Slashdot Mirror

Maybe you should consider a mini PC instead? https://www.ncix.com/category/...

magic unicorn land you speak off?

http://www.ncix.com/detail/sam...
http://www.ncix.com/detail/kin...
http://www.ncix.com/detail/san...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA53D3SP7557

He fudged a bit, but not by much. Of course, I wouldn't vouch for the reliability of that drive.

magic unicorn land you speak off?

http://www.ncix.com/detail/sam...
http://www.ncix.com/detail/kin...
http://www.ncix.com/detail/san...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA53D3SP7557

He fudged a bit, but not by much. Of course, I wouldn't vouch for the reliability of that drive.

magic unicorn land you speak off?

http://www.ncix.com/detail/sam...
http://www.ncix.com/detail/kin...
http://www.ncix.com/detail/san...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA53D3SP7557

He fudged a bit, but not by much. Of course, I wouldn't vouch for the reliability of that drive.

magic unicorn land you speak off?

http://www.ncix.com/detail/sam...
http://www.ncix.com/detail/kin...
http://www.ncix.com/detail/san...

magic unicorn land you speak off?

http://www.ncix.com/detail/sam...
http://www.ncix.com/detail/kin...
http://www.ncix.com/detail/san...

magic unicorn land you speak off?

http://www.ncix.com/detail/sam...
http://www.ncix.com/detail/kin...
http://www.ncix.com/detail/san...

Sounds like your cooling sucks, maybe you should try something like this. this is the one I use on my FX-8320E and while that normally isn't a hot chip but when I'm doing a ton of A/V work I'll use the Asus OCing tool that came with my board and even with the chip running full bore with 8 cores at 4Ghz it still keeps temps reasonable,IIRC the highest I ever got was 130F and without OC it stays a nice cool 80F according to the board sensors. To see how it performs with an Intel here is a review and as you can see it scored just 8 degrees higher than the huge Corsair H100.

I personally love it, its quiet, easy to install, and works well.

http://ncix.com/products/?sku=45271&vpn=GFC-02050&manufacture=Microsoft&promoid=1312

ASUS has good 16:10's at a reasonable price.

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=73621&vpn=PA248Q&manufacture=ASUS&promoid=1306

I have also noticed that you are paying a huge premium now for even a 3 year warranty. Most seagate drives now come with a ridiculous 1 year warranty on them, so I wont even look at them any more. WD is not much better, with their green drives being 1-2 years. If you want 3-5 year you are paying 50% more for the drive. For example a 2tb WD black (5 year warranty) has a non sale price of $199 ( http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=58376&vpn=WD2002FAEX&manufacture=Western%20Digital%20WD&promoid=1230 ) whereas the same drive albeit "green" with a 2 year warranty is $119 non sale price ( http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=62047&vpn=WD20EARX&manufacture=Western%20Digital%20WD&promoid=1230 ).

Its a shame because I was looking at old invoices and in 2010 I was buying 2tb drives with 3 year warranties standard for 80 bucks.

Sure they claim to have more "features" with their different colour codes, but it does seem like they just decided 3 years should no longer be industry standard for a warranty. Probably some sort of collusion as they all pretty much changed their warranties at the same time. With seagate, they used to pride themselves in having 5 year warranties. And having recently RMA'd a 1TB drive from 2008, I am glad for that.

Most HDD's die within 3-5 years. So a 1 year warranty is useless except for straight off the truck failures. Arguably, this is more sensible for the company, however it sucks ass for consumers who are used to having a standard 5 year warranty, an artifact of the storage wars of the mid aughts.

So I am not surprised, but not many people are talking about this, which is surprising. Glad to see a slashdot article about it!

I have also noticed that you are paying a huge premium now for even a 3 year warranty. Most seagate drives now come with a ridiculous 1 year warranty on them, so I wont even look at them any more. WD is not much better, with their green drives being 1-2 years. If you want 3-5 year you are paying 50% more for the drive. For example a 2tb WD black (5 year warranty) has a non sale price of $199 ( http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=58376&vpn=WD2002FAEX&manufacture=Western%20Digital%20WD&promoid=1230 ) whereas the same drive albeit "green" with a 2 year warranty is $119 non sale price ( http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=62047&vpn=WD20EARX&manufacture=Western%20Digital%20WD&promoid=1230 ).

Its a shame because I was looking at old invoices and in 2010 I was buying 2tb drives with 3 year warranties standard for 80 bucks.

Sure they claim to have more "features" with their different colour codes, but it does seem like they just decided 3 years should no longer be industry standard for a warranty. Probably some sort of collusion as they all pretty much changed their warranties at the same time. With seagate, they used to pride themselves in having 5 year warranties. And having recently RMA'd a 1TB drive from 2008, I am glad for that.

Most HDD's die within 3-5 years. So a 1 year warranty is useless except for straight off the truck failures. Arguably, this is more sensible for the company, however it sucks ass for consumers who are used to having a standard 5 year warranty, an artifact of the storage wars of the mid aughts.

So I am not surprised, but not many people are talking about this, which is surprising. Glad to see a slashdot article about it!

I should note I live in Canada. While that doesn't mean I cannot order from US shops, I do have a tendency to only search businesses that have some form of operation within Canada to avoid duties/import fee's.

I did find the odd Canadian online shop that only had 1 or two in stock (or on order). My primary "goto" is NCIX. They still do not have 12/16 core in stock.

I am not in any immediate hurry to get them, it's actually worked out to my benefit by holding off as now I have access to the latest revision. :-)

I know because no company would EVER make a mouse with direct input on the side... OH WAIT...

http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=74357&vpn=910-002864

You realize they've already started making mouse with direct inputs for MMO's right? I wouldn't be surprised of a dpad variety shows up.

http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=74357&vpn=910-002864

So please spare me your bs.

