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My MSI Wind (U 100, h4ckint*sh :-O!) use a standard SATAii 2.5" drive.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148371 - with that 500GB Seagate drive being all of $90, the future is now.

When I need to run PC apps, XP does everything I need with the least overhead.

As long as you don't need more than 4GB of addressing space...

XP : now in 64-bit flavor (Newegg link as they appear to be willing to still sell it, unlike Microsoft).

Surely someone is going to point out the comparison to the original magic wand? I think this might prevent Micro$oft's patent as it came out in the 1970s??

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16896630001

Put your source in a distributed version control system like Git. That way every checkout contains a full history automagically as a side effect. A checkout from a centralized system like CVS or SVN is nice, but only gives you a backup of the latest version.

A friend of mine argues that wikis should all use a version control backend. That way you can checkout the wiki and work on it when offline. If you implemented such a system then you could just have your users checkout the whole wiki + history and off they go. And you get your data backup for free.

If you have a huge wiki (say wikipedia) then you've got to come up with a different data backup plan, but if you're that big then you probably have someone on staff who's paid to deal with such sysadmin issues.

Okay, so that deals with the big chunks of data. But then you have users, accounts, email addresses, etc. Generally speaking you don't want to make all that data public. So you get a 1 TB external hdd from for under $100. Put it in a canvas sack and hang it on your wall. Maybe get 2 and rotate them each week.

In contrast to BPL, powerline ethernet is doing quite well and has some nice products (I'd suggest it to anyone over wireless in a home any day - much faster and better range).

One big problem with BPL vs powerline ethernet has been distance as well, and this is something that everyone trying to sell BPL doesn't have a reasonable solution for.

These are the ones I've been using and having nothing but good luck with. For me they pass the crucial "survive my boys who can kill a Sherman tank with a toothbrush" test, which is pretty damned good. They are cheap, have survived my boys rough abuse, and just keep on going. The lanyard hole at the end was big enough I could actually put a big cloth lanyard that my college ID used to hang from, so I don't have to deal with those silly little lanyard ties coming undone.

How the speed is I haven't a clue as I'm usually moving big files, but the few times I've had to write a bunch of little files it's worked great. I also keep my portable Firefox and PC repair toolkit on it so I can say for running apps it is pretty good.

64gb sticks exist,

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220370

  and external 128gb SSD with USB 2.0 connectors work also

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820208464

64gb sticks exist,

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220370

  and external 128gb SSD with USB 2.0 connectors work also

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820208464

I just use one of these badboys. It's great. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233060 disclaimer: I don't work for newegg or corsair. I just like the drive.

A 4GB one and an 8GB OCZ one.

see this post

I saw it. It was the first post, afterall. Here's the two drives that they gave me:

Intel 4GB Retractable Keychain Drive and OCZ ATV 8GB Flash Drive. Judging by the responses I'll probably scrap the OCZ one and use the Intel one (after I stress test it of course).

A 4GB one and an 8GB OCZ one.

see this post

I saw it. It was the first post, afterall. Here's the two drives that they gave me:

Intel 4GB Retractable Keychain Drive and OCZ ATV 8GB Flash Drive. Judging by the responses I'll probably scrap the OCZ one and use the Intel one (after I stress test it of course).

If you plan on getting more than one, try to get all the same model. It is really convenient to not have to hunt for a specific power cord (or even a specific USB cord) if they all use the same cables.

Or go for the units that have built in PSUs and take a standard PC power cord.

Rosewill RX82-U (JBOD)

BYTECC ME-835SU-SL

If you plan on getting more than one, try to get all the same model. It is really convenient to not have to hunt for a specific power cord (or even a specific USB cord) if they all use the same cables.

Or go for the units that have built in PSUs and take a standard PC power cord.

Rosewill RX82-U (JBOD)

BYTECC ME-835SU-SL

The NexStar appears to have bad reviews on newegg...

This one is better.

the problem with most of these external boxes is they have size limits, and even though you may plug in a drive and appear to be able to read and write it it doesn't work for long reliably

to paraphrase "know your limits"

I would really like one of these that mounts into the pc box

If power consumption doesn't matter to you, the AMD X2 7750 + 780G + 400w PSU is a much better performer.

Sure, if the size, silence and low power consumption are not important to you then you should not even consider a mini-ITX based system.

