Drobo Benchmark: How Fast is the Drobo?
If you do much with computers, you might have heard of the home backup solution Drobo, which offers a redundant storage solution with striping and mirroring without any of the pain of a RAID array. Their cute devices take in four drives, use the space of one for redundancy, and give you protection against a single drive failure.
I wondered how fast it actually is, so I ran HD Tune, which measures the read speed of the drive:
On average, you’ll get 16MB/s out of the drobo, which is equivalent to probably half the speed of any of the drives you put into your Drobo. Maximum PC has a review in which the tried a Drobo with 1-4 drives, and they got an even 15.5MB/s in each configuration.
Update: I have several seagate drives in my Drobo, which come by default with a jumper limiting them to SATA I (150 mbs). After I removed the jumper so they could use the faster SATA II, benchmarks gave me an average read speed of 16.3 MB/s. Reports indicate that the write speed may be faster, but I haven’t confirmed this.
Update: On Windows 7, and using the latest in firmware, I get 19.3MB/s average rate, 24ms average access time. On my other Drobo, I get 20.1 MB/s and 28ms access time. I can’t say whether it’s windows or the latest firmware, but it’s nice things are getting faster!
Upgrade 1.1.4 iPhone to 1.2.0 with WinPWN on Windows XP
The process of updating your 1.1.4 first-gen iPhone to 1.2.0 is simple. Even though the official winpwn release for Windows and the iPhone 3G isn’t out yet, here’s what you need to do to unlock, jailbreak, and upgrade your 1.4 iPhone to the 2.0 3G firmware!
[STEP 1] Download Winpwn 1.0.0.3 RC1 from the official source, or my local mirror. The filename is winpwn_1.0.0.3_RC1_Setup.zip; after you download it, download Apple’s 1.1.4 firmware, choose that ipsw from the “browse .ipsw” button, and click “iPwner” to WinPwn it. You’ll see something like this:
7/20/2008 4:10:49 PM – This is winpwn ver.:1.0.0.3 RC1
7/20/2008 4:10:50 PM – Apple Mobile Device Support Version 2.0.0.33 installed.
7/20/2008 4:11:01 PM – Debug level:1
7/20/2008 4:11:02 PM – Debug level:0
7/20/2008 4:11:02 PM – Debug level:1
7/20/2008 4:11:10 PM – File from: iPhone1,1_1.1.4_4A102_Restore.ipsw
7/20/2008 4:11:10 PM – Recognized as:iPhone1,1_1.1.4_4A102_Restore.ipsw Type: IPSW_iPhone
7/20/2008 4:11:10 PM – Be sure to connect an iPhone!
7/20/2008 4:11:13 PM – Failed to load image catalog
7/20/2008 4:11:34 PM – Failed to load payload catalog
7/20/2008 4:13:09 PM – Setting up iPhone device object
7/20/2008 4:13:09 PM – Registering callbacks
——————-
7/20/2008 4:13:10 PM – Unzipping .ipsw file to Application Data\cmw\winpwn\1.0.0.3\ipsw
7/20/2008 4:13:10 PM – Found device product id:4752
7/20/2008 4:13:10 PM – iPhone connected
7/20/2008 4:13:15 PM – OK
7/20/2008 4:13:15 PM – Creating ramdisk
7/20/2008 4:13:16 PM – Padding ramdisk
7/20/2008 4:13:16 PM – Ramdisk successfully created
7/20/2008 4:13:17 PM – Putting iPhone into recovery mode.
7/20/2008 4:13:17 PM – AMDeviceEnterRecovery res:0
7/20/2008 4:13:21 PM – iPhone disconnected
7/20/2008 4:13:29 PM – iPhone entered recovery mode
7/20/2008 4:13:30 PM – Sending ramdisk to iPhone.
7/20/2008 4:13:31 PM – Transfer took 1734.375ms
7/20/2008 4:13:31 PM – Modifying environment…
7/20/2008 4:13:31 PM – Starting pwnage
7/20/2008 4:13:41 PM – iPhone left recovery mode
7/20/2008 4:14:44 PM – Found device product id:4752
7/20/2008 4:14:44 PM – iPhone connected
7/20/2008 4:14:44 PM – Your iPhone has been pwned
[STEP 2]: Now you need to BootNeuter your phone. Using the Installer.App download an install it. Instruction on how to neuter the bootrom can be found on the dev team’s site. It’s quite easy, just run the app, select Neuter, and hit the “Flash” button.
[STEP 3]: Update iTunes to 7.7, if you haven’t already. Get a hold of a 2.0 firmware made with iPWNAGE 2.0 for the Mac. Firmwares, for example, are available on torrent file sharing sites.
[STEP 4]: Shift-click the “restore” button in iTunes and select the custom firmware you obtained above. Thanks to PWNAGE 2.0, you now have a first-gen iPhone running the 2.0 firmware, with full ability to run games and apps from the iTunes Application store! Enjoy Super Monkey Ball!
I am running through these steps right now on my first-gen iPhone, and so far everything works as advertised. Of course, I’m not responsible if something does go wrong and bricks your iPhone…
Update: If you have trouble getting your wallpaper to show up, or just see a black background, connect to the iPhone via SSH or from a terminal on the phone itself, delete private/var/mobile/Library/LockBackground.jpg, and restart. You’ll be able to set your own wallpaper.
Update 2: It’s official, WinPwn for Windows XP has been released, so just go use that!
Also, you should check out How to Unlock the iPhone 3G on Google Knol.
iPhone 3G Yellow Discolored Screen Problem
We’ve written previously about the easily broken iPhone screens, and it seems like the iPhone 3G will be no exception to the display problems. According to Bob Borchers, the senior director of product marketing for the iPhone, the “yellow screen” phenomenon is “because the screen’s color temperature has been purposely altered to produce warmer, more natural tones, sharper images, and deeper blacks. The 1st gen iPhone screens appeared colder and less defined.” Unfortunately as you’ll see, the new iPhone 3G’s screens look worse:
Apparently updating to the latest firmware (connect your iphone to Itunes, run a restore, and get the newer firmware 5A347) can fix this problem in most units, so give it a try if you’re experiencing a yellow screen. So fixing the yellow screen problem should be fairly easy.
Update: Apple Insider has screenshots of what a proper iPhone 3G should look like; the yellowing is not supposed to be as bad as above.
Update 2: Wireless Info has done some color testing, which shows the new iPhone screens are brighter and slightly warmer than before. The warmth appears to vary with the backlight strength. Mat Honan has a Flickr photoset which shows the difference more clearly:
