Critical Review

[yogi]

Back in the good old days at Motorola they decided MS Word was inferior to something called FrameMaker, which eventually was purchased by Adobe. I'm not so sure Adobe invented it. It was a desktop publishing program extraordinaire, and very cumbersome when used as a word processor. But, some high level executive got talked into using FrameMaker so that corporate sent out a dictate to remove all of Microsoft's Office Suite and replace it with FramMaker. This order was given after several years of using MS Office and you can imagine the shock it must have caused when suddenly the software didn't do what you are familiar with it doing. Well, the corporate people didn't care about trivial things like that. They figured people will just have to get used to the new way. Oh, and also some other Motorola executive had a brainstorm that got the company involved with making desktop computers. Could you believe that those computers would not run Microsoft''s Office? It took about a year before the productivity at corporate headquarters took a nose dive deep enough for somebody to notice it in their bottom line. Shortly after that we moved on over to Apple computers and back to MS Office Suite.

While we were being forced to use Motorola computers and FrameMaker publishing, I got somewhat familiar with the process. I had to do documentation for the projects I was working on but otherwise I knew how bad of an idea FrameMaker was. Actually, it was an excellent publishing program and I have a feeling it could do all you wanted it to do. You could compose a frame much like a word processing document but orient it anywhere on the layout. And, I do mean anywhere including off the page. I recall having problems with that specific feature in that it took me quite some time to figure out how to position frames so that they would actually print centered on a standard letter size paper.

That whole experience was a classic example of misuse of a resource. The problem was the level of management responsible for making the decision knew nothing about software nor what exactly it is that his secretary must do. Everybody and their brother was making PC's at the time so that some corporate executive figured we were good enough to do it too, especially since we were making CPU's down in Arizona. All I can say there is that making CPU's is not the same as making PC's. Motorola excelled at commercial products but sucked big time when it got involved with any consumer product.

Cloud computing is not simply remote storage space. That is a physical reality, but there are a ton of services above and beyond providing space for your database. You can replace all those broken computers you now own with virtual equivalents that run any operating system you desire. Obviously you can store your work in the same cloud so that other people may have access to your database via what is called an API. That's what Google is doing when you search for something using their engine. It's all in the cloud. All those virtual machines and databases and webpages are presented as a container which is what "the servers" are storing. Technically a server by definition does not run programs. If you want to run LibreOffice your virtual desktop will be downloaded for you to use from the already existing storage containing the stock item. None of the software programs you normally use on that desktop are resident in the same place. They are all run from other computers, which I hesitate to call servers but in practice that is what they are. The output of those remotely located software packages gets saved in yet another computer which only servers what is stored on it. So, when you call up your cloud desktop, and run a spreadsheet, and then store it out in memory, you are using at least three different cloud computers. That's one reason why it's called distributed computing.

A while back, before I switched over to EFI booting, my NAS was sending me messages that its hard drive was about to go kaput. It seemed OK to me, but I bought a replacement just to be safe. I then replaced the suspect hard drive which was specifically made for NAS use and has 1 TB of storage space. I put that drive aside and kept it as a last resort emergency recovery disk. I could still read files when I swapped it out, but I no longer trusted it to remain stable since Synology was complaining about it. The conversion was made and after several weeks of testing and praying I determined that I no longer needed whatever was still on that old NAS disk. Sure enough, when I ran Crystal Disk Info, it claimed the drive was useless. I knew it wasn't useless because I just read some files off it, but OK. Synology and Crystal both said the drive was bad. Thus I fired up some version of Linux, called up gparted, and made a new partition table. I then formatted it to NTFS and gave it a very short test. It's been sitting around in my file cabinet ever since.

Since it was specifically designed for NAS duty, and since your drive apparently has crashed, I would be willing to send this old timer to you at no cost. If you are interested, just let me know here. Just to be sure I tested it again before I posted this message. The drive reads and writes in both the Windows 10 and Linux Mint environments. Here is a picture of the specs pasted on the drive:

HDspecs.jpg (118.71 KiB) Viewed 650 times

[Kellemora]

I think I have used FrameMaker, along with PageMaker and a few other things I bought in an Adobe package, all for Windows XP of course. But once I had it, I didn't use it all that much. PageMaker screwed up a book I was working on big time, probably because I didn't have it set right or something. I did have to make book covers back then too, and probably did it with FrameMaker. I say that because one of the booklets I made back then, I had several tilted boxes for blow-outs. And if I recall correctly, being able to do things like that is why I started making tri-folds in the first place. But then the ugly part of FrameMaker reared its ugly head. I couldn't just swap out the info shown in the tilted boxes like I had to be able to do. And this is probably about the time I got my hands on the first OpenOffice Writer program and learned how to make it do what I wanted quickly and easily. I also tried using their Presentation program, but it was crazy to learn and harder to use, so I always fell back on OpenOffice Writer and became quite good at making it walk and talk and do things the way I wanted to do them. But more importantly, everything I sent to the printer to be printed in bulk always came out perfectly. No more phone calls to tell me my images jumped around like it did on msWord. So I was a happy camper and so was the printing company I used.