Replace the 95W CPU with a 35W Conroe-L CPU and the micro-ATX motherboard with a mini-ITX LGA775 GeForce 9300 motherboard, and you've got something that's the same size and much closer in noise/power (for desktop users), but should blow away the Atom in gaming.

OTOH, I assume most people don't have serious gaming in mind when they build a mini-ITX desktop. For just HTPC applications (including Blu-ray playback), the Atom looks like it does just fine.

Get one of these
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856167032

Get a couple 1.5 TB drives and a CF card to run the OS from.

Get an adaptor/rails to mount the second HD in the CD space and you're set.

The OS will put the two HD to sleep and the box by itself only uses a "couple" watts of power.

Small, fast, cheap ... no need to only pick two.

I've been waiting for the ION, however it always seemed like it was a warmed over P-Pro or P3. ZOTAC GF9300-D-E LGA 775 NVIDIA GeForce 9300 HDMI Mini ITX Intel Motherboard - Retail ~$139 Mini-ITX Core2 capable, Quad also Good enough IGP for surfing and average gaming, BUT IT HAS x16 PCIe slot! Throw in one of ATI's new 4770(?) that beats the 4830 with less power for $90, and I think that'll work as a HTPC just fine. $139 at NewEgg. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813500022

Buy one of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817121172
Buy one of these for each of your drives:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817121175
Store the drives in a secure place between backups.

Buy one of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817121172
Buy one of these for each of your drives:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817121175
Store the drives in a secure place between backups.

When it comes to computer hardware, it is all a matter of rolling the dice. Some hardware will fail under the most ideal conditions, while other hardware will survive years upon years of gross negligence under unbearably hot and humid conditions. You, as the user, only have so much say in the matter. Srsly though, if you need an inexpensive interim solution, just get yourself some hard drive enclosures.

I keep seeing new boards like this come out, hoping one will have all the features I want for an ideal NAS (network attached storage) build. Right now, there is always some trade-off for what I want. Show me the board that has...

• Support for ECC RAM. AFAIK, all modern AMD CPUs all support ECC RAM. Seems like AMD should be able to make something that competes with the Atom on the low-wattage side of things. A full-blown 4850e or even Sempron is overkill.
• At least six SATA ports. Eight to 10 would be perfect. Modern Intel (ICH10) and AMD (SB700) chipsets seem to max out at six SATA ports. And Intel likes to pair the Atom with even older chipsets (ICH7 I think) that support at most four SATA ports.
• A PCIe x16 slot. Not necessary if and only if the motherboard has everything needed integrated. This requirement is really just a stop-gap, assuming the board itself will lack some crucial feature. Or for providing for unforseen future expansion.
• A built-in compact flash slot. My understanding is that PATA and CF are closely related (one is a subset of the other maybe?)... in this day and age, I would imagine PATA controllers are dirt cheap. But the idea is to use CF as the system drive, i.e. the place to hold the OS and config files. (You could also use USB + thumb drive, so as a compromise I'd settle for an on-board USB socket into which a thumb drive can be directly plugged.)
• At least one Gigabit LAN port, preferably a high quality controller like Intel makes. Two Gigabit ports for bonding would be ideal.
• Super-low power CPU. The load on this machine will be virtually all I/O. Intel Atom, AMD Geode, or even ARM should suffice.
• Chipset with sufficient IO muscle and integrated video without the high power consumption. The chipset Intel is supplying with the Atom is awful from a power consumption perspective (actually, none of Intel's chipsets are particularly low-power). AMD's 740G and 780G look decent, but still have way over-powered video. Super old school, VGA only video is sufficient. I'd even be happy with serial console only.

One board comes close: the VIA NAS 7800, but it doesn't appear to be available to the general public. And I don't see anything about supporting ECC memory. For no reason other than hearsay, I'm not so sure I'd trust important data to a Via chipset.

The next best, IMO (and I actually have one of these), is the Gigabyte GA-MA74GM-S2. Check out SilentPCReview's writeup on this board. Only problem: I'm not sure if it supports ECC or not (AMD CPUs do, but I've heard it still requires the motherboard vendor to enable it). One annoying problem is that the PCIe x16 slot is for video only---you can't put a SATA controller card, extra NIC or anything else useful to a NAS in there. Still, while it's a very low-power board when paired with the right CPU, it's still overkill for a NAS. In general, I think the power draw for a NAS (excluding the hard drives) should be under 15 Watts.

