Broadband Data Usage

I last shared by broadband data usage in 2020. Here's my latest chart.

The bump in 3Q2021 and the spike in 3Q2024 are both upload of pictures and data to various clouds as I have transitioned my backup strategies.

When the blue stack is below the y-axis that indicates that Comcast didn't report as much WAN data as my router did. The occasional blue is usually an issue with my router collecting data.

Since my 2020 post, Comcast has reinstated their data caps but raised it to 1.2TB. Steady state, I'm still below .5TB. I can throttle my cloud uploads as necessary.

Backup 2024

I've been riding the Drobo train a long time. It has served me well. But in early 2023, Drobo closed their doors. My Drobo kept working but reports began of failing units and subsequent problems replacing the hardware. Eventually, my son-in-law's Drobo suffered a hardware failure. He purchased a used replacement but never could get the drives to be recognized. Luckily, he used the Drobo as a backup and the primary copy was still good.

Anyway, this sent me on a quest for a path forward for myself.

My immediate solution was to buy a 4 TB SSD and copy the sensitive contents off the Drobo to that which I did.

I remembered that when I built The Next Decade, I included 2 4TB drives in a Storage Spaces mirror. The Drobo utilization was less than 2TB so that would easily be contained in the Storage Spaces mirror. And even then, probably 1/2 of the Drobo was old DVD rips that I could easily live without.

But then, I wouldn't have an off-site backup. I actually had never had an off-site backup of the Drobo.

As I studied the move from Trump to The Next Decade, I had to research how to switch my CrashPlan definitions to the new server. In that process, I found that I had UNLIMITED storage with CrashPlan.

So I copied the sensitive data (less than 1TB) from the Drobo to the Storage Spaces mirror and included that data in the CrashPlan backup. It took about 3 weeks for CrashPlan to upload that.

I'm sure you all use the 3-2-1 Backup Strategy (archive.org).

So now I had the data mirrored (1), backed up to the cloud (2), but not yet offsite (3).

I have been using Macrium Reflect for several years with good success. I was backing up to a 5TB USB drive that I kept offsite (3). But it bothered me that I had to install Macrium Reflect on each system. Subsequently, I only ran it on Trump.

You'll recall that I had experimented with Drive Snapshot. Due to complications of my own doing, it wasn't satisfactory for me at that time.

So I looked at it again.

This time it did exactly what I needed. It runs as a portable application. I just put the executable on the target drive. It does it's own compression and encryption.

I bought a new 5TB USB drive and am backing up not only The Next Decade but a collection of my laptops. I did a full backup initially and am doing differentials each month. As these backups are encrypted, I keep this drive offsite (3).

For those laptops, I had been using Windows System Image Backup. I still like that as that you can restore from a Windows Recovery Environment but it's all or nothing.

I have created a bootable WinPE disk to use to restore from Drive Snapshot.

Now, I'm looking at taking that interim 4TB SSD and mounting it as a NAS drive (4). You can't have too many backups.

To move data around, I used FreeFileSync.

It's been a journey.

The Next Decade

About every decade, I upgrade my "server" PC. In 2009, I built "The Big Honker". In 2016, I built "The Trump".

With the end of support for Windows 10 in November 2025, I started looking to replace "The Trump." That configuration had served me well but in the summer of 2024, I was thrown a curve. Drobos started to fail and I discovered that Drobo had closed their doors. While I didn't suffer any failure, I started looking for alternatives.

"The Trump" had mirrored 2TB drives that had been faultless. So I looked at even bigger drives for this decade's server. I chose mirrored 4TB CMR drives still using Windows Storage Spaces.

This meant that I needed 2 3.5" internal drive bays. I still like to have a DVD burner. I always look for lots of USB ports, now with USB 3.0. With "The Trump", I had to use an SSD just sitting loose so this time I was looking for an M.2 bay or two.

I found an HP EliteDesk 800 G4 Tower for $364. I populated it with 32GB of DRAM for $66, 2 Western Digital 4TB drives for $150, an Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500GB NVMe M.2 SSD for $64, and an HP Slim CD/DVD RW for $30.

It came with Windows 10 Pro which I upgraded to Windows 11 Pro.

