LIBERTY-CHAO was the name of a network-attached storage device (NAS) employed by Cracked Egg Studios from 2018-2021. The device managed data such as raw footage captures and asset libraries.
However, the selected enclosure immediately had issues, such as a defective SATA port, which limited its capacity to 3 disks. By 2018, its other SATA ports began failing, making some data on the disks unreachable without swapping ports.
On March 20, 2018, the studio purchased a NETGEAR RN42400 network-attached storage device and transferred the data from the enclosure over the next several days.
The device had its own operating system and management interface and could be given a unique name. In the vein of previous EGG-themed equipment that paid homage to Sonic the Hedgehog, the device was named "LIBERTY-CHAO." This name additionally reflected the workstation CHAOS-EGG, while also commenting on the hard disks now being free from its direct management because of the NAS interface.
Over time, the separate management of some disks through LIBERTY-CHAO, when some of those disks were better suited to being directly managed by the workstation, proved to be inconvenient. In addition, the NAS required disks to be formatted using a proprietary filesystem. If the LIBERTY-CHAO itself ever failed, data recovery using another device could have been difficult or impossible.
LIBERTY-CHAO remained in operation until 2021, when CHAOS-EGG was upgraded and redesigned. As part of this redesign, storage was reorganized across larger capacity hard disks. The system drive was moved to a motherboard-mounted M.2 drive, freeing a drive bay. Thermals were vastly improved with new components and improved cooling technology and techniques. This allowed data better-suited to workstation management to be moved back to its disks, while vastly reducing the number of disks in LIBERTY-CHAO.
The number of disks in LIBERTY-CHAO was reduced to such an extent that the complication of using multiple disk management systems was deemed superfluous. Weighing that with the other drawbacks of using the device, LIBERTY-CHAO was retired on or about June 27, 2021, and the equipment was sold to a third-party that July 29.
History
In June 2015, the studio sought to reorganize data on the CHAOS-EGG workstation, including expansion across additional disks. However, there were too few drive bays in the workstation in order to accomodate the proposal, and the workstation already had issues with thermal management. To help improve both issues, the reorganization would place 4 hard disks into a new external USB enclosure.However, the selected enclosure immediately had issues, such as a defective SATA port, which limited its capacity to 3 disks. By 2018, its other SATA ports began failing, making some data on the disks unreachable without swapping ports.
On March 20, 2018, the studio purchased a NETGEAR RN42400 network-attached storage device and transferred the data from the enclosure over the next several days.
The device had its own operating system and management interface and could be given a unique name. In the vein of previous EGG-themed equipment that paid homage to Sonic the Hedgehog, the device was named "LIBERTY-CHAO." This name additionally reflected the workstation CHAOS-EGG, while also commenting on the hard disks now being free from its direct management because of the NAS interface.
Over time, the separate management of some disks through LIBERTY-CHAO, when some of those disks were better suited to being directly managed by the workstation, proved to be inconvenient. In addition, the NAS required disks to be formatted using a proprietary filesystem. If the LIBERTY-CHAO itself ever failed, data recovery using another device could have been difficult or impossible.
LIBERTY-CHAO remained in operation until 2021, when CHAOS-EGG was upgraded and redesigned. As part of this redesign, storage was reorganized across larger capacity hard disks. The system drive was moved to a motherboard-mounted M.2 drive, freeing a drive bay. Thermals were vastly improved with new components and improved cooling technology and techniques. This allowed data better-suited to workstation management to be moved back to its disks, while vastly reducing the number of disks in LIBERTY-CHAO.
The number of disks in LIBERTY-CHAO was reduced to such an extent that the complication of using multiple disk management systems was deemed superfluous. Weighing that with the other drawbacks of using the device, LIBERTY-CHAO was retired on or about June 27, 2021, and the equipment was sold to a third-party that July 29.