The Point of View Ion/Atom board linked above looks promising. But, as far as I can see, no compact flash, and probably no ECC memory support.

The NexStar appears to have bad reviews on newegg...

This one is better.

Blind adoration won't get you anywhere.

By the way, I don't even own a mac any more, I build my own PC and pirate windows on it like most people I know. I'm just ticked off at how much getting an actually legit copy of windows can cost. Spending $287 on a copy of vista that I can transfer to my next PC is about 50% of what I spend on hardware.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116473

I use one of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811998021 in a crapbox (and bought a few extra trays). The nice feature this one has is a power switch; I simply leave it off most of the time, but when I want to do a backup I turn it on (BEFORE powering on). This way I don't have to worry about removing the drive all the time (though I should get better about that, and I will once I get a media safe).

That is for an XP Pro OEM license, which cannot be transferred. A leopard license can be installed on any mac you want.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16837116195

XP Pro retail license: $264.99.

Comparing what the license costs on a new system is pointless, because the price of your copy of OS X is rolled in with the hardware just like when you buy a prebuilt PC.

You could make the point that you *can* get an OEM copy of XP and run it on whatever you want, but then you are paying $120 to be no more legal than if you just pirated the software to begin with.

I have one of these:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812161002 ...works very well for a number of disk interfaces. Good luck.

If you'd just like to store your data off the PC, and you need "unlimited" storage, get a sata hot-swap mobile rack, a bunch of drives and presto!

Specifically, this is what I use.

Get one of these - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817994057 and install it. Its' hot swap, and tray-less, so it treats the sata drives like cartridges. It's about $25.

Find out if your motherboard supports sata hot swap - if not, you'll need one of sate card that can do hotplug, try this - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816132003. It works and it's about $25 as well.

Then determine your storage needs- 1TB drives can be had for as low as $75, but that's for relatively cheap drives. The better ones are about $100. 1.5TB drives are available for $130. The 2 TB still command a premium price at $280.

I'd recommend the 1.5's.

Buy a few of them, just like you would buy tape cartridges. Geek tip- if you buy several(4-5) drives at once from Newegg, they ship them in a styrofoam shipping thing, that has slots for 3.5" drives and works wonderfully as shelf container. You keep the anti-static bags the drives are shipped in, and put them on the drives before stowing them in the styrofoam form.

There, you now have the equivalent of a tape drive and cartridges, for all of $50 for the "drive" and cartridges at the price point you want. Unlike cheap tape, you get sata speeds, no vendor lock-in, and your data on a medium that is universal.

All that being said, you have do your backups as if the drives were tape cartridges- that implies a cartridge (drive) rotation system, data stored redundantly on multiple cartridges, regular backups and verification, etc. It won't do you much good if you don't follow the proper backup steps. Here's a guide to doing it properly- http://www.structuredsolutions.net/whitepapers/Tape%20Backup%20Procedure.htm

It is a nice piece of kit, however. It's up to you to use it properly.

If you'd just like to store your data off the PC, and you need "unlimited" storage, get a sata hot-swap mobile rack, a bunch of drives and presto!

Specifically, this is what I use.

Get one of these - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817994057 and install it. Its' hot swap, and tray-less, so it treats the sata drives like cartridges. It's about $25.

Find out if your motherboard supports sata hot swap - if not, you'll need one of sate card that can do hotplug, try this - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816132003. It works and it's about $25 as well.

Then determine your storage needs- 1TB drives can be had for as low as $75, but that's for relatively cheap drives. The better ones are about $100. 1.5TB drives are available for $130. The 2 TB still command a premium price at $280.

I'd recommend the 1.5's.

Buy a few of them, just like you would buy tape cartridges. Geek tip- if you buy several(4-5) drives at once from Newegg, they ship them in a styrofoam shipping thing, that has slots for 3.5" drives and works wonderfully as shelf container. You keep the anti-static bags the drives are shipped in, and put them on the drives before stowing them in the styrofoam form.

There, you now have the equivalent of a tape drive and cartridges, for all of $50 for the "drive" and cartridges at the price point you want. Unlike cheap tape, you get sata speeds, no vendor lock-in, and your data on a medium that is universal.

