As we continue to collect and create more and more digital content, storage and storage management becomes more of an issue. Whilst it's easy enough to add additional external USB and FireWire drives to our Macs, the management of multiple volumes becomes more of a headache. And what about backup? All those precious digital photos and home movies on a single external drive?

One answer to developing a robust and extremely flexible storage solution is provided by Drobo.



Drobo is a range of storage solutions which allow you to both protect your data and start to create a flexible "pool" of storage, allowing you to expand your storage by simply adding additional raw drives as and when required.

In this week's (unsponsored) members show, I take a look at three Drobo devices:

Drobo - The entry level 4 drive unit
UK Amazon Affiliate link - Drobo - 4 Bay FW800 & USB 2.0 Storage Array
US Amazon Affiliate link - Data Robotics Drobo 4-Bay USB 2.0/FireWire 800 SATA Storage Array DR04DD10

DroboShare - The device that connects your Drobo to a LAN to create Networked Attached Storage (NAS)
US Amazon Affiliate link - DroboShare, Network Attached Companion for Drobo

DroboPro - An 8 drive unit with support for iSCSI for fast data transfer
UK Amazon Affiliate link - Drobo Pro - 8 Bay FW800 & iSCSI Storage Array
US Amazon Affiliate link - Data Robotics DroboPro 8-Bay USB 2.0/FireWire 800/iSCSI Storage Array DRPR1A21

Other Drobo devices not featured in the show:

DroboS - 5 drive unit with eSata
US Amazon Affiliate link - Drobo S 5-Bay USB 2.0/FireWire 800/eSATA Storage Array DRDR3A21

DroboElite - Enterprise Level Storage
US Amazon Affiliate link - Droboelite 8BAY Dual Iscsi Storage Array

In detail, the show covers:

• Drobo Product Line Overview
• Drobo
• What is RAID?
• Drobo Dashboard
• DroboShare
• DroboPro
• Smart Volumes
• iSCSI Configuration

Discussions: Forum

Extra! Members Version formats	1280x720 - Full HD Resolution 1280x720 - Full HD Resolution with overscan 960x540 - HD Resolution 640x480 - iPod and iPhone Resolution All versions with embedded chapter markings and available via iTunes, Miro or by direct download from the Extra! members site
Free Version Formats	This show is only available to ScreenCastsOnline Extra! members

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Subscribe to either the free versions of the shows in iTunes, and have this trailer plus subsequent free shows delivered to your computer each week by clicking the links below!
Free High Definition version of the show in iTunes or Free iPod version of the show in iTunes



Watch the free trailer of this show from this web page by clicking on the videos below

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Another project based show this week, as I take you through some of the recent changes behind the scenes at ScreenCastsOnline. If you've been following me on Twitter or on my blog, you'll probably already know that I recently updated the ScreenCastsOnline production studio with another Mac Pro!

This show takes you through some of the reasoning behind the acquisition of the new kit, along with showing you some of the tools and techniques I used to both reconfigure and upgrade my existing Mac Pro and commission the new one.

I also examine why I didn't get one of the new "Nehalem" based Mac Pros but decided to go with one of the "End of Life" current Mac Pros.

Now before you start wondering, the show is not just for those looking to migrate to Mac Pros but contains a lot of information and useful tips and techniques for anyone considering upgrading or migrating from one Mac to another. This weeks show covers:

• Existing Mac Pro Configuration
• Discussion of RAID 0, RAID 1 and RAiD 5
• Using SoftRaid
• Splitting a Mirrored Disk
• Swapping a System Disk
• Migration Assistant
• Using SoftRaid to create a RAID 0 partition
• Using Disk Utility to create a RAID 0 Partition
• USing A KVM with a Dual-Link DVI monitor
• Link Aggregation on a Mac Pro

As mentioned at the end of this weeks show, I’d like to recommend a new set of training videos for beginners to Final Cut Pro. This is a new resource published by my friend Izzy, from IzzyVideo. I’ve had lots of requests to create such a resource myself, but it’s on that ever expanding list of projects I never quite got around to!

Izzy has done a great job of assembling over 6 hours of quality training in easy to digest chunks, specifically aimed at the Final Cut Pro beginner. To be honest, if you’re not a Final Cut Pro user, but you have invested in Final Cut Express, there are still lots of hints and tips you’d most likely pick up from the tutorials.