I have the 10.1"Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet*.

Not the beefiest out there, but the pointy stylus is...sweet! And the ICS update is officially out, OTA update is painless (although unfortunately you lose root if you had rooted it, haven't seen the ICS root update come out yet). It even has a full-sized SD card slot, so want to show friends pics from your camera? No problem, just pop in the card...it also has a SIM card slot, but the model I bought doesn't have the modem installed. Apparently it's a pretty easy mod to pop it open and add one, though, and they sell the modems on Amazon for about $125 CAD...it's on my 'to try once it's out of warranty' list :)

I think they might be discontinuing them, though, since they're going on and off sale like crazy at online e-tailers in Canada.

*(Sorry about the canadian link, couldn't seem to find an american link to one on sale...weird, usually it's the other way round.)

There are a few cards which offer lifetime warranties you could check out. Zotac makes one, and evga used to, not sure if they are down to a 3 year. http://ncix.com/products/?sku=71569&vpn=ZT-60301-10P&manufacture=Zotac&promoid=1048 Etc.

If you don't care too much about mobility, this laptop has a full keyboard, large screen, proper cooling so the fan doesn't whine like a MacBook under load, and performs well:

http://ncix.com/products/?sku=59581&vpn=G73SW-3DE&manufacture=ASUS

If you don't care for touchpads, you can still attach a mouse.

Not sure about DogDude, but my local computer store sells pretty much everything.

Then use the Canadian Newegg site or NCIX.

http://www.newegg.ca/
http://ncix.com/

i5 2500K is a quad-core processor just like the X4 980 BE, and typically runs around $200 CAD (like the 980). You can pay around $230 if you don't shop around for sales. (Just a few days ago, it was priced at $199 on NCIX)

By benchmarks I've been seeing and by the article itself, the i5 2500K is overall a faster CPU than the 980 for any task. The Phenom II series processors aren't up to task as far as competing with Sandy Bridge at its price point is concerned.

Don't worry - VIA is still pushing out hardware that meets your requirements. Parallel, Serial - PCI and PCIe! :P

US: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138187
Canada: http://pccyber.com/?v=Product&i=MB-BS-VIOTECH3100%2B

Although in all seriousness, boards with PCI ports won't stop being produced overnight. You'll only have issues if you need a board with lots of them. Companies like Asus are still pushing out boards with a couple PCI ports.

Here's a passive heatsink board with 1, and a GF7025 board with 2:

http://ncix.com/products/?sku=50891&vpn=AT5NM10-I&manufacture=ASUS
http://ncix.com/products/?sku=50891&vpn=AT5NM10-I&manufacture=ASUS

Don't worry - VIA is still pushing out hardware that meets your requirements. Parallel, Serial - PCI and PCIe! :P

US: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138187
Canada: http://pccyber.com/?v=Product&i=MB-BS-VIOTECH3100%2B

Although in all seriousness, boards with PCI ports won't stop being produced overnight. You'll only have issues if you need a board with lots of them. Companies like Asus are still pushing out boards with a couple PCI ports.

Here's a passive heatsink board with 1, and a GF7025 board with 2:

http://ncix.com/products/?sku=50891&vpn=AT5NM10-I&manufacture=ASUS
http://ncix.com/products/?sku=50891&vpn=AT5NM10-I&manufacture=ASUS

http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=43778&vpn=ADMPF108F&manufacture=Aluratek
http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=45447&vpn=8388175&manufacture=DIGITAL%20CAMERAS
http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=49378&vpn=DP854-1G&manufacture=Coby

Your 24" would have to be about 2400x1800 to match DPI with one of these. They look quite nice up until you're closer than a foot away.

I always tell people to go to the store to get their digital pictures printed out.

Have you been to a store lately? Developing film is expensive. Do a few rolls and you pay for some of this stuff.

It's far cheaper than owning & maintaining your own printer, and typically higher quality.

It really depends on how much volume you have. My parents have really gotten into using their digital cameras, so they now take about 2000 pictures per year. I suspect developing that many pictures would be more expensive than a laser printer and a few digital photo frames.

http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=43778&vpn=ADMPF108F&manufacture=Aluratek
http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=45447&vpn=8388175&manufacture=DIGITAL%20CAMERAS
http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=49378&vpn=DP854-1G&manufacture=Coby

Your 24" would have to be about 2400x1800 to match DPI with one of these. They look quite nice up until you're closer than a foot away.

I always tell people to go to the store to get their digital pictures printed out.

Have you been to a store lately? Developing film is expensive. Do a few rolls and you pay for some of this stuff.

It's far cheaper than owning & maintaining your own printer, and typically higher quality.

It really depends on how much volume you have. My parents have really gotten into using their digital cameras, so they now take about 2000 pictures per year. I suspect developing that many pictures would be more expensive than a laser printer and a few digital photo frames.

http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=43778&vpn=ADMPF108F&manufacture=Aluratek
http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=45447&vpn=8388175&manufacture=DIGITAL%20CAMERAS
http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=49378&vpn=DP854-1G&manufacture=Coby

Your 24" would have to be about 2400x1800 to match DPI with one of these. They look quite nice up until you're closer than a foot away.

I always tell people to go to the store to get their digital pictures printed out.

Have you been to a store lately? Developing film is expensive. Do a few rolls and you pay for some of this stuff.

It's far cheaper than owning & maintaining your own printer, and typically higher quality.

It really depends on how much volume you have. My parents have really gotten into using their digital cameras, so they now take about 2000 pictures per year. I suspect developing that many pictures would be more expensive than a laser printer and a few digital photo frames.

When I hear a question like this, I usually recommend heading over to the NCIX forums. There's some crazy guy over there - death_hawk - building a 100TB array.

What I did was a bit less ambitious. A regular old NAS running off a cheap non-RAID SATA card in a case with lots of HDD bays.