All that being said, you have do your backups as if the drives were tape cartridges- that implies a cartridge (drive) rotation system, data stored redundantly on multiple cartridges, regular backups and verification, etc. It won't do you much good if you don't follow the proper backup steps. Here's a guide to doing it properly- http://www.structuredsolutions.net/whitepapers/Tape%20Backup%20Procedure.htm

It is a nice piece of kit, however. It's up to you to use it properly.

we used to use kingwin and you can get trays for them for 14.99 a pop, but the fan gets noisy after a while, little plastic bits break off. I'm not super thrilled with the drive bays, which is why I didn't try to hard to find the ones I used. A trayless triple bay is really nice, but it takes up to 5.25" bays in the case. (I currently can't find the triple bays on cdw that we used).

we used to use kingwin and you can get trays for them for 14.99 a pop, but the fan gets noisy after a while, little plastic bits break off. I'm not super thrilled with the drive bays, which is why I didn't try to hard to find the ones I used. A trayless triple bay is really nice, but it takes up to 5.25" bays in the case. (I currently can't find the triple bays on cdw that we used).

If you're looking for more, go with sata sleds (again not the brand I used, but similar), you can screw your hard drives into those and if your sata controller supports it, hot swap the drives. You can also buy extra sleds so that you can swap out your drives without having to handle the internal drive.

Forget sleds, go trayless. There are a variety of trayless sata racks available from a couple of different manufactureres, including multi-disk designs. I have them in all of my systems, they work great in windows and linux.

I have two home-built servers: one is an always-on, live NAS; the other is a backup server that I power on only to do backups (or restores if it comes to that). First rule I go by: always use the slower 5400 RPM drives, such as the Western Digital "Green" or the Samsung EcoGreen. For both media streaming and backup purposes, these hard drives are still plenty fast. The biggest benefit, though, is that they use less energy (particularly important if your system is always on), and don't get as hot, making cooling much easier (which usually also translates to quieter).

My live server is currently 4 x 1TB drives in RAID-5, using Linux software RAID. (I know RAID is no substitute for backup, but I still consider it "quasi" backup. But I also have real backup.) This system is fairly un-interesting: it's your typical DIY NAS.

The backup server is housed in the Norco RPC-4020. For $300, you get 24 SATA hot-swap bays. That price is hard to beat. I haven't filled this case up with drives yet, and I have plenty of physical space going forward. The hardware is just some unused spare components I had lying around. Extra SATA ports are provided by the Supermicro AOC-SAT2-MV8 (which works fine in "regular" 32-bit PCI slots).

This, IMO, is a pretty simple set up. I just power up the backup server whenever I need it, and turn it off when I'm done. I don't care about performance, since backups are always run as a batch job (typically over night).

Before I bought that Norco case, I was just using individual drives with a Thermaltake BlacX SATA-to-USB hard drive docking station. This is cheaper, just slightly less convenient. I did order 50 "zip lock"-style anti-static bags for $13. I ordered them from staticbags.com ("GRC Enterprises" was listed on my invoice). After I copied data to the drive and put it in an anti-static bag, I just added it to the stack of drives I had on my bookshelf. The Norco case definitely looks better! :)

All in all, I consider my system fairly robust. It's only semi-secure against my stupidity, and since its all housed in the apartment, does not safeguard against fire. But since the media rips are just copies of DVDs I actually own, my insurance policy becomes the ultimate backup.

I have two home-built servers: one is an always-on, live NAS; the other is a backup server that I power on only to do backups (or restores if it comes to that). First rule I go by: always use the slower 5400 RPM drives, such as the Western Digital "Green" or the Samsung EcoGreen. For both media streaming and backup purposes, these hard drives are still plenty fast. The biggest benefit, though, is that they use less energy (particularly important if your system is always on), and don't get as hot, making cooling much easier (which usually also translates to quieter).

My live server is currently 4 x 1TB drives in RAID-5, using Linux software RAID. (I know RAID is no substitute for backup, but I still consider it "quasi" backup. But I also have real backup.) This system is fairly un-interesting: it's your typical DIY NAS.

