Strongly Typed

Since around the end of 2002 I haven't had a computer of my own. Every computer I've had (a series of Thinkpads) was provided for me by work, which means the MacBook Pro is the first computer I've purchased since 1998. That's pretty remarkable for a guy who makes his living writing code :-)

After my first ThinkPad I was sold on the benefits provided by laptops. I could work from home, the coffee shop, or halfway across the country with nearly the same efficiency that I had at work - and sometimes more efficiently due to fewer interruptions. However, one of the problems with laptops is that their harddrives don't seem to last as long as those of their desktop cousins, probably because of the frequent bounces, bumps, and jars they experience as they get moved around. At work I use FolderShare (now owned by Microsoft and free to use) to sync all code between my workstation and my laptop and it works great. But, for home use, I wanted something I could back up to from both my Windows and OS X laptops (without it being a third computer), so I bought a little NAS device.

After doing some research I decided on the 250GB SimpleTech SimpleShare. I found this very helpful review that provided a lot of details with an OS X bent, which was important to me. I'd looked briefly at the Buffalo TeraStation, but it provided a lot more storage than I needed and some reviews seemed to indicate it didn't play well with OS X (a show-stopper for me).

Setting up the SimpleShare consisted of plugging it into my DSL modem/router and then navigating to the management interface in my browser. To connect from Windows you just map the drive. In OS X you can use SMB or NFS to access the drive; I opted to use NFS. Setting up NFS requires a little more work than using SMB. I ended up digging around on google until I found this page, which describes how to set up the mount point using the command line and a text file editor. The other alternative is to use NetInfo, a GUI provided by OS X. However, I fiddled around with that for an hour with no luck while the command line version worked the first time for me.

Once the SimpleShare was setup transferring files was a breeze. I was able to copy over all my pictures and music at a relatively quick clip, though I'm sure it would have been even faster if I was using a wired connection instead of 802.11g. Overall, I'd definitely recommend it as a storage/backup solution if you have a laptop. It could easily old the entire contents of both my laptop harddrives and still have room left over. The best part is that all I had to do was plug it in and connect it to the router - no trying to configure an NFS server or an SMB server. It's also quiet and small, about the size of my dsl modem/router, so I can put it just about anywhere.