For interest, I'll throw up a build that easily scales to 12TB. Since you mentioned noise, I'll prioritize that instead of capacity. I'll use a case geared for silence, a fanless mobo/cpu, a quiet PSU, WD Green HDDs, and a ridiculously cheap SATA card.

Case - 8 bays: http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=51277&vpn=6900654&manufacture=Fractal%20Design *1
Motherboard/CPU - Silent: http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=50891&vpn=AT5NM10-I&manufacture=ASUS *2
DDR2 - 1GB: http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=18584&vpn=VS1GB667D2&manufacture=Corsair&promoid=1114 *3
PSU: http://ncix.com/products/?sku=33357&vpn=CMPSU-400CX&manufacture=Corsair&promoid=1114 *4
SATA Card: http://ncix.com/products/?sku=19892&vpn=SY-SA3114-4R&manufacture=Syba *5

HDD - 2TB 4KB http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=49591&vpn=WD20EARS&manufacture=Western%20Digital%20WD&promoid=1114 *6
HDD - 2TB 512b: http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=36130&vpn=WD20EADS&manufacture=Western%20Digital%20WD&promoid=1114 *7

OS: FreeNAS, Ubuntu, Win7, Other *8

*1 Only six will be filled. 6 SATA ports.
*2 Case still requires fans/airflow.
*3 A NAS probably only needs 512MB, but 1GB is cheap. A Win7 NAS may benefit from 2GB.
*4 Must be capable of spinning up 6-8 HDDs at once.
*5 Must be flashed with new non-RAID BIOS to avoid silent data corruption for > 1.0TB HDDs; disk read/write speeds around 30MB/sec, in my experience, on ext2. (but running with a VIA CPU - not dual-core Atom)
*6 Must be specially formatted under Windows and Linux. (Most distros only support 4KB sectors when the drive reports 4KB - these report 512b to maintain XP compatibility)
*7 May have longevity issues. (too early to say right now - lots of complainers, which reminds me of the 7200.10 days. A heck of a lot of those chirping barracudas perished early)
*8 Please verify SATA card support first. Ubuntu and FreeNAS work fine with this card, but I've never checked if Win7 has drivers. Do note that you'll have to flash it. *9 If that's a problem, buy a more expensive card. (which may give better performance, and SATA2 support) Promise makes nice non-RAID SATA cards.

*9 Flashing the PCI SATA card requires making a DOS boot CD: http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootablecd

Please note: A solution like this will take 12+ hours to set up. It's highly likely you'll blow a whole weekend, even if you know what you're doing. You may have to try multiple distros to get proper Atom D510 support, unless you go with Windows. When I put mine together, atoms weren't available affordably, so I went with a cheap VIA board. Ironically, Ubu

When I hear a question like this, I usually recommend heading over to the NCIX forums. There's some crazy guy over there - death_hawk - building a 100TB array.

What I did was a bit less ambitious. A regular old NAS running off a cheap non-RAID SATA card in a case with lots of HDD bays.

For interest, I'll throw up a build that easily scales to 12TB. Since you mentioned noise, I'll prioritize that instead of capacity. I'll use a case geared for silence, a fanless mobo/cpu, a quiet PSU, WD Green HDDs, and a ridiculously cheap SATA card.

Case - 8 bays: http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=51277&vpn=6900654&manufacture=Fractal%20Design *1
Motherboard/CPU - Silent: http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=50891&vpn=AT5NM10-I&manufacture=ASUS *2
DDR2 - 1GB: http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=18584&vpn=VS1GB667D2&manufacture=Corsair&promoid=1114 *3
PSU: http://ncix.com/products/?sku=33357&vpn=CMPSU-400CX&manufacture=Corsair&promoid=1114 *4
SATA Card: http://ncix.com/products/?sku=19892&vpn=SY-SA3114-4R&manufacture=Syba *5

HDD - 2TB 4KB http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=49591&vpn=WD20EARS&manufacture=Western%20Digital%20WD&promoid=1114 *6
HDD - 2TB 512b: http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=36130&vpn=WD20EADS&manufacture=Western%20Digital%20WD&promoid=1114 *7

OS: FreeNAS, Ubuntu, Win7, Other *8

*1 Only six will be filled. 6 SATA ports.
*2 Case still requires fans/airflow.
*3 A NAS probably only needs 512MB, but 1GB is cheap. A Win7 NAS may benefit from 2GB.
*4 Must be capable of spinning up 6-8 HDDs at once.
*5 Must be flashed with new non-RAID BIOS to avoid silent data corruption for > 1.0TB HDDs; disk read/write speeds around 30MB/sec, in my experience, on ext2. (but running with a VIA CPU - not dual-core Atom)
*6 Must be specially formatted under Windows and Linux. (Most distros only support 4KB sectors when the drive reports 4KB - these report 512b to maintain XP compatibility)
*7 May have longevity issues. (too early to say right now - lots of complainers, which reminds me of the 7200.10 days. A heck of a lot of those chirping barracudas perished early)
*8 Please verify SATA card support first. Ubuntu and FreeNAS work fine with this card, but I've never checked if Win7 has drivers. Do note that you'll have to flash it. *9 If that's a problem, buy a more expensive card. (which may give better performance, and SATA2 support) Promise makes nice non-RAID SATA cards.

*9 Flashing the PCI SATA card requires making a DOS boot CD: http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootablecd

Please note: A solution like this will take 12+ hours to set up. It's highly likely you'll blow a whole weekend, even if you know what you're doing. You may have to try multiple distros to get proper Atom D510 support, unless you go with Windows. When I put mine together, atoms weren't available affordably, so I went with a cheap VIA board. Ironically, Ubu

When I hear a question like this, I usually recommend heading over to the NCIX forums. There's some crazy guy over there - death_hawk - building a 100TB array.