Interesting info about the cloud computers. I do have a few programs I use by first loading my browser and then going to the website with the programs I use. But I still save the output to my own computer, not to wherever they save it at. But I do think they save my stuff anyhow, hi hi.

Of the 25 or so old IDE drives I have around here, none of them have ever gone bad. But I hear the newer SATA drives should not be trusted after about 5 years, and they are cheap enough to replace. This sorta has me concerned, because I bought a 2 tB drive about 8 years ago, and is what I backup all of my stuff too. It is never shut off, ever. While my older 500 gig HDs are always turned off, and sometimes they take forever to fire back up again, hi hi.

I really can't afford to pay you for the drive you have, but if you think that is what went wrong with my NAS, I'll be glad to take if off your hands. I could afford the shipping cost at least, so it doesn't add any expense to you.
Do you still have my address?
If not, e-mail me at ClassicHausLimited@comcast.net and I'll shoot my address and contact info to you.

[yogi]

The days when FrameMaker and PageMaker were state of the art chaos ruled the computer world. Computers themselves were still in their formative years and their software was hit and miss for the most part. That's one thing for which Bill Gates deserves a lot of credit. He standardized the critical everyday office software and the rest of the third party developers kind of followed suit. There were a lot of computer manufacturers back then, none of which believed in standardization. There is still a lot of variation today, but it seems to have settled down into just a few operating systems that dominate. The hardware variances in today's machines makes little difference as far as running programs are concerned. Those RISC devices are in a world of their own but even therein a standard format seems to be followed. I have a few programs on my desktop and laptop which originally were made for mobile app use. Overall things are a lot better in 2022 in that a loose agreement for architecture is shared among computer makers. It never used to be that way.

I don't know if SATA has problems unique to itself. At least I never heard about such a thing. Disk drives have moving parts and those are the first things to give in to age. When the mechanics of the drive deteriorate, then it doesn't matter how good the platter is with all your data on it. It' seems reasonable that 5 years of constant use would be the prudent time to start thinking about replacements. I think they actually rate drives on hours of up time so that it's quite amazing for you to have a drive going 8 years non stop.

I believe I have your mailing address and I will send the drive to you quickly as possible. Which might mean in a day or two. The drive has a lot of miles on it and the reason it is sitting in a drawer is because two disk evaluation programs declared it close to death. It did in fact fail one of my testing programs altogether. But, I reformatted it and repartitioned it and am now getting good reports. My guess is some sectors have been blocked out and what remains is working well. I just can't assure you how long it will continue that way. Plus, knowing how the post office and those other guys handle packages, it is going to get a few drop tests before it reaches your mail box. With all that in mind I can't ask you to compensate me for it. And don't let the cost of shipping be of any concern either. You have already paid me with your wisdom and storytelling well beyond what I would have to pay for a subscription to such valuable information.

[Kellemora]

Oh, I remember those days all to well. Even things made by the same company as the computers didn't work on their own computers. And that is what drove me crazy with HP equipment. I've never had a properly working HP item yet, not even the latest purchase of two expensive printers. They do make good commercial grade stuff though.

I even found it hard to believe all those old IDE drives I have here are all still working. There are only two I can't access the old data on, because at one time, they were not only larger in size but had different pin-outs. Maybe they are pre-IDE, hi hi.

I see where they are starting to make programs so you can load them on an SSD drive, but save the data to a SATA drive, not back to the SSD drive. So basically they load and run from the SSD, but write to the SATA drive. That makes a lot of sense, so all of your data that is constantly changing is not adding to burning the SSD faster.
Debi's son who is a lawyer has his computer set up that way, but it only works with his expensive lawyer based programs, not his normal use programs, yet. Windows of course!

I do appreciate you sending the drive to me. I still have not popped the cover to look inside.
I figure when I have a chance to work on it, I will backup what's on it first, if it will even do that.

[yogi]

It's pretty hard, if not impossible, to create a desktop program that is read only. Storing the data from said programs almost always have the option to put it on some other driver, presumably an external one. That's the scenario that I use whenever possible because I have only SSD's for installed operating systems. I went one step further to try and extend the life of my solid state drives by using what ASUS calls RAM disk memory. A portion of RAM is blocked off to use as if it were a hard drive. This not only saves writing to disks, hard or soft ones, but also is the fastest data transfer bus in all computers. You know, that CPU has to have immediate access to RAM. Thus, all my downloads are put in RAM disk instead of /Downloads on the main drive. It made a noticeable difference in download time especially when i grab the latest OS's from Linux repositories. Odd as it seems, I never had an SSD fail, but I have had a few HDD's go south. Go figure.

I know your noisy NAS isn't the highest priority for you, but I had some free time this morning and sent the HDD out to you. I was told it will be there Friday, which surprised me. You don't have to use it right away, of course.

I agree 100% that the very first thing you should do is attempt a backup of the data on that squeaky HDD. Noisy drives are a disaster waiting to happen. They are even worse than drives that flamed up and burned. Controller cards (which is the only thing that would burn on a HDD) can be replaced, but bearings on a hard disk cannot. Well, not by mere mortals. If the data is critical there are ways to remove the disks and get the data, but you might have to mortgage your house to have that procedure done. In any case, i is critical to get the data off that suspect disk ASAP.

