How Did You Stumble Across The [S]torage [R]eview Website ?

[.Nut]

I was actually out looking for the website for Storage Review Magazine -- a stuffy no-fun periodical for storage professionals -- when I stumbled across what was (then) the testbed for the Storage Review website. This was late April of 1998.

As I found out in the discussion forum from a question that I asked, either Davin or Eugene said that the informational website had already been up for several weeks (since February of 1998) at that point and was still being tuned up. And, if I'm not seriously mistaken, there was actually 3 guys behind SR back then: Davin, Eugene, and someone else that I'll never remember the name of.

Anyway, SR had just setup a UBB forum section for testing purposes, apparently. I setup my account, but after about a week of fits and starts, I was finally able to start posting in the discussion forum. This would have now been early May of 1998. So, there it was -- me and about 10 other people doing some discussion on storage issues for a few weeks. The list started to grow slightly over time to maybe 20 ~ 25 people, until 9 or 10 or maybe 11 weeks later, the discussion system one day became unavailable.

After about 2 weeks I was finally able to log back into the UBB forums, but nothing was working properly, I couldn't post messages, and all the posts seemed to be missing (?!? ... kinda sounds familiar, heh???). Then maybe just a couple or so days after that I was once again unable to see the SR UBB forums (a generic "404" message). So, maybe 5 ~ 10 days later (a little foggy on exactly when), when you tried to access SR's UBB forums, a webpage popped-up saying "We'll Be Back Soon" or something to that effect. It stayed like that for a good while.

I tried accessing the forums maybe 2 to 5 times a week for several weeks, until one day in mid-September of 1998 the SR Forum once again came back to life. Yep, I had to rejoin SR once again. I think I was seventh or eighth user to sign up, since I had already missed a couple of days of SR Forums operation. Needless to say, I was a bit disgruntled that all the previous posts were gone.

 

[Bartender]

I think Buck signed up a couple years after you in May of 2000. That was the first forum he really became a part of until the infamous Day of the Dump. I came a bit later and attempted to relegate myself to the Bar.

Eugene and Buck talked a few times through email, but things have gone silent from both ends shortly after the Day of the Dump (hey, if Vietnam can have their Year of the Dragon, SR's fiasco can be labeled the Day of the Dump). Anyway, the large bunch of characters I and Buck encountered on that forum was very interesting. Thankfully, many of them have come here. So, Buck and I have not seen SR grow from infancy like some have, but the recent (year or two) change of visitors has been noticable. I still visit SR, but only for storage reviews, which has been next to none lately.

 

[Mercutio]

IIRC, phoenix was one of the early birds. Back with GaryH.
I came to SR in late 1998 (November?). It took me an entire year to get 100 posts but I lurked quite a bit. I think I found a link to SR on a visit to anandtech.com, and the forum by the "active topics" link that used to be in top corner of SR's main page.

 

[time]

Ah yes, Anandtech, exactly so. I was struggling to remember.

I started visiting it in 1998, but didn't bother with the forums. I honestly can't remember the first time I lurked there, but it was only early last year that I had a change of attitude and started posting.

 

[SteveC]

I think I first got the link from JCs Page around 1999. I don't remember when I first started reading the forum, but I was strictly a lurker before the crash. I don't think I even registered for it.

Steve

 

[Handruin]

I don't remember how I found SR either. It was the first forum I participated in where the members didn't make me feel like an ass. Before that I had been trying to help people on pcnineoneone, but I gave up after a fight with a guy named shelly. (he still annoys me)

Anyway I digress, I think I joined SR in January 2000. I started when the forum was before Jive. I remember the changeover wasn't too long after I joined.

 

[Groltz]

I was searching the web for information on the IBM Ultrastar 9ZX. This was in early 1998. I found SR among the hits the search engine brought up. I visited SR from time to time from then until early 2000, when I joined the forum.

 

[CougTek]

I discovered SR back in early '99 (probably February or March) through a link from another tech web site that I can't remember. It probably wasn't Anandtech since I only started to visit the wonder boy's website on a regular basis during the summer of '99. It might have been from a link at the old SharkyExtreme, back when the background was black and that there was actually some interesting content there. Anyway...

I didn't start to visit the forum until the month of June and only decided to register on September 4th, 1999. I was the 1766th member of the forum and there was already quite an history there before my arrival. I think I registered about at the same time as Clocker and also the same day as the only other guy from Montréal back then (Maxfield Stanton). Clocker became a prone figure a lot before me though. I didn't post much during my first year and a half, cumulating a scant 166 posts up to April 2001. I remember very well that Tony was the first regular to notice me somewhere around my tenth post, still in September '99. I also remember the hilarious war between Supercaff and the rest of the world in November or December '99 when people became sick of his attempts to promote Maxtor because he owned some of their shares.