What I did was a bit less ambitious. A regular old NAS running off a cheap non-RAID SATA card in a case with lots of HDD bays.

For interest, I'll throw up a build that easily scales to 12TB. Since you mentioned noise, I'll prioritize that instead of capacity. I'll use a case geared for silence, a fanless mobo/cpu, a quiet PSU, WD Green HDDs, and a ridiculously cheap SATA card.

Case - 8 bays: http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=51277&vpn=6900654&manufacture=Fractal%20Design *1
Motherboard/CPU - Silent: http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=50891&vpn=AT5NM10-I&manufacture=ASUS *2
DDR2 - 1GB: http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=18584&vpn=VS1GB667D2&manufacture=Corsair&promoid=1114 *3
PSU: http://ncix.com/products/?sku=33357&vpn=CMPSU-400CX&manufacture=Corsair&promoid=1114 *4
SATA Card: http://ncix.com/products/?sku=19892&vpn=SY-SA3114-4R&manufacture=Syba *5

HDD - 2TB 4KB http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=49591&vpn=WD20EARS&manufacture=Western%20Digital%20WD&promoid=1114 *6
HDD - 2TB 512b: http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=36130&vpn=WD20EADS&manufacture=Western%20Digital%20WD&promoid=1114 *7

OS: FreeNAS, Ubuntu, Win7, Other *8

*1 Only six will be filled. 6 SATA ports.
*2 Case still requires fans/airflow.
*3 A NAS probably only needs 512MB, but 1GB is cheap. A Win7 NAS may benefit from 2GB.
*4 Must be capable of spinning up 6-8 HDDs at once.
*5 Must be flashed with new non-RAID BIOS to avoid silent data corruption for > 1.0TB HDDs; disk read/write speeds around 30MB/sec, in my experience, on ext2. (but running with a VIA CPU - not dual-core Atom)
*6 Must be specially formatted under Windows and Linux. (Most distros only support 4KB sectors when the drive reports 4KB - these report 512b to maintain XP compatibility)
*7 May have longevity issues. (too early to say right now - lots of complainers, which reminds me of the 7200.10 days. A heck of a lot of those chirping barracudas perished early)
*8 Please verify SATA card support first. Ubuntu and FreeNAS work fine with this card, but I've never checked if Win7 has drivers. Do note that you'll have to flash it. *9 If that's a problem, buy a more expensive card. (which may give better performance, and SATA2 support) Promise makes nice non-RAID SATA cards.

*9 Flashing the PCI SATA card requires making a DOS boot CD: http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootablecd

Please note: A solution like this will take 12+ hours to set up. It's highly likely you'll blow a whole weekend, even if you know what you're doing. You may have to try multiple distros to get proper Atom D510 support, unless you go with Windows. When I put mine together, atoms weren't available affordably, so I went with a cheap VIA board. Ironically, Ubu

When I hear a question like this, I usually recommend heading over to the NCIX forums. There's some crazy guy over there - death_hawk - building a 100TB array.

What I did was a bit less ambitious. A regular old NAS running off a cheap non-RAID SATA card in a case with lots of HDD bays.

For interest, I'll throw up a build that easily scales to 12TB. Since you mentioned noise, I'll prioritize that instead of capacity. I'll use a case geared for silence, a fanless mobo/cpu, a quiet PSU, WD Green HDDs, and a ridiculously cheap SATA card.

Case - 8 bays: http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=51277&vpn=6900654&manufacture=Fractal%20Design *1
Motherboard/CPU - Silent: http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=50891&vpn=AT5NM10-I&manufacture=ASUS *2
DDR2 - 1GB: http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=18584&vpn=VS1GB667D2&manufacture=Corsair&promoid=1114 *3
PSU: http://ncix.com/products/?sku=33357&vpn=CMPSU-400CX&manufacture=Corsair&promoid=1114 *4
SATA Card: http://ncix.com/products/?sku=19892&vpn=SY-SA3114-4R&manufacture=Syba *5

HDD - 2TB 4KB http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=49591&vpn=WD20EARS&manufacture=Western%20Digital%20WD&promoid=1114 *6
HDD - 2TB 512b: http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=36130&vpn=WD20EADS&manufacture=Western%20Digital%20WD&promoid=1114 *7

OS: FreeNAS, Ubuntu, Win7, Other *8

*1 Only six will be filled. 6 SATA ports.
*2 Case still requires fans/airflow.
*3 A NAS probably only needs 512MB, but 1GB is cheap. A Win7 NAS may benefit from 2GB.
*4 Must be capable of spinning up 6-8 HDDs at once.
*5 Must be flashed with new non-RAID BIOS to avoid silent data corruption for > 1.0TB HDDs; disk read/write speeds around 30MB/sec, in my experience, on ext2. (but running with a VIA CPU - not dual-core Atom)
*6 Must be specially formatted under Windows and Linux. (Most distros only support 4KB sectors when the drive reports 4KB - these report 512b to maintain XP compatibility)
*7 May have longevity issues. (too early to say right now - lots of complainers, which reminds me of the 7200.10 days. A heck of a lot of those chirping barracudas perished early)
*8 Please verify SATA card support first. Ubuntu and FreeNAS work fine with this card, but I've never checked if Win7 has drivers. Do note that you'll have to flash it. *9 If that's a problem, buy a more expensive card. (which may give better performance, and SATA2 support) Promise makes nice non-RAID SATA cards.

*9 Flashing the PCI SATA card requires making a DOS boot CD: http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootablecd

Please note: A solution like this will take 12+ hours to set up. It's highly likely you'll blow a whole weekend, even if you know what you're doing. You may have to try multiple distros to get proper Atom D510 support, unless you go with Windows. When I put mine together, atoms weren't available affordably, so I went with a cheap VIA board. Ironically, Ubu

When I hear a question like this, I usually recommend heading over to the NCIX forums. There's some crazy guy over there - death_hawk - building a 100TB array.