The drive I'm sending came out of my current NAS. The form factor is identical to the NAS you have. The only problem I foresee you might encounter is in installing the operating system. I don't have a copy of it but I am positive Synology does. My current drive loaded what was needed from the Synology website all on it's own. It's a form of Linux but nothing standard about it. Once you have the OS installed on the new HDD of your NAS, then transferring those backed up files would be a no brainer. Before I packed the drive I copied a few files onto it from my windows box and from Linux Mint installed alongside Windows. I was able to read them back and save them too. Thus I know the drive is working at least in a limited capacity. As I noted elsewhere it has been used for quite a while and I have no idea what it's life expectancy is at this point. You can run Crystal Disk Info or some other Linux disk analyzer to find out if you really need to know the S.M.A.R.T. statistics. And, if for some reason only known to the gods of UPS the drive does not arrive in working order, just toss it. Even if it works but you change your mind, I don't need it back. It's yours now. Forever.

[Kellemora]

I used RAM disks a lot back in the old days. You almost had to if you wanted to play a game without waiting for each screen.

Thank you Yogi, much appreciated. I did turn it on last night and it still made a loud squealing sound, but I wasn't ready to try and copy anything from it, so turned it right back off again.

I do know that all the data on it that is not Debi's, I already have backups for elsewhere. I basically used it for sending things to Debi so she could read it real quick without logging into one of my computers to get it. She usually messes up trying to do things over the LAN to another computer. She does send things to my printer, but that's easy to do, and so is using the NAS for her. It's just a click away from a folder on her desktop.
So, when I do fire it up, I will be ready to copy her data over.
She also bought some small backup devices and used them a couple of times, but then they got stuck in a drawer and forgotten. She didn't like that it took so long for them to backup anything, and I think she just told it to back up her whole computer, not just data files is why it took so long. Whatever she did, it only has a restore option which would wipe out her existing OS and everything on her HD. I tried looking at it to see if I could extrapolate just files, but it doesn't seem like that is possible.
Every so often, I will take her cell phone and copy all the pictures from it to an external I keep up here. I also gave her a folder on the big external, but she can never get it to work for her. Says she don't have permission, when I know she does, she just needs to use a password first, then it works as it should.

I glad you told me the NAS has an OS residing on the HD. Otherwise I would never have figure out why it didn't work with a new drive installed. I thought the on-board controller card is what took care of all that stuff, hi hi.

[yogi]

Oh my, don't get me started with backing up Windows. I may say things very uncharacteristic of my normal criticisms. LOL
I must concede that Micorsoft has come a long way as far as recovering a system is concerned. The problem I see, however, is that there are too many choices and people like Debbie can easily get confused. Fortunately you are there to help her out but I suspect you can't be all that familiar with the eccentricities of Windows 10/11.

A copy of Windows is generally stored in a recovery partition (for Windows 10 and later). Thus it is always possible to "recover" the OS, but your data is lost unless you do some special maneuvers. You can also make a recovery copy and store it on a USB memory stick. I'm not sure that is actually the disk image we are familiar with because Micorsoft stopped doing images after Windows 7. Presumably that recovery USB will get you back to where you were, but I never actually did it that way. I have made the USB, but never did a live recovery from it. The old Windows 7 disk image tool, however, is still part of the newer OS's Control Panel. Using that to make an image is the only way to assure you will recover everything that is on the system.

So ... when you try to recover from the troubleshooting screen (using Shift+Reboot to get there), you are given choices. You are asked if you want to recover everything including your data files. OR, you can recover everything without your data files. OR, you can just do a clean install and start from scratch. The crazy thing about it is if you choose to recover your data, only those programs installed with the OS or apps installed from the Microsoft Store will be recovered. Anything else you added cannot be recovered. To their credit, however, Microsoft makes a list of what programs it did not restore and leaves that list on your recovered desktop.

The moral of this story is that any data you want to save must be done via a manual backup to an off line storage device. It's a PITA to do that manually, but the good news is that there is a great backup program that will do it for you. You need to set it up, but once that is done you never have to do it again. I highly recommend this for backing up personal data in Windows: https://www.cobiansoft.com/download.php?id=1


It probably didn't mean much at the time but I have often said that my NAS (nearly identical to yours) is in reality a server. It is running Linux server software as an operating system. It's a very watered down version of Linux specifically made for the Synology NAS. That must be installed on any new hard drive you happen to put into the box. That Linux OS then downloads the front end software from Synology, which is the desktop you see when you log in. Only after you have the Linux and the (DSM, I think) GUI installed and running can you do any file transfers. In my current system all I had to do was go to the Synology website and somehow tell them I have one of their NAS devices ready for installation. It was all magic after that. They set up the Linux and the GUI and before I knew it I saw the login page in my browser. At that point you have to set up user accounts and shares. Deb might appreciate you setting up Windows shares so that she would have easy access. But, I think you said you already did that. Well, you will need to do it again with the new HDD installed.

I have a bad feeling about the noise you are hearing from your current NAS. Then again, it just occurred to me that in addition to the HDD having moving parts, there is a fan for cooling the box. If you are really really lucky, it's the fan making all the noise. You still need to replace it, but at least your data will be safe.