Then came April 2001 when I started to trade more actively on the stock market and tried to get a living out of it. My amount of spare time in front of my computer sky rocketed, just like my post count. I past from 166 post to fixture status in 8 or 9 months. Also note that until September 2001, I was considered a gentlemen and a nice guy on the forum. When I felt someone was looking for an argument, I simply dodged or stopped participating in the thread. That all changed the day that an imbecile named Would71 bashed SuperC in an unfair way a bit after September 11th. I tried to tell him to tone down a bit because I felt his attacks were too low. He then switched his target and took me instead. That was a decision about as stupid as when the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor. No more restraint, I became unleashed. I remember that Time told him that he shouldn't bash me because I was a nice and peaceful guy. Well, up to then, it was true, but no longer is (and damn it fells good). No one heard about Would71 from about a month after that.

The rest should be well known by most of you.

 

[Tannin]

I came across Storage Review in, I think, December 1988 or January 1999. I can't remember how I happened to stumble across it, just surfing I guess. I lurked for a while, maybe a week, maybe a month or two, I don't remember, and then one day there was talk of a user reliability survey with (ahem) a self-selecting sample.

Being something of a purist when it comes to survey methods and sampling reliability, I had to speak up, so I registered, made my first post, dropped back in and saw more nonsense being spouted by people who still didn't know anything about gathering data in a scientifically meaningful way, posted some more. Two and a half years and 5000 posts later, I would up here.

This first post was in a forum that was deleted a little later, not the setup that became more familiar later on As I remember, there was:

Recommendations
Tech Support
Test methods and reliability (or something like that)

This became something or other else a while later, then morphed again into the current setup much more recently. In the meantime, the posts in the other forum were all lost when that forum was deleted. All this was on UBB, of course. Jive didn't come along until much later.

Originally, I posted as TonyWilson. Then, after 1000 posts as Tony, I became Tannin, and added another 3000 under that name. My imaginary little sister Tea came along around about the begining of 2001 - she didn't seem to have any particular gender at first but then Greg Santilli - always an astute judge of people - decided that Tea was female. Tea has always been particularly scathing about the MBF because she was the only one of my handles to never reach 1000 posts. She was on about 900 or 950 when the MBF intervened.

So, my early 1999 start date puts me outside of the category of the real old-timers: Gary and Phoenix and Supercaf were all there before me. On the other hand, I think I might be the oldest youngest member, if you know what I mean.

(Tannin, what are you saying? Is that sort of like being "the biggest little town in the USA?")

(Exactly, Tea.)

Or as it early 1998? I forget which year, but it was summer over here, which makes it December or January or February, and SR was still quite young. Seeing as Gary says the place started in 1998, then it must have been late that year or early '99 when I came along. I remember feeling faintly miffed that there was a handful of people whos "registered since" entries were in the year previous to mine.

By the way, Coug, I recall giving Would71 something of a short, sharp hiding myself about that time (late last year). He was a ... er ... well, let's just say that he deserved everything he got.

 

[The JoJo]

I found a link to SR at Anand's news section sometimes in ...2000 I think.
I lurked around for a while, just reading all the posts and learning a lot.

When I got myself into some trouble with SCSI, I registered and asked for help. I liked the place, the atmosphere, the kind and adult people, and the good answers.
Although I wasn't much of a poster, I felt very much at home.

 

[slo crostic]

After hearing about SR from him for ages, I finally managed to get 'jake the dog' to send me the link. I've been viewing SR's bar and grille for about 6 months and found a lot of the posts very interesting. It was good to find a forum with such a varied range of topics and, most of all, intelligent replies (well mostly anyway). :wink:
The SR forums seem to have gone to the pack now but I am happy to see some familiar names here on SF. I never really visited the SR site as such, because computers aren't really my field. I know how computers work and which part is which, but getting into the nitty-gritty bits just isn't my kettle of fish. For me a computer is more of a learning and entertainment tool, that I use to enjoy the quirky things in life, like SF

 

[Jake the Dog]

i still remember yes. early in '98 i was searching for some reviews on cheetah's as i was looking to purchase a pair of 4.5 giggers. (oh my, how times have changed!) a net search led me to SR and i loved the site from day one. i didn't join the forums until later that year and have been an on/off poster since then. i guess i'm an old timer like some of you (forum wise!) however unlike most of you i only managed a total of 163 posts before the dump ... quite a few of thise were in discussions of sorts in opposition to The Giver :eekers: :wink:

Gary H and Ian H joined about the same time as i did and for a while, they were our only two resident 'experts'. then charles m k came along as well tony and many of the rest of you here and then there was plenty of help and knowledge all over the forums

 

[Jake the Dog]

actually, after just re-reading my post (something i should have done before posting!), The Giver came along post-dump day didn't he? instead it would be correct to say my current 168 SR posts would have come from discussions with The Giver.

