation scare tactics

According to Sony's PS3 network troubleshooting page:

Use only an Ethernet cable compatible with 10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX or 1000BASE-T networks. Do not use a cord for a standard residential telephone line or cables of types other than those mentioned here. Using the wrong type of cord or cable can cause more electrical current than necessary to flow through the LAN connector, which may lead to heat build-up, fire or malfunction.

(emphasis mine)

So if you use phone wire instead of a Cat-5 wire, it can make the PS3 overheat and catch fire? If that's true, then the PS3's network interface is a complete piece of trash. With any other network device, using phone wire will simply not work - you won't be able to move any data, but it won't make the device catch fire!

So, is Sony simply exaggerating reality, or is their network hardware really that badly designed?

Or are they worried that someone will try and solder a power plug onto the end of a phone wire and shunt 120vac into the Ethernet jack? But even then, it should just blow out the PS3's circuits. It still shouldn't catch fire.

Farewell, Gary Gygax

I think this is a fitting epitaph for the creator of D&D.

Wire coat-hangers sound as good as Monster Cable!

Experiments: Do Coat Hangers Sound As Good Monster Cables?

Somehow, this doesn't surprise me. And it's a finger in the eye of every so-called audiophile who, over the past 20 years, has tried to sell me expensive (sometimes $20/foot) cable when I try to buy el-cheapo $1/foot cables for my stereo.

I do like to get heavy-gauge wires with thick insulation and gold-plated connectors. Not because it sounds any different, but because these kinds of cables are more durable and resistant to corrosion over time. But that's still a whole lot less expensive than what Monster (and other audiophile brands) charge.

The death of HD-DVD, the fall of Microsoft and the power of free markets.

In Lessons from the Death of HD-DVD, Daniel Dilger points out the Blu-Ray's success (now almost inevitable) over HD-DVD is a lot more than just one media format winning out over a rival. It is also the combined energy of an entire industry focussed against Microsft's attempt to "embrace and extend" and take over that industry.

In the article, Dilger points out that this is hardly the first example. A lot of Microsoft's recent projects have suffered the same fate, including the XBox 360, the Zune, Windows CE, and even Windows Vista. Part of this is due to the technical merits of the competition, but a lot of it is a direct result of the competition deciding to gang up against Microsoft.

On the surface, this would seem like a cartel, which is illegal in the US. For those unfamiliar with the term, In a cartel. industry leaders conspire together in order to control a market. This usually results in high prices and (when the market does not involve commodities) inferior products. IMO, it also destroys a free market economy, since the cartel prevents customers from having choices, and it prevents competitors from entering the market.

But here, we're seeing something different. Microsoft's competitors are not conspiring together. They are all independently deciding to focus their individual efforts against Microsoft. And it's not because they want to control the market (although I'm sure they wouldn't object to that outcome), but because they want to prevent Microsoft from establishing itself as the controlling entity. And not just for arbitrary reasons, but because Microsoft has a well-established history of abusing its monopoly power.

There have been anti-trust lawsuits against Microsoft, but history has shown them to be ineffective. Microsoft consents to token actions and continues abusing their monopoly power. This time around, however, the industry is not trying to use the legal system. Instead, the competition is using the power it has always had - they are choosing to support and promote competing standards, they are shipping products using competing standards, and they are selling those products to customers. The market is bringing down Microsoft where decades of litigation could not.

I find this very uplifting and reassuring. A monopolistic company does not inevitably dominate its markets. As long as competitors (no matter how small they may be) are free to sell alternative products, consumers end up with all of the real power. When they choose to vote in unison with their dollars, not even the biggest company can fight the trend.

The only real question here is: Will Microsoft see the writing on the wall and start delivering what customers want, or will they continue their current behavior and be further marginalized in the marketplace. Regardless of what they choose, it's good for consumers.

Your tax dollars at waste

Maybe those of you who understand sports can explain why I'm wrong.

As many of you are no doubt aware, the baseball player Roger Clemens has been accused of using steroids and other performance enhancing drugs. He's been testifying before Congress about these allegations, and recent news is that it seems he was lying about it and may end up facing criminal perjury charges.

What I want to know is Why the hell is any of this happening and why is Congress wasting our time and money on this nonsense???

As far as I know, there are no laws against using steroids or HGH. I can go and take them until I explode without violating any laws.

Major League Baseball has rules against players taking performance-enhancing drugs. This is not in question, and I don't even disagree with the rule. But that's all it is - one corporation's rules regarding the conduct of its own employees (which is what these players are, right?)

If I start a corporation and require my employees to wear yellow name-tags, and one employee refuses, I can fire him. If it's in his contract, I might even be able to sue for breach of contract to recover some kind of damages. But that's where it stops. There's no way this person could (or should) be jailed, and Congress certainly shouldn't get involved.

But that's what we're seeing here. MLB has a rule against steroid use. Clemens was accused. So MLB should conduct an investigation and depending on the result, they can fire Clemens and maybe sue him for breach of contract. If the investigation's results are in dispute, then maybe they should go to binding arbitration, or a local court (e.g. a wrongful termination suit.) But for some reason, it is going way way beyond that. Somehow, Congress - the supreme legislative branch of the United States - has gotten involved in what is still an MLB internal affair. They are having hearings before committees all over the place, treating this as if it was a matter of national security. And for what? Because a baseball player is accused of violating league rules? That's it?

And they're going to pursue criminal charge against him because of what? Because he was caught in a lie (so the committee says) while testifying about this BS that should never have begun in the first place?

What's next? Federal tribunals for people accused of jaywalking or spitting on the sidewalk? At least in that case, a law was broken.

This is yet another incident in a long chain of prosecutorial abuses by our legal system. Somebody in Congress likes baseball and doesn't like Clemens. So he sets up a show-trial, with no actual charges, solely for the purpose of forcing Clemens to either lie or make a career-destroying statement (or even better, both).

But it's not all that surprising. It's now a tradition to send unpopular people to jail on trumped up charges. Lewis Libby and Martha Stewart were also convicted of perjury regarding crimes that were never committed. And this won't be the last case either - you can be certain that in a few months, some other unpopular public figure will be similarly railroaded.

Child Discovered In Word Code.

Who would've guessed it? The Microsoft Word code is so big and bloated that a child got lost in there and was apparently living with Clippy for several years.