May The Force be with you.

[Kellemora]

Back in the days of Windows XP, after installed a new version of Windows XP and all the programs I like to use with it, and knew everything was working just right. I used to make a backup ISO of my entire system. This sometimes took 6 or more CDs to do, but the program was designed to do so.
I could then install it on another computer, or back on the same computer, and it would prompt me when to swap the CDs during the reinstall. The nice thing was, the computer was just like I originally set it up, with all the programs intact and working.
But for some reason, the ability to do that came to an abrupt halt when we got a pair of new computers. And for the life of me, I could not figure out why. Or should I say, what on earth was different about our new computers?
So I had to install from the original Windows disks and the original program disks and get all reregistered again on both.
Even back in the Windows XP days, I still added a separate Data Partition, but most of the time it was a second hard drive I used for the data, plus an area on that second hard drive to backup the data that I couldn't write to a second hard drive from.
But this made it easy for me, because then I only had to backup the second HD to the external to keep all my files intact.
And that's the way I did it for years.

Based on the sound fan bearing make on my old computers when they go bad, this sound is much louder and at a constant pitch, not varying with load like a fan does. At least not that way for me anyhow. I've had a lot of CPU fans go bad on me, and also a couple of case fans. I keep a pair of case fans here I picked up new for less than 6 bucks each, 10 bucks if bought separately. I've already used one of them in the old Dell because it kept overheating all the time, and the CPU fans, both of them were spinning like tops, and the fins were all clean. But the fan on the side of the case was gummy to even spin by hand, so I replaced that fan and it quit overheating on me. But now it won't run at all, I think the CMOS battery is dead. In fact, I have a couple of computers the CMOS battery died in. But I'm not sure if that is also why I don't have a working LAN, or why one won't even boot up, just says critical error if I try to boot windows XP, then I get the blue screen of death. Ran a complete diagnostic on it and it shows everything is good. I have a really old computer that was not working, couldn't read the USB ports, no LAN, and no sound. Same thing when I tried to boot into Windows, but I had an old Debian version 8 on it, and it booted up into that OK, but no CD, no USB, it has sound, and the clock won't reset manually either.
I guess it is possible the CMOS battery has something to do with it, but I don't see why. It's only purpose was to keep the clock running, or at least that's what I thought.

Debi just called on her way out to work and said a package came for me. So that might be the HD you sent, or dog food, hi hi.

[yogi]

The CMOS battery does in fact keep the system clock going but in most cases it also keeps the BIOS firmware alive. Thus when the battery goes you can't boot at all, or that BSOD shows it's ugly head. Sometimes the BIOS becomes corrupt. You can force it to reflash itself by momentarily disconnecting the battery. Some motherboards have a switch or a jumper for that purpose. Since resetting or replacing the battery is simple, that should be the first thing you try on a system that doesn't boot.

I don't recall exactly right now but I am thinking the CPU on that NAS you have does not have a fan mounted on it. There isn't much room in there for a fan and the processor doesn't work that hard to generate a lot of heat. There is a chases fan I believe and that is what could be making the noise. It may be coming from the HDD. Either way you will find out when you open it up. And, they did say you should have the package today, Friday.

I don't know when Micorsoft implemented the image making software. I do know it is a bit for bit copy of whatever the system state happens to be when you make the copy. That is why nothing is lost when you restore from a disk image. The recovery done on Windows 10 and 11 isn't an image as was done in the old days. The recovery partition has a copy of the OS, but you can actually download it to a USB drive and reinstall that way too. Of course that would be a clean install with no saved data. Saving the data to another drive, preferably an external one, would be the best approach with the current versions of Windows. As I mentioned above you can make a bit for bit copy using the old Windows 7 image software found in the Control Panel, but I am not too sure how good the recovery software is for that kind of backup. In any case, the NAS storage you have isn't being used for recovery purposes, although it can be.

[Kellemora]

The hard drive arrived safe and sound.
Love that packing material you used. I hope you didn't have to fold all them by hand and tuck the flaps in, hi hi.
Thank You very much.

I'll have to open up my old machines and see what number is on the battery. At one time they all had the same battery, but not anymore. I bought four for one of my computers, only to find the rest used a different size battery.
I'm sure any would work since they are all the same voltage, but the ones I bought had too large a diameter to fit the slots.

Most of the things I put on the NAS were so Debi could access them easily without going out to one of my computers to get it. But I also used it to store a lot of my files also as a backup, and I'm pretty sure some of those files were ones I didn't have other backups for yet. Mainly because they came from a computer when I was moving up to another another computer, and that stuff just never got moved to an external drive or gone through looking for duplicates.
In fact, I still have 4 IDE drives I've never got to go through yet when I was doing them all. Ran out of time, or something else burned up the time I used for doing that kind of stuff.

As far as I know, since the days of Windows XP, you cannot make an ISO that would install itself back on the computer. Also mirror images of bootable drives didn't work to well either. Usually best to just reinstall everything from scratch.
That is one reason I was so glad to get Dealer Install copies of the Windows versions I was using, no bloatware on them.

I will have to study up about how to install an OS on a NAS drive, and hope their website gives me the info I need.
Thanks again Yogi!

[yogi]

Packing material ... no, I did not hand make it. LOL

I believe I ranted about this a time or two in the past, but it seems appropriate to bring it up once again. There is a brand of juice I love that is only sold in boxes. It's pure juice too so that not many stores handle it. It was easy to get back in Chicago, but down here only one of the Dierberg stores close by handled the brand when we first moved in. They no longer sell it. There are a few places I can get this stuff online. The problem there is that I need to get six at a time, or more, and it's all one flavor. WalMart used to have it online in two or three flavors, but no longer. Thus I was happy to find some obscure place on the Internet that had what I wanted. They shipped it without any padding inside a box that seemed custom made to size just for these juices. The first time I ordered was perfect. The time after three of the juice boxes were broken and leaked. That didn't stop the UPS guy from dropping the wet box on the front porch. LOL I complained and they sent another six. Only two boxes leaked that time, and the other four were only slightly damaged. So, I had to shop around for another supplier.

I went back to WalMart and ordered six of one flavor, which happened to be my favorite. The box it arrived in was twice the size of those juice cartons. I'm pretty sure it was WalMart that uses that packing material you now have to preserve the juice boxes. It worked perfectly. No damage whatsoever. I tired it again a second time and the same results. I was so delighted with their method that I saved all the packing material for anything delicate I might want to ship. Apparently it preserved the hard drive too.

The NAS you have was replaced here by its big sister. It came without a HDD so that I had to buy one identical to what you now own. I think I upgraded to 2 TB memory, but I don't recall for certain. In any case, all I had to do was open the NAS, insert the HDD, button it back up again, and connect it to the LAN. Then I went to the Synology website mentioned in their user manual. It's just the standard site if I recall correctly. There was a link somewhere obvious for us folks who had a Synology product but no software on the HDD. Clicking the link started a routine that identified what product I had and loaded the appropriate software. That software is the special Linux OS for the given product and the user interface software. It took a while to download and set itself up, but as I recall it all went flawlessly. Since it was a virgin operating system I had to make the user accounts and create the Windows shares. It can handle any number of file systems but I was only interested in Windows. After all that was done the NAS was ready to accept anything I loaded onto the Windows shares. It's really pretty simple. The hardest part will be locating the Synology website.

The old Windows backup image was not an iso. It could not be run independently as an operating system image due to the file format they used to save the data. I guess they did it that way so that you can't propagate verified systems and avoid license fees. In order to use the image you had to run the recovery software in the Windows Control Panel. I had in fact two copies. One was on that NAS you currently own and the other was on an external hard drive dedicated to making these recovery images. While it was not a true iso copy it was a true image. The exact condition of the system was replicated and able to be used for recovery purposes.

They currently go about recovery in nearly the same way. That is to say, you can make a USB memory stick with a recovery version on it, but it is not an iso nor what that old image from Windows 7 days used to be. I have tried to recover Windows 10 a few times but always did it by using the recovery partition automatically created for the purpose. It so happens that an iso copy of Windows 11 is available, and probably Windows 10 too. You need to download it from the official Widows download site and from the machine you want to install it on. The reason for that is it will download a platform specific version. If you want to upgrade you can download the iso for that too, but after installation you will be asked to buy a license in that case. There is also an iso download for USB memory that you can use on any machine. I used that method once when I upgraded a laptop from Windows 10 to Windows 11.

[Kellemora]

It's the first time I ever saw that kind of packing material, and yes I saved it too, hi hi. Looked like good stuff with little weight.

WalMart won't ship here, only pick-up at their store, which is OK too, the frau is out that way often.

I'll have to find that Synology website and see if it recognizes their unit on my LAN.
I guess I should do so from Debi's Windows computer, because I didn't see anything in the stuff I looked through to find the disk that was supposed to come with it.
I did try firing up the NAS to copy things from it, but it never would boot up, which sorta tells me, the HD is what is fried.
But I know I need to find the install disk or make one, or like you just said, it can do it online too, which I hope is the case.
I will keep it in Windows format, because of Debi using it, and able to get data from it easily.

This may have only worked because I had two identical computers. But I used CloneZilla to make a copy of my old Windows XP Pro machine onto a new hard drive, and after I plugged it into the machine, it worked like a charm, no complaints that I remember. It was a long time ago.

Now although the machines at the hospital all work from a server, most of them were Windows 7 though, and I heard from Debi's cousin who works there, they had super big problems moving up to Windows 10. So a lot of machines were reverted back to Windows 7. For some reason they don't like Windows 8, or upgrading to Windows 8 caused them too many problems. They still have a lot of old Windows XP machines also, as does our DMV, and Windows still supports government owned Windows XP machines. Or did the last time I heard anything about the DMV's machines.

[yogi]

TRY THIS: https://www.synology.com/en-us/support/ ... 109#system
That is the software direct from Synology

OR, MAYBE THIS; https://synology-ds109-nas-firmware-dsm ... load/?dm=0
This is software from a third party, which may or may not be the same as above.

The Synology download page also has a link to their tech support. You can go there as a last resort.

I also have a .pdf copy of the DS109 user manual. It's too large to attach to this thread, but if you think you want a copy I can try to e-mail it to you.