 

[Tea]

"How did I first stumble across the SR forum?"

Huh? What a stupid question.

I was born there.

 

[CougTek]

i only managed a total of 163 posts before the dump

I remember you were considered the ultimate lurker back then and there were "oh!" and "ah!" every time you poped in for a quick one liner.

And I'm pretty sure you posted quite a bit more than 163 message in the old forum. I would swear I saw you at 23x or 26x at the end of 2001, but since I have no screen shots...

 

[Jake the Dog]

i'm more inclined to believe you than me coug i have the figure 163 in my head but perhaps it was 263...

i went to www.archive.org and did a search for SR in the hope i could find a forum page just before dump-day but discovered SR has blocked web crawlers form day one. see: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.storagereview.com

 

[cquinn]

It was pre-June 1998. And I think I found SR searching for hard drive
information thru AltaVista, back when it was considered the search engine
of choice.

I don't remember exactly when I started visting the site, but I know the date I was hooked on SR: June 28th, the day the review
for the Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 2500 came out.
That was the first drive I bought based on the review and recommendations of SR and comments from the forums.

I lurked for a very long time, gathering valuable insights and
monitoring trends, and finally registered around the time the
fourth or fifth member poll was posted.

 

[Onomatopoeic]

...Gary H and Ian H joined about the same time as i did and for a while, they were our only two resident 'experts'. then charles m k came along as well tony and many of the rest of you here and then there was plenty of help and knowledge all over the forums

I'm still trying to recall exactly what the hell my first post was precisely about there at the embryonic SR Forum in September 1998, but I'm sure it was something to do with CD-R drives to a person named... "Kansas."

I had used UBB forums before for about a year -- a couple of professional audio forums. The funny thing about them was that BOTH also eventually crashed in a big way just like SR did in December 2001, wiping out the whole enchilada.

 

[jtr1962]

When I first went on line in June of 2000 I was interested in learning as much about computers as I could, so I jumped to many sites. Storage always interested me, and I regularly looked at a few different sites, but I thought SR was the most professional. At first I only looked at the hard drive reviews, and wasn't even aware of the forums. At the time SR used to list a few of the hot threads on the front page, and one topic in particular interested me. I think the exact title was "Matsushita puts 32 MB on standard floppy disk". Eventually, I felt the need to add to that thread, so I registered, and started posting very occasionally. This was in December, 2000.

At first I only looked at the computer threads, but later on I started looking at all of them, especially the political threads. I found the general level of discussion a step above the usual mindless, illiterate ranting present in such discussions, and to this day it is mainly the non-computer threads that hold my interest the most. I didn't post much, and only had about 35 posts as of 9/11, but after that disaster the well broke, so to speak. I posted about 200 times between then and the Massive Backup F*ck Up(as Tannin puts it). Since rejoining, I'm up to ~360 posts and counting. SR, SF, and Train-Sim.com are the only forums I belong to, and in total I have less than 1000 posts between all three. I'm still impressed by both the quantity and quality of posts from many of the regulars here. It is easy to have one or the other, but seldom both.

 

[Cliptin]

Well, I have to say I feel vindicated now. I posted a similar story to the one Gary told and was told by Eugene that there was most certainly not ever a loss of posts in the timeframe of 1998. He nearly had me convinced.
------------------------

I'm sure I "discovered" the site after a search on Altavista or Hotbot for "hard drive review".

I remember signing up and researching the IBM Deskstar 5 DHEA 36480 in march '98. Then I remember becoming annoyed when I came back (months?) later and had to re-register. This second time would probably have been in Aug or Sept '98.

I never participated in the forums until early 2000. It took me all year to get up to ~300 posts. I don't think I broke the 500 mark.