As a ScreenCastsOnline viewer, you can get $10 off the usual price of $59 making the discounted price just $49 for the complete set of tutorials, available for immediate viewing from the IzzyVideo website. Just use the coupon code:

4AA88

Just so that you are aware, as well as supporting Izzy, you’ll also be supporting ScreenCastsOnline as I’ll receive a small commission for any sales via this coupon code! You can get more information and watch some of the sample videos from here:

http://www.izzyvideo.com/products/learn-final-cut-pro-6-for-beginners/


Discussions: Forum

Extra! Members Version formats

1280x720 - Full HD Resolution 1280x720 - Full HD Resolution with overscan 960x540 - HD Resolution 640x480 - iPod and iPhone Resolution All versions with embedded chapter markings and available via iTunes, Miro or by direct download from the Extra! members site

Become a ScreenCastsOnline Extra! Member
Extra members get access to full versions of the show in AppleTV (HD), ED and iPod resolutions.
Click here for more details on becoming a ScreenCastsOnline Extra! member

To View the Full Free Show
Subscribe to either the free versions of the shows in iTunes, and have this trailer plus subsequent free shows delivered to your computer each week by clicking the links below!
Free High Definition version of the show in iTunes or Free iPod version of the show in iTunes




Watch the free version of this show from this web page by clicking on the videos below

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Phew! What a show! This week I've managed to pack in a Web service and three applications together with a summary of Bittorent!

All about online storage this week, as I take a look at the Amazon Simple Storage Service or S3 for short. This is a unique online storage service available to developers and end users alike with some pretty neat unique features. How does no start up costs, no minimum monthly fees and unlimited storage sound? It's a strictly pay as you go service which offers everyone a low cost option of enterprise class storage facilities. As an introduction, I cover signing up for an Amazon Web services account and getting access to an Amazon S3 account. If you want to check out 1Passwd as used in this weeks show, there is a special discount available to ScreenCastsOnline viewers which has just been extended until the end of February 2007. See this link

To use the Amazon S3 service you need some client tools and this weeks show looks at two of the most popular:

Jungle Disk - A free Mac, Windows and Linux client application that allows you to access your Amazon S3 account directly from your desktop. Intended for personal file storage, Jungle Disk allows you to mount your Amazon S3 storage directly into the finder just like iDisk. It also contains a built in backup tool to allow you to backup your important files directly to Amazon S3 either manually or using an automated schedule. This weeks show takes you through installation, configuration, mounting your online storage in the finder, using Jungle Disk to back up your important files and accessing your S3 usage account.

S3 Browser - This free, open source application also allows access to your Amazon S3 account and gives you access level controls to make some or all of your data available on the web directly from Amazon S3. The show covers installation, configuration and uploading and downloading files from your Amazon S3 account.

One of the super cool features of an Amazon S3 account is that it supports Bitorrent. This weeks show explains exactly what Bitorrrent is and describes the benefits of making your files available via Bitorrent technology. If that wasn't enough, I demonstrate just how easy it is to create a "torrent" file from your Amazon S3 hosted files and include a real time demo of Bitorrent in action.

xTorrent -This demo involves using a great new Bitorrent client called xTorrent. Checkout the show to see a Bitorrent transfer in action.

If you'd like to try downloading the demo.mov file mentioned in the show, here's the torrent file - demo.mov.torrent. Just download this to your computer (right or CTRL click on the link and save it to your computer) and open the file with xTorrent or any other Bitorrent client. NB - If you do download this torrent, please keep it seeded for as long as you can! Thanks - Don

The full 33 minute show is only available to ScreenCastsOnline Extra! members and details of how you can become a member and get immediate access to this show in High Definition is available here. For a single low cost membership fee you get access to the next six months worth of weekly shows in HD PLUS access to the last 80 screencasts including the 10 previous Extra only shows.

The free show this week will contain edited highlights of the full show but you'll need to be a Extra! member to get the full show.

Discussions: Forum

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You can never have enough storage on your Mac! This weeks show covers adding additional firewire drives to your Mac using an external firewire enclosure.

I also cover the OSX Disk Utility application and demonstrate how to configure your disks using the RAID options built-in to OSX.

Free ScreenCast Covers:
Comparison of USB and Firewire
Setting up an external firewire enclosure
Configuring and installing Hard Drives
Intro to Disk Utility
Partitioning a Disk
Deleting a Volume


Extra Section Covers:
Using Disk Utility to setup:
A Mirrored Disk Set (RAID 1)
A Striped Disk set (RAID 0)
A Concatenated Disk set (JBOD)

The free version of the show in iPod and desktop resolution is available to all via a free subscription to iTunes (recommended) or to view in your browser

The full show including the Extra! section is available automatically to ScreenCastsOnline Extra! members in high definition as part of the 6 monthly membership - See here for details

The full show is also available as pay for download for only $1.99 USD for all three high resolution versions (HD, ED and iPod) - Click here for immediate download!

Supplier Special Offer - Use "podcast" in the coupon code to get 7.5% discount off external firewire enclosures - SpecialTech with ScreenCastsOnline

Duration: 14:26 | Size: 25MB | Discussions: Forum

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