• EDIT: As luck would have it, I found a copy of the DS109 user interface software in my archives: DSM_DS109_3256.pat
  It's a bit over 108 KB and I don't know about that .pat extention. But, I'd be glad to send it to you if you can use it.

The drive is formatted NTFS and I did that only to prove it is still working by saving and retrieving a few files. The operating system you need to make the NAS work probably would not install on NTFS. They will format it all to whatever is needed. Debie would be accessing a Windows Share(s) that you create for her using the installed operating system/software. Windows uses something called CIFS, which they invented for this sharing business. Windows the OS knows all about that, and the NAS server runs Samba which has CIFS built into it. Thus the NAS and Windows can swap files back and forth. It will all be transparent to Debie. Once you set it up, give it a name, give her access and all, you can make the shortcut for her desktop. OR, you can simply mount the share(s) in Windows and it will look like just another hard drive to her.

I ordered more juice today and with any luck I will get another box full of that packing material. I'll just send it to you if you need more. LOL

[Kellemora]

Thanks for those links.
I do have a copy of something about the NAS that is 329kb in size as a PDF. But it is more like a Data Sheet than an installation manual.

They have a download for DSM 4.2, but I'll wait to see if it connects directly to NAS before hitting the link to the download.

I have quite a bit of packing material here, most of it foam peanuts, and bubble wrap, including some of the big bubbles a lot of places are using now.
When I ship a box that could have something inside that breaks all to easily. I put three layers of bubble wrap on each of the 8 corners after I wrap the whole thing in bubble wrap. Then I use the peanuts around, under, and over the box to center it in the box I'm shipping it in.
A few things I've shipped using foam rubber pads left over from my wife's early shipments of Insulin. Now they use a cellular styrofoam block that separates to get to the vials.

I don't think right now I need any more packing material, hi hi.

Don't know if I mentioned this or not. I turned on the NAS and it failed to boot up, so maybe tomorrow I'll get a chance to work on it. I have very little time left over during the day to do the stuff I want to get done, hi hi.
I did order some CR2032 batteries.
My Netbook uses CR2016, and the small Dell uses CR2025, but I think all of my desktops use CR2032.

Now to find the time to open and clean those computers of dirt and dust and try to get them going again.

[yogi]

You did mention earlier that the NAS wasn't booting. If the fan was making the noise I suppose the excessive heat resulting from a broken fan might have been enough to melt silicon on the mobo. If that's the case you will need to find another use for the hard drive I sent. If the problem is confined to the hard drive only, then that replacement will get you back in business.

The most significant difference between the NAS you have and the one I have is the processor and the amount of RAM. The new processor is faster, but not by much as I recall, and the increased RAM was needed to run the new DSM user interface. It's possible that they both use the same software, but I honestly don't know for sure. I do know what I told you so far is true in that Linux is the operating system, but it's a very much slimmed down version. Since I did this all quite a while back I don't know if downloading the latest DSM will also get you the Linux OS. Regardless, I do recall it was all pretty easy because a lot of the details were taken care of behind the scenes, such as partitioning and file formatting.

I was just trying to be funny by offering you more packing material. I know you are a professional when it comes to sending packages and given how you never throw anything away I can only imagine how well stocked you are.

[Kellemora]

We shut the NAS off within minutes of it making a squealing sound.
Although it shouldn't matter, the drive is standing on its side, because the unit sits that way normally.
But I read many years ago, if you have the option of mounting a hard drive flat or vertical, always pick flat because they last longer that way. Especially the parts that move the reader heads.
And here nearly every external drive I've ever had runs with the drive standing on its edge. Hmmm.

I planned on working on it today, but then I was given a Honey Do list to take care of for the frau.
She does the hard work of buying it and loading up the car. Then I get the work of moving certain items onto shelves in the garage, up high where she can't reach, hi hi. And toting the heavy stuff into the house or to the garage on my side. I can only do a little bit at a time, then I have to rest and let my O2 build back up, and quit shaking too. Getting OLDE is the Pits!

I was reading about the 4-bay NAS units out there, not that I could afford one, and don't really need one.
But an article or comment under one of the ads by a guy said he replaces one hard drive every year, so none of the drives in his unit is over 3 years old. He also said when he first started using a NAS, he replaced the drive in pairs, and the new ones were always a size larger, but the NAS couldn't use them until the next year when he replaced the next two drives. But then he had trouble once and lost a lot of data, because a drive failed before it was done with the rebuilding process. So now he just buys one new drive a year and has plenty of folks he can give or sell a 3 year old drive to.

The file system used on the NAS is not one where you can pull the drive and plug it into a computer to read. At least that is what someone else said in that same bank of comments. You have to reformat it to what your computer uses.

[yogi]

The file system used on the NAS is not one where you can pull the drive and plug it into a computer to read

It's funny that you should mention that because that is exactly what I tried to do when my NAS was warning me about the imminent death of the HDD. I have an external slot on the tower that will accept any SATA device and I thought that would be a great way to back up the files on the NAS before I replace the drive. I tried booting from it but that didn't work either. I fired up a Linux OS that I had in the tower to see if I could read the NAS drive that way, but no deal. So I ended up reinstalling it and praying it would not crash before I could copy all the data on the NAS to a backup drive.