What I did was a bit less ambitious. A regular old NAS running off a cheap non-RAID SATA card in a case with lots of HDD bays.

For interest, I'll throw up a build that easily scales to 12TB. Since you mentioned noise, I'll prioritize that instead of capacity. I'll use a case geared for silence, a fanless mobo/cpu, a quiet PSU, WD Green HDDs, and a ridiculously cheap SATA card.

Case - 8 bays: http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=51277&vpn=6900654&manufacture=Fractal%20Design *1
Motherboard/CPU - Silent: http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=50891&vpn=AT5NM10-I&manufacture=ASUS *2
DDR2 - 1GB: http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=18584&vpn=VS1GB667D2&manufacture=Corsair&promoid=1114 *3
PSU: http://ncix.com/products/?sku=33357&vpn=CMPSU-400CX&manufacture=Corsair&promoid=1114 *4
SATA Card: http://ncix.com/products/?sku=19892&vpn=SY-SA3114-4R&manufacture=Syba *5

HDD - 2TB 4KB http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=49591&vpn=WD20EARS&manufacture=Western%20Digital%20WD&promoid=1114 *6
HDD - 2TB 512b: http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=36130&vpn=WD20EADS&manufacture=Western%20Digital%20WD&promoid=1114 *7

OS: FreeNAS, Ubuntu, Win7, Other *8

*1 Only six will be filled. 6 SATA ports.
*2 Case still requires fans/airflow.
*3 A NAS probably only needs 512MB, but 1GB is cheap. A Win7 NAS may benefit from 2GB.
*4 Must be capable of spinning up 6-8 HDDs at once.
*5 Must be flashed with new non-RAID BIOS to avoid silent data corruption for > 1.0TB HDDs; disk read/write speeds around 30MB/sec, in my experience, on ext2. (but running with a VIA CPU - not dual-core Atom)
*6 Must be specially formatted under Windows and Linux. (Most distros only support 4KB sectors when the drive reports 4KB - these report 512b to maintain XP compatibility)
*7 May have longevity issues. (too early to say right now - lots of complainers, which reminds me of the 7200.10 days. A heck of a lot of those chirping barracudas perished early)
*8 Please verify SATA card support first. Ubuntu and FreeNAS work fine with this card, but I've never checked if Win7 has drivers. Do note that you'll have to flash it. *9 If that's a problem, buy a more expensive card. (which may give better performance, and SATA2 support) Promise makes nice non-RAID SATA cards.

*9 Flashing the PCI SATA card requires making a DOS boot CD: http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootablecd

Please note: A solution like this will take 12+ hours to set up. It's highly likely you'll blow a whole weekend, even if you know what you're doing. You may have to try multiple distros to get proper Atom D510 support, unless you go with Windows. When I put mine together, atoms weren't available affordably, so I went with a cheap VIA board. Ironically, Ubu

When I hear a question like this, I usually recommend heading over to the NCIX forums. There's some crazy guy over there - death_hawk - building a 100TB array.

What I did was a bit less ambitious. A regular old NAS running off a cheap non-RAID SATA card in a case with lots of HDD bays.

For interest, I'll throw up a build that easily scales to 12TB. Since you mentioned noise, I'll prioritize that instead of capacity. I'll use a case geared for silence, a fanless mobo/cpu, a quiet PSU, WD Green HDDs, and a ridiculously cheap SATA card.

Case - 8 bays: http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=51277&vpn=6900654&manufacture=Fractal%20Design *1
Motherboard/CPU - Silent: http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=50891&vpn=AT5NM10-I&manufacture=ASUS *2
DDR2 - 1GB: http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=18584&vpn=VS1GB667D2&manufacture=Corsair&promoid=1114 *3
PSU: http://ncix.com/products/?sku=33357&vpn=CMPSU-400CX&manufacture=Corsair&promoid=1114 *4
SATA Card: http://ncix.com/products/?sku=19892&vpn=SY-SA3114-4R&manufacture=Syba *5

HDD - 2TB 4KB http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=49591&vpn=WD20EARS&manufacture=Western%20Digital%20WD&promoid=1114 *6
HDD - 2TB 512b: http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=36130&vpn=WD20EADS&manufacture=Western%20Digital%20WD&promoid=1114 *7

OS: FreeNAS, Ubuntu, Win7, Other *8

*1 Only six will be filled. 6 SATA ports.
*2 Case still requires fans/airflow.
*3 A NAS probably only needs 512MB, but 1GB is cheap. A Win7 NAS may benefit from 2GB.
*4 Must be capable of spinning up 6-8 HDDs at once.
*5 Must be flashed with new non-RAID BIOS to avoid silent data corruption for > 1.0TB HDDs; disk read/write speeds around 30MB/sec, in my experience, on ext2. (but running with a VIA CPU - not dual-core Atom)
*6 Must be specially formatted under Windows and Linux. (Most distros only support 4KB sectors when the drive reports 4KB - these report 512b to maintain XP compatibility)
*7 May have longevity issues. (too early to say right now - lots of complainers, which reminds me of the 7200.10 days. A heck of a lot of those chirping barracudas perished early)
*8 Please verify SATA card support first. Ubuntu and FreeNAS work fine with this card, but I've never checked if Win7 has drivers. Do note that you'll have to flash it. *9 If that's a problem, buy a more expensive card. (which may give better performance, and SATA2 support) Promise makes nice non-RAID SATA cards.

*9 Flashing the PCI SATA card requires making a DOS boot CD: http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootablecd

Please note: A solution like this will take 12+ hours to set up. It's highly likely you'll blow a whole weekend, even if you know what you're doing. You may have to try multiple distros to get proper Atom D510 support, unless you go with Windows. When I put mine together, atoms weren't available affordably, so I went with a cheap VIA board. Ironically, Ubu

When I hear a question like this, I usually recommend heading over to the NCIX forums. There's some crazy guy over there - death_hawk - building a 100TB array.

What I did was a bit less ambitious. A regular old NAS running off a cheap non-RAID SATA card in a case with lots of HDD bays.

For interest, I'll throw up a build that easily scales to 12TB. Since you mentioned noise, I'll prioritize that instead of capacity. I'll use a case geared for silence, a fanless mobo/cpu, a quiet PSU, WD Green HDDs, and a ridiculously cheap SATA card.

Case - 8 bays: http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=51277&vpn=6900654&manufacture=Fractal%20Design *1
Motherboard/CPU - Silent: http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=50891&vpn=AT5NM10-I&manufacture=ASUS *2
DDR2 - 1GB: http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=18584&vpn=VS1GB667D2&manufacture=Corsair&promoid=1114 *3
PSU: http://ncix.com/products/?sku=33357&vpn=CMPSU-400CX&manufacture=Corsair&promoid=1114 *4
SATA Card: http://ncix.com/products/?sku=19892&vpn=SY-SA3114-4R&manufacture=Syba *5

HDD - 2TB 4KB http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=49591&vpn=WD20EARS&manufacture=Western%20Digital%20WD&promoid=1114 *6
HDD - 2TB 512b: http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=36130&vpn=WD20EADS&manufacture=Western%20Digital%20WD&promoid=1114 *7

OS: FreeNAS, Ubuntu, Win7, Other *8

*1 Only six will be filled. 6 SATA ports.
*2 Case still requires fans/airflow.
*3 A NAS probably only needs 512MB, but 1GB is cheap. A Win7 NAS may benefit from 2GB.
*4 Must be capable of spinning up 6-8 HDDs at once.
*5 Must be flashed with new non-RAID BIOS to avoid silent data corruption for > 1.0TB HDDs; disk read/write speeds around 30MB/sec, in my experience, on ext2. (but running with a VIA CPU - not dual-core Atom)
*6 Must be specially formatted under Windows and Linux. (Most distros only support 4KB sectors when the drive reports 4KB - these report 512b to maintain XP compatibility)
*7 May have longevity issues. (too early to say right now - lots of complainers, which reminds me of the 7200.10 days. A heck of a lot of those chirping barracudas perished early)
*8 Please verify SATA card support first. Ubuntu and FreeNAS work fine with this card, but I've never checked if Win7 has drivers. Do note that you'll have to flash it. *9 If that's a problem, buy a more expensive card. (which may give better performance, and SATA2 support) Promise makes nice non-RAID SATA cards.

*9 Flashing the PCI SATA card requires making a DOS boot CD: http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootablecd

Please note: A solution like this will take 12+ hours to set up. It's highly likely you'll blow a whole weekend, even if you know what you're doing. You may have to try multiple distros to get proper Atom D510 support, unless you go with Windows. When I put mine together, atoms weren't available affordably, so I went with a cheap VIA board. Ironically, Ubu

When I hear a question like this, I usually recommend heading over to the NCIX forums. There's some crazy guy over there - death_hawk - building a 100TB array.

What I did was a bit less ambitious. A regular old NAS running off a cheap non-RAID SATA card in a case with lots of HDD bays.

For interest, I'll throw up a build that easily scales to 12TB. Since you mentioned noise, I'll prioritize that instead of capacity. I'll use a case geared for silence, a fanless mobo/cpu, a quiet PSU, WD Green HDDs, and a ridiculously cheap SATA card.

Case - 8 bays: http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=51277&vpn=6900654&manufacture=Fractal%20Design *1
Motherboard/CPU - Silent: http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=50891&vpn=AT5NM10-I&manufacture=ASUS *2
DDR2 - 1GB: http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=18584&vpn=VS1GB667D2&manufacture=Corsair&promoid=1114 *3
PSU: http://ncix.com/products/?sku=33357&vpn=CMPSU-400CX&manufacture=Corsair&promoid=1114 *4
SATA Card: http://ncix.com/products/?sku=19892&vpn=SY-SA3114-4R&manufacture=Syba *5

HDD - 2TB 4KB http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=49591&vpn=WD20EARS&manufacture=Western%20Digital%20WD&promoid=1114 *6
HDD - 2TB 512b: http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=36130&vpn=WD20EADS&manufacture=Western%20Digital%20WD&promoid=1114 *7

OS: FreeNAS, Ubuntu, Win7, Other *8

*1 Only six will be filled. 6 SATA ports.
*2 Case still requires fans/airflow.
*3 A NAS probably only needs 512MB, but 1GB is cheap. A Win7 NAS may benefit from 2GB.
*4 Must be capable of spinning up 6-8 HDDs at once.
*5 Must be flashed with new non-RAID BIOS to avoid silent data corruption for > 1.0TB HDDs; disk read/write speeds around 30MB/sec, in my experience, on ext2. (but running with a VIA CPU - not dual-core Atom)
*6 Must be specially formatted under Windows and Linux. (Most distros only support 4KB sectors when the drive reports 4KB - these report 512b to maintain XP compatibility)
*7 May have longevity issues. (too early to say right now - lots of complainers, which reminds me of the 7200.10 days. A heck of a lot of those chirping barracudas perished early)
*8 Please verify SATA card support first. Ubuntu and FreeNAS work fine with this card, but I've never checked if Win7 has drivers. Do note that you'll have to flash it. *9 If that's a problem, buy a more expensive card. (which may give better performance, and SATA2 support) Promise makes nice non-RAID SATA cards.

*9 Flashing the PCI SATA card requires making a DOS boot CD: http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootablecd

Please note: A solution like this will take 12+ hours to set up. It's highly likely you'll blow a whole weekend, even if you know what you're doing. You may have to try multiple distros to get proper Atom D510 support, unless you go with Windows. When I put mine together, atoms weren't available affordably, so I went with a cheap VIA board. Ironically, Ubu

When I hear a question like this, I usually recommend heading over to the NCIX forums. There's some crazy guy over there - death_hawk - building a 100TB array.

What I did was a bit less ambitious. A regular old NAS running off a cheap non-RAID SATA card in a case with lots of HDD bays.

For interest, I'll throw up a build that easily scales to 12TB. Since you mentioned noise, I'll prioritize that instead of capacity. I'll use a case geared for silence, a fanless mobo/cpu, a quiet PSU, WD Green HDDs, and a ridiculously cheap SATA card.

Case - 8 bays: http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=51277&vpn=6900654&manufacture=Fractal%20Design *1
Motherboard/CPU - Silent: http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=50891&vpn=AT5NM10-I&manufacture=ASUS *2
DDR2 - 1GB: http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=18584&vpn=VS1GB667D2&manufacture=Corsair&promoid=1114 *3
PSU: http://ncix.com/products/?sku=33357&vpn=CMPSU-400CX&manufacture=Corsair&promoid=1114 *4
SATA Card: http://ncix.com/products/?sku=19892&vpn=SY-SA3114-4R&manufacture=Syba *5

HDD - 2TB 4KB http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=49591&vpn=WD20EARS&manufacture=Western%20Digital%20WD&promoid=1114 *6
HDD - 2TB 512b: http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=36130&vpn=WD20EADS&manufacture=Western%20Digital%20WD&promoid=1114 *7

OS: FreeNAS, Ubuntu, Win7, Other *8

*1 Only six will be filled. 6 SATA ports.
*2 Case still requires fans/airflow.
*3 A NAS probably only needs 512MB, but 1GB is cheap. A Win7 NAS may benefit from 2GB.
*4 Must be capable of spinning up 6-8 HDDs at once.
*5 Must be flashed with new non-RAID BIOS to avoid silent data corruption for > 1.0TB HDDs; disk read/write speeds around 30MB/sec, in my experience, on ext2. (but running with a VIA CPU - not dual-core Atom)
*6 Must be specially formatted under Windows and Linux. (Most distros only support 4KB sectors when the drive reports 4KB - these report 512b to maintain XP compatibility)
*7 May have longevity issues. (too early to say right now - lots of complainers, which reminds me of the 7200.10 days. A heck of a lot of those chirping barracudas perished early)
*8 Please verify SATA card support first. Ubuntu and FreeNAS work fine with this card, but I've never checked if Win7 has drivers. Do note that you'll have to flash it. *9 If that's a problem, buy a more expensive card. (which may give better performance, and SATA2 support) Promise makes nice non-RAID SATA cards.

*9 Flashing the PCI SATA card requires making a DOS boot CD: http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootablecd

Please note: A solution like this will take 12+ hours to set up. It's highly likely you'll blow a whole weekend, even if you know what you're doing. You may have to try multiple distros to get proper Atom D510 support, unless you go with Windows. When I put mine together, atoms weren't available affordably, so I went with a cheap VIA board. Ironically, Ubu

This thing goes on sale almost every month, and there is a $10 rebate every month. I've deployed 10 or so recently and never had a rebate not come back. Throw Tomato on in and you will be one happy camper. I'm using one currently for a 2-link bonded DSL connection and it passes 10/1 mbps day and night with full QoS. There's no router platform that can touch it under $100, at which point you start looking at m0n0wall, pfsense, or something Linux-based.

then why can't they put a man-sized battery in a netbook and have it last 12+ hours

http://ncix.com/products/?sku=49311&vpn=1005PE-PU17-BK&manufacture=ASUS

Dim the screen a bit, and make sure your power options are configured properly, so the HDD turns off. Then you'll easily get the advertised battery life - for a few months.

Only if you can access that hardware based encryption - which means drivers and kernel support.

But if that's the route you're leaning, there are Nano systems available. Here's one. It was going for $199 pre-order a couple days ago. Just like a Sheevaplug, you can connect a bunch of external HDDs.

I'm inclined to just go for a full size tower like this. 8 drive bays loaded up with Green drives... tons of space, and very little power consumption. If you use 2 drives, an energy efficient motherboard and energy efficient PSU, you're looking at around 25 watts consumption. Add in 6 more drives and that barely increases to ~40 watts. (Unless they're all active at once)

That's pretty good for up to 16TB of space.

Only if you can access that hardware based encryption - which means drivers and kernel support.

But if that's the route you're leaning, there are Nano systems available. Here's one. It was going for $199 pre-order a couple days ago. Just like a Sheevaplug, you can connect a bunch of external HDDs.

I'm inclined to just go for a full size tower like this. 8 drive bays loaded up with Green drives... tons of space, and very little power consumption. If you use 2 drives, an energy efficient motherboard and energy efficient PSU, you're looking at around 25 watts consumption. Add in 6 more drives and that barely increases to ~40 watts. (Unless they're all active at once)

That's pretty good for up to 16TB of space.

Only if you can access that hardware based encryption - which means drivers and kernel support.

But if that's the route you're leaning, there are Nano systems available. Here's one. It was going for $199 pre-order a couple days ago. Just like a Sheevaplug, you can connect a bunch of external HDDs.

I'm inclined to just go for a full size tower like this. 8 drive bays loaded up with Green drives... tons of space, and very little power consumption. If you use 2 drives, an energy efficient motherboard and energy efficient PSU, you're looking at around 25 watts consumption. Add in 6 more drives and that barely increases to ~40 watts. (Unless they're all active at once)

That's pretty good for up to 16TB of space.

Good work! I plan to do something similar soon, though the cost savings of getting a $100 2-core Ph2 and unlocking it to a $160 4-core Ph2 isn't so great :/

I picked up a Phenom II X4 925 for $130 CAD on the week they launched. That was equivalent to $120 USD at the time.

I don't need any unlocking with launch sales like that!

The same week they had these going for $80 after MIR. I didn't trust the $40 MIR, though.

In conclusion, you can buy a nice P4 which will do all that Joe and Sally average is gonna do with a PC for less than $100 with XP.

I spent $50 one time on a P4 - 1.6 Ghz, 512 MB RAM, 20 GB Hard drive with monitor. There is simply no way I'd use XP on that system with anything less than 1 GB of RAM - Antivirus is a pig on RAM no matter the program and SP3 threw any idea of lightweight right out the window. Depending on the mobo then you're spending $20 on used RAM online. Up to $70. Windows XP on my machine clocks in at a svelte 12 GB, which on 20 GB worth of hard drive is scary. Checking NCIX.com the cheapest hard drive I found was an 80 GB Seagate Barracuda at $44.51 before shipping and taxes, but we'll call it $45. Now at $115 - which breaks the budget and you still have a system that can't hold a candle to a netbook. I would much rather get the $50 machine and throw something like Lubuntu 10.04 on it. Long Term Support, lightweight, and not a pig on hard drive space.

http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=49278&vpn=OCZSSD2-2SLD30G&manufacture=OCZ%20Technology&promoid=1210

30GB OCZ Indilinx drive for a little over $100 CAD. Not a bad option, but not much space.

My keyboard has a scroll wheel ... handy on occasion.

more like 50% cheaper http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=23482&vpn=OCZ2G8004GK&manufacture=OCZ%20Technology http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=41650&vpn=KTH-XW4400E6%2F2G&manufacture=KINGSTON%20TECHNOLOGY%20-%20MEMORY

(Those links are $80CAD for 4GB DDR2-800 non-ECC and $80CAD for 2GB DDR2-800 ECC.)

Look over here, I think your example of ECC pricing might not by typical.

more like 50% cheaper http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=23482&vpn=OCZ2G8004GK&manufacture=OCZ%20Technology http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=41650&vpn=KTH-XW4400E6%2F2G&manufacture=KINGSTON%20TECHNOLOGY%20-%20MEMORY

(Those links are $80CAD for 4GB DDR2-800 non-ECC and $80CAD for 2GB DDR2-800 ECC.)

Look over here, I think your example of ECC pricing might not by typical.

My personal favorite is:

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?mode=productreviewread&product_id=11843

Its a Box. For shipping. Lots of people having fun with reviews. Some good Pros and Cons right from the start are "Good for Fort building", and "Doesn't play Crisis" or "Not a sphere!"...

There are a bunch. NCIX is actually great for reviews both positive and negative. You just can't post deals from other companies on their forums, though many still do.

I know I have posted both positive and negative reviews and they have all gone in. Most of mine have been positive, however I usually do an insane amount of research before purchasing and do not just rely on user reviews. Only negative I remember was a Seagate HD that failed after about a month, and I think I changed it to positive after receiving a new replacement HD after like a week which is working fine today.

My biggest issue is not stores posting good or bad reviews, is the fact that you have to take most of these with a gain of salt, and many of the people that post reviews do not have a clue about what they are talking about. In fact many allude that they know more about what they are talking about than they really do. Anyway these types of reviews are good to get a general impression, but unless you can get enough detail out of them to know the person knows anything about what he is talking about, that is about all it is good for.

I ordered my free upgrade from Acer and it cost me nothing.

My complaint is with retailers selling two Vista OEM skus, one with the free upgrade, one without, and charging two very different prices for them. When did "free" start meaning $30?

I ordered my free upgrade from Acer and it cost me nothing.

My complaint is with retailers selling two Vista OEM skus, one with the free upgrade, one without, and charging two very different prices for them. When did "free" start meaning $30?

This is what I did, and it worked out quite well for me. After my research I came up with a few conclusions. Here's an outline of my situation and what I discovered.

-I'm Canadian
-Black and White laser printers print thousands more B&W pages per cheaper black toner cartridge, compared to colour laser printers.
-Just 3 B&W toner cartridges for a colour laser printer is likely to cover the cost of a B&W laser printer.
-Networked B&W laser printers are waaaaay cheaper than Networked colour laser printers. By going networked, your OS support is fairly indifferent. You still need drivers, but XP/Vista/Win7/OSX/Linux probably have them.

I opted for the Brother HL2170W. It was on sale for $80, which was a price I couldn't beat. Then I picked up some TN360 toner cartidges from 123inkcartidges.ca, for under $30 a piece. Those print close to 3000 pages each, which puts the price at $0.01/pg (excluding cost of paper)

The cheap OEM TN360 toner has the same quality as the 500-pg starter toner. The starter toner lasted 562 pages according to the web-based UI. That's at 600DPI (fine for text and printing out maps), with toner save OFF. (makes it look like crap) I'm about 2000 pages in now, and the toner is going strong, so I expect it to last at least 2800.

A few months back I dunked my printer in a jug of water by accident. (was watering plants - knocked it over and doused it while it was turned on) I yanked the power cord out, dumped the printer/water on the floor, and dried it out with a hair drier as soon as I could. So far it's been printing same as usual.

Conclusion: Decent, cheap printer with super cheap and adequate toner.

Note: I tested this printer with XP and Ubuntu - it works just fine for both. I have it connected over Wifi to my WRT54GL. It cuts out occasionally, but that's related to the number of desks it has to broadcast through to reach the router. Had totally solid wireless before I moved it, and still is solid when wired. (as should be expected - oh, and I moved it after the water dunking...)