The X-drive Files!
"Brilliant. All done!"
Frankie put in the last screw on the new NAS box that his boss had allowed him to buy. He had installed two of the latest generation 2Tb hard disk drives and he knew that the office had never had this much electronic storage space before. Now, all he had to do would be to install a new network drive on each of his colleagues computers. He had decided to call it the X:drive - to make light of the files they were going to keep there - the X-files!
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"Not now, please. The phone could ring any minute!"
Sally in Reception was not quite sure what the meaning of this new thing was. It did not seem to have much to do with her job, so she was not interested. She wished Frankie would just go away.
"Maybe if I could have your password, I could install it after you go home?", ventured Frankie.
"Well, at least that is easy", she said, "It is 'reception'."
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"I'll be in the office Friday two weeks. Do you think you could install the new drive on my laptop between 1045 and 1115?"
Billy in sales had done quite well last quarter, so had been allowed a new top-of-the-line laptop, but Frankie did not know which operating system or other software had been installed on it, so was not quite sure how to install the X:drive there. He might need more than half an hour to finish.
"I'll do my best", he said, hoping it would not be too difficult.
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"I am not sure I agree with this new X:drive", said Harry from Accounts. "We have lots of sensitive information and I am not sure it would be safe on a shared network storage utility."
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"What?"
Two weeks later, Jack was working on a new client proposal. He had been writing the text in a new document in his word processor and saved it on the X:drive. He had then dropped several spreadsheet tables and a couple of images in to illustrate the strength of his arguments, when the dialogue box on his screen said: "Drive Full". He could not save his work anymore. How could that be? Wasn't it supposed to have some sort of gigantic storage space that the company would not outgrow it for at least a couple of years?
"Too bad Frankie is not in", he thought.
Frankie was the junior temp, a student from the local high school. He came in three times a week after school to look after any IT problems that might have cropped up. He was very good and his hourly rate was low. But, this week was mid-term holiday week and he would not be back until the next.
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"It is Harry from Accounts", said Frankie the following week. "It looks like Johnnie from Marketing is using up quite a bit of space too!", he added.
It turned out that Harry had quite a collection of movies in HD format and had saved 40 of these to the X:drive.
Johnnie, on the other hand, had been working on a couple of new promotional videos, which were destined for the Company's channel on YouTube. The video photographer had given him all the rushes on his own portable hard disk, which he wanted back, and Johnnie had had nowhere else to put them.
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"Can you email me the new product catalogue, Jim?" Bob was in his car in a layby on the motorway heading up North to meet three new client prospects.
"I want the ppt version to show to them on my laptop and the pdf version to give to them on a memory stick."
"Why don't you just log into the X:drive from the next WiFi hotspot and take it yourself?", Jim answered
"I am not sure how to do it. I was not there when Frankie did his demonstration." Bob was a bit flustered.
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"Frankie, what am I supposed to do with this NASbackup.exe file you emailed everybody?"
Sally was a mature, self-assured woman you would not want to cross. She was the voice of the company when people called, and she knew she did her job well.
But, she did not like computers much and also did not like to be told what to do, especially by a school kid.
"You are supposed to install it and back up everything from your local machine to the X:drive", Frankie responded. "This way everything you worked on before the NAS box was installed is backed up in case you get problems with your computer in the future."
Sally did not understand much of what he had just said, but installed the file anyway.
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Two weeks later the hard disk in Sally's computer broke down.
There was no spare hard disk available in the office, but Frankie ordered one in from an online store and installed it two days later. Sally had been using pen and paper in the meantime and had realised that she did not like that so much either.
"Right!", Frankie said assuredly, "can I have your password, so I can restore all your files from the X:drive?"
"Which password?", said Sally.
"The one you used the first time after you installed that software file I sent you", he said. "You did configure it after installation, didn't you?"
Sally was getting caught between her dislike for computers and for younger, temporary, members of staff telling her off.
"Umph..." was all she could say.
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