One day I set up telnet on Windows and got into the NAS operating system to see what it looked like. Looking over the binaries directory is how I figured out it was a minimal system. I also found the name of the OS somewhere. It was something like TinyLinux, but not the one you and I are familiar with. I was able to transfer files using telnet but there is no need to do that with Windows shares. Shares are a lot safer than telnet anyway.

The only reason I might consider a 4 bay NAS would be to use it as RAID storage. I would also want to be able to do a hot swap, but I don't think the Synology NAS's I've seen have that ability. I don't know the exact number but there is a recommended value for the hours of use for a given hard drive. It's something like 3000 hours, which is what I think my NAS was monitoring. However, I know I have drives that have been active for way longer than that and they did not fail. There may be some bad sectors that have been blocked off, but the performance can usually go well beyond the recommended up time. It's not a good idea to push your luck, however. If you really can't afford to lose the data on the drive don't exceed the recommended limit for useage.

I can imagine why they claim laying hard drives flat is better. There are bearings on the spindle for the disks and they are designed to wear evenly. That can only be done when laying flat. When mounted vertical gravity eats away at the lower bearings quicker. I don't know if it really matters to the R/W arm that swipes the disk for data. I suppose they too have bearings but the duty cycle is way lower than it is for the disks that spin. It's best to use some commonly available software to monitor the condition of the hard drives, unless you like to gamble with your data. Not having mechanical parts is what I like best about SSD's and from my own experience they last about as long as any mechanical drives I've used.

Your time is limited and I realize you can't always do the things you need to have done. I'm curious about what you will find in the NAS, but I can certainly wait until you have the time and inclination to analyze the situation further. Do let me know what you find, but don't rush to find out.

[Kellemora]

The older Synology NAS systems used something I didn't recognize the name of, nor does Linux, but the newer ones use ext 4 or btrfs, I think. So the newer drives, unless they are set up as RAID should be readable by a Linux computer.

Today was my cardiac rehab day, plus the added slow deep breathing monitor.
I'll tell you this, nothing is manual anymore. Everything has sensors in it now that report back to the supplier.
Debi's CPAP monitors how long it is used each night, and she has to use it for 4 full hours every night, or insurance won't pay for it.
I have a finger-clip device, very much like a pulse/oximeter, that must be blue-tooth. Since I don't have a Schmartz-fone, they also gave me this little box that is hooked to Debi's Windows computer. I can bring up the screen from the program installed there, just as she can the program on her Schmartz-fone for her CPAP. But I don't really have to do anything. When I push the button the finger-clip device, it only shows an LED light that it is on, then another yellowish orange light that means it is ready. I assume that means it has successfully activated the program on Debi's computer, running in the background.
I have my own exercise equipment, step-up box, stationary bike, and treadmill, but ever since I got this finger-clip, I have to do 5 minutes of walking before I do the step-up, then the bike, then the treadmill, then 5 more minutes of walking. I can do the walking using the treadmill set to 1 mph. After the walk I do 12 step-ups, 1/2 mile on the bike set to 4 degree hill aka #4 on the bike, and then the treadmill where I have to run it up to 2.4 mph. I don't know that those numbers mean mph though, but the incline is at 4%. If I use it at 3% then I have to run the numbers up to 2.6 mph. I only have to do 1/4 mile on the treadmill. Or should I say, those are the levels I've built up to over time.
When I first started, I had a chart where like the bicycle, I started out at 1 click on the dial, and had to keep the pedaling speed up above 7. But after my COPD got so bad, the doc is happy if I keep my pedaling speed around 6. But rather than go by time, I go by distance. Every month or so I would increase the click up to 2, then 3 for around 6 months, then I'm now at click 4, which is fairly hard to do at speed six for over 5 minutes to reach 1/2 mile.
The good thing about this finger-clip is it lets them know how low my O2 is getting while working out, so they upped how much O2 I can use while exercising. In the beginning it was 2lpm like I use when sleeping. Then they had me up it to 3, then 3-1/2, and now during exercise I should run it at 4 lpm.
They have another box the insurance won't cover that will adjust my lpm while I'm exercising. It only works with oxygen concentrators, not tanks, because you set the concentrator at 5 lpm as high as it will go, then let the device waste some to room air while feeding you what you need to stay at 95% O2 in your system
I think the reason they sent this finger-clip thing was because my O2 drops way too far just walking. And of course they can bill the insurance companies for 100 times what its worth, hi hi.

My Monday's, Wednesday's, and Friday's are pretty much shot to heck, since those are my exercise days, and now that they monitor me electronically, I have to do all of everything for at least the minimum time I've been told to do.
I am faithful about doing my exercises, but the whole goal as far as the cardiac part is, is to get my heart rate up to a certain point. Well, that's a two edge sword in and of itself. I'm on pills to keep my heart rate stable and not get too high. And when I exercise, if I don't do it a certain way, it jumps up too high too fast and then I don't get a proper exercise.
This program on Debi's computer does show I'm making progress, and I keep waiting for them to tell me to turn back the grade by a click, and go for more time. In fact, that's how the chart worked when I first started. I had to slowly build up to what I'm doing now, even though it don't sound like much. When your ticker don't tick, and your O2 drops like a rock, it is very hard to get through all the stages of the exercise routine.