The backup server is housed in the Norco RPC-4020. For $300, you get 24 SATA hot-swap bays. That price is hard to beat. I haven't filled this case up with drives yet, and I have plenty of physical space going forward. The hardware is just some unused spare components I had lying around. Extra SATA ports are provided by the Supermicro AOC-SAT2-MV8 (which works fine in "regular" 32-bit PCI slots).

This, IMO, is a pretty simple set up. I just power up the backup server whenever I need it, and turn it off when I'm done. I don't care about performance, since backups are always run as a batch job (typically over night).

Before I bought that Norco case, I was just using individual drives with a Thermaltake BlacX SATA-to-USB hard drive docking station. This is cheaper, just slightly less convenient. I did order 50 "zip lock"-style anti-static bags for $13. I ordered them from staticbags.com ("GRC Enterprises" was listed on my invoice). After I copied data to the drive and put it in an anti-static bag, I just added it to the stack of drives I had on my bookshelf. The Norco case definitely looks better! :)

All in all, I consider my system fairly robust. It's only semi-secure against my stupidity, and since its all housed in the apartment, does not safeguard against fire. But since the media rips are just copies of DVDs I actually own, my insurance policy becomes the ultimate backup.

I have two home-built servers: one is an always-on, live NAS; the other is a backup server that I power on only to do backups (or restores if it comes to that). First rule I go by: always use the slower 5400 RPM drives, such as the Western Digital "Green" or the Samsung EcoGreen. For both media streaming and backup purposes, these hard drives are still plenty fast. The biggest benefit, though, is that they use less energy (particularly important if your system is always on), and don't get as hot, making cooling much easier (which usually also translates to quieter).

My live server is currently 4 x 1TB drives in RAID-5, using Linux software RAID. (I know RAID is no substitute for backup, but I still consider it "quasi" backup. But I also have real backup.) This system is fairly un-interesting: it's your typical DIY NAS.

The backup server is housed in the Norco RPC-4020. For $300, you get 24 SATA hot-swap bays. That price is hard to beat. I haven't filled this case up with drives yet, and I have plenty of physical space going forward. The hardware is just some unused spare components I had lying around. Extra SATA ports are provided by the Supermicro AOC-SAT2-MV8 (which works fine in "regular" 32-bit PCI slots).

This, IMO, is a pretty simple set up. I just power up the backup server whenever I need it, and turn it off when I'm done. I don't care about performance, since backups are always run as a batch job (typically over night).

Before I bought that Norco case, I was just using individual drives with a Thermaltake BlacX SATA-to-USB hard drive docking station. This is cheaper, just slightly less convenient. I did order 50 "zip lock"-style anti-static bags for $13. I ordered them from staticbags.com ("GRC Enterprises" was listed on my invoice). After I copied data to the drive and put it in an anti-static bag, I just added it to the stack of drives I had on my bookshelf. The Norco case definitely looks better! :)

All in all, I consider my system fairly robust. It's only semi-secure against my stupidity, and since its all housed in the apartment, does not safeguard against fire. But since the media rips are just copies of DVDs I actually own, my insurance policy becomes the ultimate backup.

I have two home-built servers: one is an always-on, live NAS; the other is a backup server that I power on only to do backups (or restores if it comes to that). First rule I go by: always use the slower 5400 RPM drives, such as the Western Digital "Green" or the Samsung EcoGreen. For both media streaming and backup purposes, these hard drives are still plenty fast. The biggest benefit, though, is that they use less energy (particularly important if your system is always on), and don't get as hot, making cooling much easier (which usually also translates to quieter).

My live server is currently 4 x 1TB drives in RAID-5, using Linux software RAID. (I know RAID is no substitute for backup, but I still consider it "quasi" backup. But I also have real backup.) This system is fairly un-interesting: it's your typical DIY NAS.

The backup server is housed in the Norco RPC-4020. For $300, you get 24 SATA hot-swap bays. That price is hard to beat. I haven't filled this case up with drives yet, and I have plenty of physical space going forward. The hardware is just some unused spare components I had lying around. Extra SATA ports are provided by the Supermicro AOC-SAT2-MV8 (which works fine in "regular" 32-bit PCI slots).

This, IMO, is a pretty simple set up. I just power up the backup server whenever I need it, and turn it off when I'm done. I don't care about performance, since backups are always run as a batch job (typically over night).