 

[e_dawg]

After writing this, I noticed that this became much more than a "how did you find SR?" story, so if you are bored after the first paragraph, just move on to the next post

Back in the summer of 98, I was looking for a new computer upon moving from Toronto to Edmonton (a couple thousand miles away). Not knowing what the good shops were in Edmonton, I used my favourite PC retail site from Ontario, TSR Technologies as a pricing guide. I figured anything more expensive than TSR was not a good price. "Can't decide on a hard drive? Check out StorageReview.com," TSR mentions in their Storage section. As it turns out, I decided to purchase an IBM ThinkPad instead, so I didn't need to choose a hard drive or any other components for that matter.

Cut to the winter of 98/99. Having got a job as a systems admin at a medium sized company and not having too much hands on experience with networking, Linux, and NT4 up until that point, I decided that adding a 2nd PC would allow me to learn all that hands-on in the comfort of my own home. And so the component selection began. With the help of SR, I decided on dual 4.3 GB Maxtor 4320 5400 rpm drives, as SR's WinBench testing showed them wiping the floor in NT with every other IDE drive in existence, save a couple 7200 rpm units. I ended up quad booting Win 98, NT4 WS, NT4 Server, and RedHat 6.0 on the two Maxtors, running a 2 computer LAN with my ThinkPad as the Win 98 client

But it wasn't until the summer of 2000 did I start participating in the SR discussion forums on a regular basis. I recall one of my first postings was recommending using a second physical hard drive for the swap and temp files, citing a test done by TonyWilson that had shown superior system speed in favour of the multiple spindle solution. I knew then that this Tony Wilson character was a smart guy with a solid foundation in the scientific method, statistics, and a certain eloquence with words. Over the next two years, my inkling has been proven to be true.

I believe Mr. Santilli was still making a big fuss over the (broken) Promises of his RAID setup with dual Maxtors at the time.

From the summer of 2000 until the spring of 2001, I could have been described as an SR addict, logging in to SR almost hourly to check for new postings. However, I became extremely busy in Feb-Apr of 2001, getting things in order for my application to grad business schools and my move back from Edmonton to Toronto.

In the summer of 2001, I resumed my SR addiction until maybe late mid-July, when I started getting addicted to VWVortex.com, a Volkswagen enthusiast site. I was getting ready to purchase a new car at the time and ended up getting the Jetta (Bora outside N.America). (I go by the name catalytic over there if anyone here happens to be from the Vortex)

After dropping in from time to time to see what was going on -- the MBF in late 2001 and subsequent proposal to shut down certainly shocked me -- I finally resumed my SR forum participation in the summer of 2002. It felt a little lonely with many of the veteran posters away, so I was delighted when Cliptin sent me an e-mail about StorageForum.net. After a couple weeks just on SR, I registered for SF. My first post was in that "So what do we all look like thread".

 

[James]

I read SR from late 1998 and joined the forum in I think June 1999. I was rather tentative about participating then because everyone seemed to know a heck of a lot more than me about pretty much everything. I do remember the glory days of the great Greg vs. Promise debate, the IDE vs. SCSI discussions back when they were still interesting, and plenty of other stuff - overclocking a PIII 450, Greg?

I collected a smidgen under 2000 posts before the MBF, I'm now well ahead of my new SR postcount here.

How did I actually find SR? I think I was looking for a review of a 6G drive of some variety I had just bought - I do remember Eugene's review calling it an absolute "pig of a drive." He was right on the money.

 

[GMac]

SR was my first hands-on experience of discussion boards of any kind, so I owe it more than a little debt of gratitude I signed up in June 2000 (if my memory serves me correctly) after finding the site through a Google (or was it Yahoo :?: ) search for SCSI CD-ROM/DVD reviews and info. I was never very prolific in the 18 months or so I was there before the crash (accumulated approx 180 posts) but I picked up a lot of useful info from Tony and others, and the experience of all things forum-related has certainly been put to good use since :mrgrn: .

GM

 

[Platform]

Why do I have multiple avatars (IDs)? It's just for fun nowadays, but when I was posting at "the old SR" well before the Great Crash, I had continually mistyped my name to login, so I just started using my "mistakes" as my logins and then some shortened names.

Then I started using "abstract" names like Platform, .Nut, and Giant here. They mean nothing other maybe making fun of something or in some cases just $hit I thought up one minute and used the next. I doubt that I'll "create" any additional characters here -- 7 is enough!

The highest post count I ever had at "the old SR" with any of the 5 characters that I had there (over time) was somewhere over 700, which was for "iGary." The others were much less than that at anywhere from about 200, 300, to 500 post counts. I believe I had a total of about 2200 posts over a 4.3 year period.