Ironically, I'm always busy every day, and looking at the clock right now, it is 4:30 pm, dinner is at 5, and I've not got to my afternoon work yet today. I guess I piddle around too much, hi hi.

I do have the NAS down from the shelf and on the kitchen table, but have not opened it up yet.
Maybe tomorrow.

[yogi]

I am very impressed by the description you give of your cardio routine. Perhaps I am wrong but it seems to me that you are doing a lot more than most people with COPD and/or heart disease are doing. Your workout numbers are not all that great for a healthy person, but they are amazingly high for a guy operating at 30% capacity. Apparently you have created your own rehab clinic which has to be saving the insurance people a ton right there. The monitoring you are required to do is most useful for you to keep track of your progress. It's got to be quite satisfying to be able to look over the records and see stability if not actual improvement in your condition. It seems a bit cynical of the insurance people to think the monitoring is also required as proof that you are actually using what they are paying for. Then again, my understanding is that like many other things O2 is in short supply. They need to be careful how they allocate it. I also guess they are doing it because you must be an exception to the rules. They normally don't reimburse for all that home equipment you are using, and that's likely due to not many people going to the same trouble you are. Being connected to the computer is a small price to pay for staying alive however.

There are quite a few health related wearable devices (computers) these days. Most of them are pretty stupid as far as computers go which is why they need to be connected to a real computer. It also keeps the costs down if they don't have to include something like Internet access inside that finger sensor you use. I don't have a problem with my personal computers keeping track of my health, but some of the devices in common use connect to a remote website for services. The internet is a public network and I'm not too comfortable with the idea of sending my personal information to a database I've never seen. Then again, there is really no such thing as privacy anymore.

All I can add is that it appears to me that you are doing a fantastic job of staying as healthy as you can be. It's a lot of work and you are to be congratulated for your success.

[Kellemora]

The cardiac exercises are to keep my heart strong and from getting worse.
But now with COPD, that complicates matters a bit due to being able to breathe properly.

If the insurance company want's' to pay 55 bucks a month for a year for a 29 dollar device, I guess that's their business.
I think I told you I bought an identical oxygen concentrator for my office as the one they are charging my insurance company 560 bucks a month for. I only paid 245 dollars for one with only 5000 hours on it. The one I'm leasing has over 35,000 hours on it and is noisy as all get out.

It is almost impossible to find things that work stand-alone anymore.
Almost all devices require you have a Schmartz-Fone for them to work. Sad, very Sad!
I know I bought a wrist-watch style health monitor, couldn't even set the time on it without a Schmartz-Fone so I sent it back.

I have two pulse/oximeters and both of those work by themselves.
But not the one they sent me to wear while exercising.
It wouldn't matter if I exercised at home, at planet fitness, or over at the hospital's cardiac rehab center.
But now that I'm on O2 while exercising, and since I have the same equipment I used at the hospital's center. I'm good to go.
The only thing I don't have is an ergonometer, but that's OK too since I have weights to lift. They go from 1 pound up to 5 pounds, and I was up to the 4 pound weight before my lungs failed. So now I'm back down to 1 lb for 3 minutes, 3 pounds for 2 minutes, or 2 lb for 2-1/2 minutes, 3 pounds for 2 minutes, but the routines are different.

I did manage to get Debi's old Schmartz-Fone with no cellular connection to work now. It was fairly simple, I made a copy of the file that was downloaded on her computer to her cell phone, copied it to the old cell phone, luckily it had blue tooth to read the device and wifi to go from the cell phone to the computer program.

Speaking of which, my LAN is down again and I don't know why. It is UP as far as reaching my printer on the LAN, and Debi can print to the printer in my office over the LAN, and I can connect to the Internet no problem, but I no longer see her computer, her printer, or the NAS from my Debian computer. I haven't quite figured out why yet though. Debi can see my computer from her computer so the LAN is up. But I'm not seeing anything else. This happens every once in awhile and usually clears up when I reboot. It could be the Windows XP computer that died was the one used for DCNS or whatever the letters are for the Auto DNS system, hi hi.

I did manage to the the NAS to boot up, and it is copying all the stuff from it to Debi computer since she had enough space.
After she got home from work, early shift today, I told her to keep an ear out and if it starts squealing again to call me right away. Hopefully tonight or tomorrow I'll swap the drive out.
How I knew the LAN was down, it was not seeing her computer or the NAS after it booted up, and it usually does no problem. I was going to copy the data from it to an external drive up here instead of to her computer. No go there.

After my dad had a heart attack, he didn't bother to exercise and ended up getting an enlarged heart.
By doing my exercises the doc told me do, I've managed to avoid that problem, and have also made what is left of my heart stronger, by getting it revved up three times a week. But now the COPD is making it very hard to keep up with the levels I was at, so the doc had me cut back to where I was like 6 months ago, which really seemed easy when I dialed everything back, but the air, I run out of air real fast, even with the O2 cranked up. Not good!