That Was The Week That Was – 9th August 2020

For twelve years my 2nd generation Drobo has been my main archive drive, with 16TB of data whirring away under my desk, storing all my work, which also gets backed up offline courtesy of Backblaze. It's been a great machine, but over the last year the fan has become so loud it's become unbearable, especially in the heat of the summer.

I could have replaced it with a newer model, but apart from the noise of the fan this thing was a workhorse and had never let me down. So instead I turned to the net and searched around to see if there's a way to swap out the noisy fan. Sure enough there was a highly detailed tutorial on a personal blog, complete with photos. After ordering the fan I needed – Noctua NF-A9 FLX, Premium Quiet Fan, 3-Pin (92mm, Brown) – I carefully followed all the instructions and a few minutes later I had a beautifully quiet Drobo. Very satisfying.

The whisper quiet Drobo was certainly an advantage when having a video call with Christoph Grunberger about my inclusion in his follow up to Analog Algorithm. I've seen the line-up for this book so it's exciting to be a part of. Now I just need to get the files together.