Chrome Nuisances

Google's Chrome is my browser of choice. But it does have some nuisances.

I finally got fed up with a couple of them and spent a few minutes figuring how to eliminate them.

First, was the "<web site> wants to Know your location":

Go to chrome://settings/content/location:

The next is "Sign in to <web site> with Google":

Go to chrome://settings/content/federatedIdentityApi?search=additional+content+settings:

You can thank me later.

GL.iNet GL-MT300N Mini Travel Router

With shared public Wi-Fi becoming so ubiquitous, it is still not readily accessible to the non-techie user, e.g. your family.

This is particularly frustrating where the guest Wi-Fi has a landing portal such as on an airplane or hotel.

I was traveling with a family group this summer and wanted a way to make this more transparent.

I bought the GL.iNet GL-MT300N V2 Travel Router from Amazon. It's home page is here (archive.org). It's 2 1/4 in. square and 1 in. tall. It's powered by a micro USB port and has 2 Ethernet ports.

There's a good post (archive.org) on it Scargill's Tech Blog. He refers to an OTA firmware update. My device's firmware was so old it wouldn't update OTA. 

This page on GL's site lists current firmware and alternate update procedures. You'll need to use the "Local Upgrade" process.

This upgraded me 2 versions and fixed a couple of SSL problems that I was having.

I'm using it in Wi-Fi repeater mode. I've setup an SSID/PSK that is one of our family's alternates. This means that all of our family's devices connect to the GL.iNet GL-MT300N V2 automatically.

If I'm mobile, I just power it with a battery bank. When I power it up, I connect to the SSID then browse to 192.168.8.1 and login with "admin" and my admin password.

Here's the Admin page:

The router keeps a list of known networks. Just click one to connect to it or chose one of the other available networks.

If there's a portal login required, you'll see it at this point. Once that is completed, other clients that connect to the GL.iNet GL-MT300N V2 will not see the portal.

You can't be sure what the network you're connected to is doing with your DNS queries so I use encrypted DNS.

I also use ProtonVPN Free. The GL.iNet GL-MT300N V2 supports ProtonVPN's WireGuard natively. Here are the instructions (archive.org). You toggle it on and off on the Admin page. It just works.

Manifest V3

If you don't know what "MV3" is just quit reading and go back to Facebook.

Congratulations, now we can begin.

Google has been sabre rattling over big changes in Chrome extension support for years. Well, they're finally pulling the trigger on it.

Here's ZDNET's summary (archive.org) of Manifest V3:

In development for the past six years, Google's Manifest V3 extension platform is designed to replace version 2 with tighter controls over the behavior of extensions. Malicious or suspicious extensions are a problem for any browser, including Chrome. To address this issue, Google claims that the new platform will better ensure that extensions offered in the Chrome Web Store are safe and reliable.

There's an even deeper dive (archive.org) over at BinaryFolks.

The short explanation is that extensions will no longer be able to dynamically load content from other sites. While this sounds good (and is good), it kneecaps extensions like uBlock Origin that dynamically updates its filter lists. Further, MV3 limits the number of filter objects that an extension can use.

The warnings started in Chrome 127 which dropped in August 2024.

While I'm sure that this will be a problem for some users, it doesn't seem to be a problem for "regular" users like you and me.

uBlock Origin has released uBlock Origin Lite that is MV3 compliant.

I set 2 options in uBlock Origin Lite: "Default filtering mode" to "Optimal" and checked "EasyList/uBO - Cookie Notices". I left "Filter lists Default" of "Ads, trackers, miners, and more" checked.

Honestly, I can't tell the difference.

YMMV

Driver User Experience

Up until 2 years ago, all of our cars were Hondas. While there were small differences in the driver's controls, for the most part, they were similar. At one point, 2 of them were identical.

That all changed with the arrival of a 2022 Corvette. The differences increased with a 2023 Kia Stinger. The latest 2024 Honda CR-V took it to a whole new level.

In this post, I won't even begin to discuss the differences in the gear selection mechanism nor the parking brakes but I'll try to cover just the steering wheel.

Here's a base line line.

And then the differences: