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My server spec's likely won't be helpful for you. One of the SSD's alone would pretty much use up your budget. Here are the details anyway:

Intel S2600CP Motherboard
2 of E5-2620 v2 @ 2.10GHz
64GB of DDR3L 1600MHz RAM
1000W Power Supply
Intel RMS25KB040 RAID Controller
AXXCBL740MS7P RAID/SAS Cable Kit
2 of 500GB SATA HDD in RAID1 for OS/Boot
2 of Intel 750 Series PCIe 1.2TB SSD for VM storage

Software installed includes:
VMware ESXi 6.0.0
Intel-nvme-1.0e.1.1-1OEM.550.0.0.1391871.x86_64.vib
Scsi-mpt2sas-20.00.00.00.1vmw-1OEM.550.0.0.1331820.x86_64.vib
Vmware-esx-provider-lsiprovider.vib

AMD:
AMD A10-7850K, 170$CAD
GIGABYTE GA-F2A68HM-H, 59$CAD
8GB DDR3 1600 (2x4GB), 70$CAD
Total: 299$CAD

Intel:
Intel Core i5-4460, 220$CAD
ASRock B85M, 85$CAD (the HDS is listed as possibly discontinued).
8GB DDR3 1600 (2x4GB), 70$CAD
Total: 375$CAD

Two thirds of the difference in price you cited is the i5-4460 vs the 7850K. There is no comparison between these CPUs in non-graphics performance, as the i5-4460 whips the 7850K, repeatedly. The remainder is CAD26, which is not nothing, but not a game changer like the OP's fantasy numbers.

AMD:
AMD A10-7850K, 170$CAD
GIGABYTE GA-F2A68HM-H, 59$CAD
8GB DDR3 1600 (2x4GB), 70$CAD
Total: 299$CAD

Intel:
Intel Core i5-4460, 220$CAD
ASRock B85M, 85$CAD (the HDS is listed as possibly discontinued).
8GB DDR3 1600 (2x4GB), 70$CAD
Total: 375$CAD

Two thirds of the difference in price you cited is the i5-4460 vs the 7850K. There is no comparison between these CPUs in non-graphics performance, as the i5-4460 whips the 7850K, repeatedly. The remainder is CAD26, which is not nothing, but not a game changer like the OP's fantasy numbers.

AMD:
AMD A10-7850K, 170$CAD
GIGABYTE GA-F2A68HM-H, 59$CAD
8GB DDR3 1600 (2x4GB), 70$CAD
Total: 299$CAD

Intel:
Intel Core i5-4460, 220$CAD
ASRock B85M, 85$CAD (the HDS is listed as possibly discontinued).
8GB DDR3 1600 (2x4GB), 70$CAD
Total: 375$CAD

Two thirds of the difference in price you cited is the i5-4460 vs the 7850K. There is no comparison between these CPUs in non-graphics performance, as the i5-4460 whips the 7850K, repeatedly. The remainder is CAD26, which is not nothing, but not a game changer like the OP's fantasy numbers.

AMD:
AMD A10-7850K, 170$CAD
GIGABYTE GA-F2A68HM-H, 59$CAD
8GB DDR3 1600 (2x4GB), 70$CAD
Total: 299$CAD

Intel:
Intel Core i5-4460, 220$CAD
ASRock B85M, 85$CAD (the HDS is listed as possibly discontinued).
8GB DDR3 1600 (2x4GB), 70$CAD
Total: 375$CAD

Two thirds of the difference in price you cited is the i5-4460 vs the 7850K. There is no comparison between these CPUs in non-graphics performance, as the i5-4460 whips the 7850K, repeatedly. The remainder is CAD26, which is not nothing, but not a game changer like the OP's fantasy numbers.

AMD:
AMD A10-7850K, 170$CAD
GIGABYTE GA-F2A68HM-H, 59$CAD
8GB DDR3 1600 (2x4GB), 70$CAD
Total: 299$CAD

Intel:
Intel Core i5-4460, 220$CAD
ASRock B85M, 85$CAD (the HDS is listed as possibly discontinued).
8GB DDR3 1600 (2x4GB), 70$CAD
Total: 375$CAD

Two thirds of the difference in price you cited is the i5-4460 vs the 7850K. There is no comparison between these CPUs in non-graphics performance, as the i5-4460 whips the 7850K, repeatedly. The remainder is CAD26, which is not nothing, but not a game changer like the OP's fantasy numbers.

AMD:
AMD A10-7850K, 170$CAD
GIGABYTE GA-F2A68HM-H, 59$CAD
8GB DDR3 1600 (2x4GB), 70$CAD
Total: 299$CAD

Intel:
Intel Core i5-4460, 220$CAD
ASRock B85M, 85$CAD (the HDS is listed as possibly discontinued).
8GB DDR3 1600 (2x4GB), 70$CAD
Total: 375$CAD

Two thirds of the difference in price you cited is the i5-4460 vs the 7850K. There is no comparison between these CPUs in non-graphics performance, as the i5-4460 whips the 7850K, repeatedly. The remainder is CAD26, which is not nothing, but not a game changer like the OP's fantasy numbers.

AMD:
AMD A10-7850K, 170$CAD
GIGABYTE GA-F2A68HM-H, 59$CAD
8GB DDR3 1600 (2x4GB), 70$CAD
Total: 299$CAD

Intel:
Intel Core i5-4460, 220$CAD
ASRock B85M, 85$CAD (the HDS is listed as possibly discontinued).
8GB DDR3 1600 (2x4GB), 70$CAD
Total: 375$CAD

AMD:
AMD A10-7850K, 170$CAD
GIGABYTE GA-F2A68HM-H, 59$CAD
8GB DDR3 1600 (2x4GB), 70$CAD
Total: 299$CAD

Intel:
Intel Core i5-4460, 220$CAD
ASRock B85M, 85$CAD (the HDS is listed as possibly discontinued).
8GB DDR3 1600 (2x4GB), 70$CAD
Total: 375$CAD

AMD:
AMD A10-7850K, 170$CAD
GIGABYTE GA-F2A68HM-H, 59$CAD
8GB DDR3 1600 (2x4GB), 70$CAD
Total: 299$CAD

Intel:
Intel Core i5-4460, 220$CAD
ASRock B85M, 85$CAD (the HDS is listed as possibly discontinued).
8GB DDR3 1600 (2x4GB), 70$CAD
Total: 375$CAD

AMD:
AMD A10-7850K, 170$CAD
GIGABYTE GA-F2A68HM-H, 59$CAD
8GB DDR3 1600 (2x4GB), 70$CAD
Total: 299$CAD

Intel:
Intel Core i5-4460, 220$CAD
ASRock B85M, 85$CAD (the HDS is listed as possibly discontinued).
8GB DDR3 1600 (2x4GB), 70$CAD
Total: 375$CAD

AMD:
AMD A10-7850K, 170$CAD
GIGABYTE GA-F2A68HM-H, 59$CAD
8GB DDR3 1600 (2x4GB), 70$CAD
Total: 299$CAD

Intel:
Intel Core i5-4460, 220$CAD
ASRock B85M, 85$CAD (the HDS is listed as possibly discontinued).
8GB DDR3 1600 (2x4GB), 70$CAD
Total: 375$CAD

AMD:
AMD A10-7850K, 170$CAD
GIGABYTE GA-F2A68HM-H, 59$CAD
8GB DDR3 1600 (2x4GB), 70$CAD
Total: 299$CAD

Intel:
Intel Core i5-4460, 220$CAD
ASRock B85M, 85$CAD (the HDS is listed as possibly discontinued).
8GB DDR3 1600 (2x4GB), 70$CAD
Total: 375$CAD

(2) Save files to a folder that is automatically mirrored to the cloud, for effortless backups.

    - No, never trust cloud services for backups. Never trust cloud services period the only reason to use them is convenience

What would be your recommendation to a non-techie person if they want to make sure they don't lose their digital photographs in a fire?

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820313349

An opinion like that must be built from non-Linux experience.

Back to the OP, my experience with cards like these are usually fine in Linux:

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815124081

Lets see, at retail (newegg), I can buy two SFPs for 40$ each. and lets say about $0.80 a meter for optical cable (based on retail price for a 50m patch cable from infinite cable), so thats $1600. Except that you dont need your own fibre, all you need is a wavelength, so google could be just splicing cables together for say 20 households at a time, and you need only about 50m of your own fibre. so that works out to $40 of cable for you uplink to the pole, where there is an optical coupler (say 200$), plus perhaps 5% of the 1600$, so $80 or so... they can adjust using more cable to use fewer couplers... etc...

Then they need to cost out the uplink from the CO. 2x 10 GSFPs say $500 ea. + 20km. of fibre $16000... and one the uplink they need an aggregation switch, say 24 ports / 1000$, which would mean... 42$ for the switch... aww heck lets double it for the uplink of the aggregation switch say 100$ in the CO... so the total is say $17100

say 17K$ for the uplink / 500 households... 34$ per household for the uplink. OK so perhaps that is a little weak as an uplink, but use multiple wavelengths over the same fibre, and you would still need a lot to get to even 100$ per uplink.

So using retail prices, and Googles deployment plans and publically available retail pricing and demographics, the price per link is about 80$ for the SFPs, 40$ for the patch cable to the coupler, 200$ for an optical coupler, $80 for the fibre to the CO, 100$ for the uplink... we are at 500$ for most of the parts of the uplink... now sure.. you can add in the on premises equipment, and get to maybe 1000$ that way... OK, so they charge 300$ for installation, so there is 700$ to recoup... they are charging a 70$/month for the service... so 10 months. pay back.

So I left out labour costs... they might double the payback period, but the business case still looks damn easy. I think your numbers are either phone company motivated, or a decade or two old. either way, they are complete b.s

sources for the pricing:

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&N=-1&isNodeId=1&Description=SFP%2B&x=-975&y=-112

http://www.infinitecables.com/fiber-optic-cable-singlemode8.3.html

http://search.newport.com/?q=*&x2=sku&q2=F-CPL-S18150

Not sure why the link got parsed, but isn't linking. Actual link: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811133188

The laptop described has provision for built-in bluetooth. Every laptop I've bought for the last 5 years has had bult-in bluetooth, even when I had to pay an extra $20 to get it, because I was expecting to need it in the future. To date, the only bluetooth I actually *use* is my cell phone pairing with my car's hands free system, but I am still ready for it if I ever buy a BT keyboard or such.

As to the memory stick and the external hard drive, you could invest in something like this (there's many alternatives, that's the one I bought), and be able to connect to it from all of your computers at the same time. Having a memory stick for sneakernet makes sense, but using a USB external drive to move large amounts of data between systems makes less sense.

Though ignoring that particular limitation, actually checking the plugs on the back of my (Dell) laptop, there's an eSATA connector, too. It's probably one of those dual-purpose connectors and can be used for USB as well, but I've never needed it. If I really wanted to connect an external drive rather than a NAS, that's the connector I'd use.

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819175196CVF

Multi-Core
        Deca-core (10 Core)

Operating Frequency
        2.4GHz

L1 Cache
        480 KB

L2 Cache
        2.50 MB

L3 Cache
        30 MB

OK, maybe a little on the expensive side, but available if you want to shell out the money.

Large OEMs always seem to get latest stuff while the public is stuck with lower capability hardware.

Getting Windows 7 from a shop is surprisingly expensive

He didn't even look. NewEgg is selling it for $99. A 30 day WoW subscription is listed on the Blizzard store for $15. So your OS costs less than 7 months of playing just one of the games you listed - tell me again what's expensive?

Why are you combining 100GB and 3TB drives? First of all, the 3TB drive is litterally 30 times the size (giving you a space increase of 3%). Second of all, the 100GB is probably fairly old, so shouldn't even be trusted as stable. You are going to spend more on the ATA adapter for that drive than the value of the space it provides. Currently a 3TB drive costs about $100, that's $0.03/GB which means that 100GB drive is worth ... wait for it ... $3. Sata to IDE adapters run about $9 a piece.

I've been in the same situation, it was only a year ago that I was running on multiple 10GB drives and an old 120GB laptop drive because I only had IDE in my server. So I went to newegg and got a low powered an E350-onboard-cpu motherboard (doesn't even need a fan) for $130, 8GB of ram (I use ZFS) for $50 and a 2TB drive for $70 (drives have gone up since then, but not terribly high) and threw the thing into an old case with a cheap power supply. That's basically an entire system with about 15 times the storage space as my old one for $250 shipped to my front door and the system can take 5 more drives without so much as an expansion card.

It's not luddism to decline to upgrade something that's working effectively, especially when the upgrade has high cost and questionable benefits.

I would argue that when the "something that's working effectively" is a computer where you have to ask whether it meets the spec for Windows XP, and which is out-powered by many cellular telephones, the "high cost and questionable benefits" goes out the window.

Consider: you can buy a cheap laptop for $400 or so. If you don't mind recycling your old monitor, you can get a cheap desktop for $300 or so. For that, you get a system that is *significantly* faster, which should equate to a large savings in time, not to mention the ability to run a modern OS, which brings security advantages. And that's without even considering the electricity savings that could be had by building a system with a modern 80plus power supply.

Just doing a basic pricing on the cheapest system I can build on Newegg, try:
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138326 ($60 - cpu/motherboard/vga, via c7-d 1.8ghz dual core, mini itx)
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811154061 ($40 - case, mini itx/atx, with 240W power supply)
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820313102 ($20 - memory 2x2GB DDR3)
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152181 ($80 - hard drive, 500GB)

Total cost, $200. And half of that is the hard drive, so if you're willing to salvage the old hard drive and throw in an IDE to SATA conversion kit, you can put it together for about $120. And that's a computer that will run Windows 7 (I've run Win7 x32 on a Via c7 1.5GHz system with 2GB of RAM, and it performed relatively well). Linux would fly on it. It'll still wipe the floor with a 10+-year old Windows 2000 system in performance, and it'll use a fraction of the electricity, possibly low enough to cover the initial $120 outlay within a few months (and certainly within a year). And you don't need an optical drive, because Windows 7 and Linux can both be installed from USB. (even if you did want an optical drive, it only adds $20 to the equation).

So no. It is luddism to refuse to upgrade it. Either that, or a false sense of economy.

It's not luddism to decline to upgrade something that's working effectively, especially when the upgrade has high cost and questionable benefits.

I would argue that when the "something that's working effectively" is a computer where you have to ask whether it meets the spec for Windows XP, and which is out-powered by many cellular telephones, the "high cost and questionable benefits" goes out the window.

Consider: you can buy a cheap laptop for $400 or so. If you don't mind recycling your old monitor, you can get a cheap desktop for $300 or so. For that, you get a system that is *significantly* faster, which should equate to a large savings in time, not to mention the ability to run a modern OS, which brings security advantages. And that's without even considering the electricity savings that could be had by building a system with a modern 80plus power supply.

Just doing a basic pricing on the cheapest system I can build on Newegg, try:
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138326 ($60 - cpu/motherboard/vga, via c7-d 1.8ghz dual core, mini itx)
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811154061 ($40 - case, mini itx/atx, with 240W power supply)
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820313102 ($20 - memory 2x2GB DDR3)
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152181 ($80 - hard drive, 500GB)

Total cost, $200. And half of that is the hard drive, so if you're willing to salvage the old hard drive and throw in an IDE to SATA conversion kit, you can put it together for about $120. And that's a computer that will run Windows 7 (I've run Win7 x32 on a Via c7 1.5GHz system with 2GB of RAM, and it performed relatively well). Linux would fly on it. It'll still wipe the floor with a 10+-year old Windows 2000 system in performance, and it'll use a fraction of the electricity, possibly low enough to cover the initial $120 outlay within a few months (and certainly within a year). And you don't need an optical drive, because Windows 7 and Linux can both be installed from USB. (even if you did want an optical drive, it only adds $20 to the equation).

So no. It is luddism to refuse to upgrade it. Either that, or a false sense of economy.

It's not luddism to decline to upgrade something that's working effectively, especially when the upgrade has high cost and questionable benefits.

I would argue that when the "something that's working effectively" is a computer where you have to ask whether it meets the spec for Windows XP, and which is out-powered by many cellular telephones, the "high cost and questionable benefits" goes out the window.

Consider: you can buy a cheap laptop for $400 or so. If you don't mind recycling your old monitor, you can get a cheap desktop for $300 or so. For that, you get a system that is *significantly* faster, which should equate to a large savings in time, not to mention the ability to run a modern OS, which brings security advantages. And that's without even considering the electricity savings that could be had by building a system with a modern 80plus power supply.

Just doing a basic pricing on the cheapest system I can build on Newegg, try:
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138326 ($60 - cpu/motherboard/vga, via c7-d 1.8ghz dual core, mini itx)
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811154061 ($40 - case, mini itx/atx, with 240W power supply)
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820313102 ($20 - memory 2x2GB DDR3)
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152181 ($80 - hard drive, 500GB)

Total cost, $200. And half of that is the hard drive, so if you're willing to salvage the old hard drive and throw in an IDE to SATA conversion kit, you can put it together for about $120. And that's a computer that will run Windows 7 (I've run Win7 x32 on a Via c7 1.5GHz system with 2GB of RAM, and it performed relatively well). Linux would fly on it. It'll still wipe the floor with a 10+-year old Windows 2000 system in performance, and it'll use a fraction of the electricity, possibly low enough to cover the initial $120 outlay within a few months (and certainly within a year). And you don't need an optical drive, because Windows 7 and Linux can both be installed from USB. (even if you did want an optical drive, it only adds $20 to the equation).

So no. It is luddism to refuse to upgrade it. Either that, or a false sense of economy.

It's not luddism to decline to upgrade something that's working effectively, especially when the upgrade has high cost and questionable benefits.

I would argue that when the "something that's working effectively" is a computer where you have to ask whether it meets the spec for Windows XP, and which is out-powered by many cellular telephones, the "high cost and questionable benefits" goes out the window.

Consider: you can buy a cheap laptop for $400 or so. If you don't mind recycling your old monitor, you can get a cheap desktop for $300 or so. For that, you get a system that is *significantly* faster, which should equate to a large savings in time, not to mention the ability to run a modern OS, which brings security advantages. And that's without even considering the electricity savings that could be had by building a system with a modern 80plus power supply.

Just doing a basic pricing on the cheapest system I can build on Newegg, try:
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138326 ($60 - cpu/motherboard/vga, via c7-d 1.8ghz dual core, mini itx)
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811154061 ($40 - case, mini itx/atx, with 240W power supply)
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820313102 ($20 - memory 2x2GB DDR3)
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152181 ($80 - hard drive, 500GB)

Total cost, $200. And half of that is the hard drive, so if you're willing to salvage the old hard drive and throw in an IDE to SATA conversion kit, you can put it together for about $120. And that's a computer that will run Windows 7 (I've run Win7 x32 on a Via c7 1.5GHz system with 2GB of RAM, and it performed relatively well). Linux would fly on it. It'll still wipe the floor with a 10+-year old Windows 2000 system in performance, and it'll use a fraction of the electricity, possibly low enough to cover the initial $120 outlay within a few months (and certainly within a year). And you don't need an optical drive, because Windows 7 and Linux can both be installed from USB. (even if you did want an optical drive, it only adds $20 to the equation).

So no. It is luddism to refuse to upgrade it. Either that, or a false sense of economy.

err.. This SATA controller. And woops on the lack of closing anchor on the OI paragraph.

I used to run Ubuntu Server with with one mdadm RAID5 array and one ZFS array using ZFS Native pool in RAIDZ1 as my file server. But I started running out of space in the RAID5 array, and was having massive problems with the ZFS pool under high IO (complete system lockups, deadlocks while flushing the write cache which killed SMB and NFS); 5Kb/sec writes and at most 5MB/sec reads after an initial 5-60 second _normal_ performance period.

I moved to OpenIndiana because I really like the long term and extensible benefits that ZFS offers, and the problems I was having seemed to only be happening to Linux users.

ZFS's built in, block-level data de-duplication means significant savings on episodic content. I'm currently running at 4% de-duplicated data. While 4% savings may not sound like much, I've got 4.5TB of TV shows that I'm storing in x264, and that yields a savings of around 100GB. I know that until recently, storage was dirt cheap, but even still, 100GB is nothing to scoff at. I've debated enabling the built-in compression, but I don't think I want to take the resource hit as my wife has recently started streaming things to her laptop while myself or our roommate are watching things on our respective computers.

Additionally, the ease of expanding and repairing my ZFS pool has made replacing hardware less time consuming, and has significantly lowered the performance hit while repairing the 'array'. Replacing a hard drive was dead simple with ZFS, and not nearly as nerve racking as the times I had to do so with my MDADM array. Additionally, I was still able to pull ~30MB/sec off the drives over SMB shares while the array was rebuilding. Writes also were similar over the network. Raw internal performance saw a significant hit, but moving things between ZFS file systems isn't something that needs to be done while rebuilding; using the media content is for my household.

Everything is running over Gigabit on cat5e with one Linksys 610N running DDWRT acting as a gigabit switch in my 'server room' (an uninsulated sunroom that's too hot to use in the summer and too cold to use in the winter), one crappy D-Link 5 port Gb switch , one Linksys e4200 acting as an AP and main switch, and an old Linksys WRT54GL running DD-WRT as my router and firewall. Recabling to Cat6 is extra expense for no practical gain. You're going to need it when you upgrade to 10GigE, but that's a few years away. By the time you start using 10GigE, Cat6 will be as cheap as 5E is now, and you still may not even see significant need to move to it.

Hardware wise, I'm running a system based on this motherboard, with 8GB RAM, this NIC, and this SATA controller, with a 80+Platinum certified power supply that I can't find a link to right now.

Solaris is installed on a Intel 320 80GB SSD, with 8GB dedicated as log space for my ZFS pool, and 40GB dedicated for cache space. I have one ZFS pool made up of two RAIDZ1 arrays. The first array is made up of 4 2TB WD Caviar Black (WD2001FASS) drives, and is attached to the SATA ports on my motherboard. The second array is made of 4 1TB WD Green drives attached to the LSI card.

Internal file moves average out at around 250MB sec for anything under 2GB, 800MB/sec for files larger than between 2GB and 7GB, and about 400MB/sec for anything over 7GB. Network writes are about 80MB/sec between servers, and about 40 max from elsewhere. which I attribute to the D-Link. Reads are also around 80MB/sec. I've been able to run 4 simultaneous 1080P streams without anyone complaining about stuttering, or excessive buffering at the start.

The system idles at around 40Watts, and under load pulls about 100. These numbers may be way off, because I honestly have no idea about how electricity

I used to run Ubuntu Server with with one mdadm RAID5 array and one ZFS array using ZFS Native pool in RAIDZ1 as my file server. But I started running out of space in the RAID5 array, and was having massive problems with the ZFS pool under high IO (complete system lockups, deadlocks while flushing the write cache which killed SMB and NFS); 5Kb/sec writes and at most 5MB/sec reads after an initial 5-60 second _normal_ performance period.

I moved to OpenIndiana because I really like the long term and extensible benefits that ZFS offers, and the problems I was having seemed to only be happening to Linux users.

ZFS's built in, block-level data de-duplication means significant savings on episodic content. I'm currently running at 4% de-duplicated data. While 4% savings may not sound like much, I've got 4.5TB of TV shows that I'm storing in x264, and that yields a savings of around 100GB. I know that until recently, storage was dirt cheap, but even still, 100GB is nothing to scoff at. I've debated enabling the built-in compression, but I don't think I want to take the resource hit as my wife has recently started streaming things to her laptop while myself or our roommate are watching things on our respective computers.

Additionally, the ease of expanding and repairing my ZFS pool has made replacing hardware less time consuming, and has significantly lowered the performance hit while repairing the 'array'. Replacing a hard drive was dead simple with ZFS, and not nearly as nerve racking as the times I had to do so with my MDADM array. Additionally, I was still able to pull ~30MB/sec off the drives over SMB shares while the array was rebuilding. Writes also were similar over the network. Raw internal performance saw a significant hit, but moving things between ZFS file systems isn't something that needs to be done while rebuilding; using the media content is for my household.

Everything is running over Gigabit on cat5e with one Linksys 610N running DDWRT acting as a gigabit switch in my 'server room' (an uninsulated sunroom that's too hot to use in the summer and too cold to use in the winter), one crappy D-Link 5 port Gb switch , one Linksys e4200 acting as an AP and main switch, and an old Linksys WRT54GL running DD-WRT as my router and firewall. Recabling to Cat6 is extra expense for no practical gain. You're going to need it when you upgrade to 10GigE, but that's a few years away. By the time you start using 10GigE, Cat6 will be as cheap as 5E is now, and you still may not even see significant need to move to it.

Hardware wise, I'm running a system based on this motherboard, with 8GB RAM, this NIC, and this SATA controller, with a 80+Platinum certified power supply that I can't find a link to right now.

Solaris is installed on a Intel 320 80GB SSD, with 8GB dedicated as log space for my ZFS pool, and 40GB dedicated for cache space. I have one ZFS pool made up of two RAIDZ1 arrays. The first array is made up of 4 2TB WD Caviar Black (WD2001FASS) drives, and is attached to the SATA ports on my motherboard. The second array is made of 4 1TB WD Green drives attached to the LSI card.

Internal file moves average out at around 250MB sec for anything under 2GB, 800MB/sec for files larger than between 2GB and 7GB, and about 400MB/sec for anything over 7GB. Network writes are about 80MB/sec between servers, and about 40 max from elsewhere. which I attribute to the D-Link. Reads are also around 80MB/sec. I've been able to run 4 simultaneous 1080P streams without anyone complaining about stuttering, or excessive buffering at the start.

The system idles at around 40Watts, and under load pulls about 100. These numbers may be way off, because I honestly have no idea about how electricity

4 ports: Gigabyte GA-D525TUD, Atom 525, CAD$94.99
6 ports: ASUS E35M1-I, Fusion E-350, CAD$129.99

4 ports: Gigabyte GA-D525TUD, Atom 525, CAD$94.99
6 ports: ASUS E35M1-I, Fusion E-350, CAD$129.99

Welcome to 2011:

The cheapest 2GB DDR3/1333MHz stick on Newegg!

Then use the Canadian Newegg site or NCIX.

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

Newegg.ca category

Is there any store out there that still allow for game returns? I'm being sarcastic here; I really want to know.

Steam doesn't offer refunds.
Nor does newegg offer refunds on games.
None of the Brick and Mortar stores in my city does it either.

If there are still stores out there that allows for game refunds, how do they deal with the "Buy, copy cdkey, get refund" crowd?

What, no mention of the Motorola F3? It made the biggest positive change for a mobile devices in the past 10 years. Namely, it dropped features - all of them, except for making calls. Give me a phone with a decent battery life and slim-enough to fit in a shirt pocket, I can bring my own damn camera. I can even bring a netbook if I feel withdraw symptoms from lack of youtube videos, I'm a man after all, I was made to haul stuff around. Get off my lawn!

Well, others make similar things, too...

RS-232 may not be built into the motherboard, but converter cables and even addon cards are still readily available.

My college course does a fair lot of work with embedded procs (PICs and SST's 8052 derivatives) and both solutions generally work quite well.

RS-232 may not be built into the motherboard, but converter cables and even addon cards are still readily available.

My college course does a fair lot of work with embedded procs (PICs and SST's 8052 derivatives) and both solutions generally work quite well.