Before I bought that Norco case, I was just using individual drives with a Thermaltake BlacX SATA-to-USB hard drive docking station. This is cheaper, just slightly less convenient. I did order 50 "zip lock"-style anti-static bags for $13. I ordered them from staticbags.com ("GRC Enterprises" was listed on my invoice). After I copied data to the drive and put it in an anti-static bag, I just added it to the stack of drives I had on my bookshelf. The Norco case definitely looks better! :)

All in all, I consider my system fairly robust. It's only semi-secure against my stupidity, and since its all housed in the apartment, does not safeguard against fire. But since the media rips are just copies of DVDs I actually own, my insurance policy becomes the ultimate backup.

I have two home-built servers: one is an always-on, live NAS; the other is a backup server that I power on only to do backups (or restores if it comes to that). First rule I go by: always use the slower 5400 RPM drives, such as the Western Digital "Green" or the Samsung EcoGreen. For both media streaming and backup purposes, these hard drives are still plenty fast. The biggest benefit, though, is that they use less energy (particularly important if your system is always on), and don't get as hot, making cooling much easier (which usually also translates to quieter).

My live server is currently 4 x 1TB drives in RAID-5, using Linux software RAID. (I know RAID is no substitute for backup, but I still consider it "quasi" backup. But I also have real backup.) This system is fairly un-interesting: it's your typical DIY NAS.

The backup server is housed in the Norco RPC-4020. For $300, you get 24 SATA hot-swap bays. That price is hard to beat. I haven't filled this case up with drives yet, and I have plenty of physical space going forward. The hardware is just some unused spare components I had lying around. Extra SATA ports are provided by the Supermicro AOC-SAT2-MV8 (which works fine in "regular" 32-bit PCI slots).

This, IMO, is a pretty simple set up. I just power up the backup server whenever I need it, and turn it off when I'm done. I don't care about performance, since backups are always run as a batch job (typically over night).

Before I bought that Norco case, I was just using individual drives with a Thermaltake BlacX SATA-to-USB hard drive docking station. This is cheaper, just slightly less convenient. I did order 50 "zip lock"-style anti-static bags for $13. I ordered them from staticbags.com ("GRC Enterprises" was listed on my invoice). After I copied data to the drive and put it in an anti-static bag, I just added it to the stack of drives I had on my bookshelf. The Norco case definitely looks better! :)

All in all, I consider my system fairly robust. It's only semi-secure against my stupidity, and since its all housed in the apartment, does not safeguard against fire. But since the media rips are just copies of DVDs I actually own, my insurance policy becomes the ultimate backup.

There are various usb widgets that provide the same electronics without the 'cool' vertical plug in stuff:

http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=353&name=Adapters-Gender-Changers

Many of them also attach to both SATA and PATA drives (which it seems might be trickier for a bay style device).

I just recently addressed this problem myself. My solution, although a little pricey compared to just stuffing an old box with hard drives, was to get one of these guys and put 5 1 TB drives into it. I have it running in a software RAID5, backing up everything from my server (media, subversion repository, etc) via a nightly cron job rsyncing between the server disks and the enclosure. So far it's been working like a charm.

Newegg has Hard Drive Protectors http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817990010

I've just stored drives in anti-static bags for some of my test systems when I upgrade drives and want to keep the old drives for messing around with. Haven't run into any problems.

Barebones notebooks (also called Whitebooks) are relatively easy to find online; most from OCZ and MSI. "Building" these systems is no more complicated than upgrading components of a regular notebook, or installing the operating system. Actually, it's a little easier considering you don't have to remove anything.

The main problem is that the prices can be pretty high. Most include the graphics, but processors, memory, storage, and OS are all left to the user.

Interestingly, the OCZ options available at Newegg range from a 10.1" netbook to a 17" notebook with a Blu-Ray combo drive.

Actually, my SSD (firmware 1.10) supports TRIM and I've used it with good results. OCZ is one of the two companies mentioned that is working on a TRIM solution, but you should also know, that Windows 7 definitely supports TRIM. Google is your friend.

Ok, but that either means one of many things:

A) You pirated your AV software, which, being illegal, should include the full retail price when figuring out total cost of ownership

B) You have a free AV, which, might not be protecting you enough (depending on which AV you have) And either way, you aren't necessarily 100% protected without it being scanned often

You need better information. There's actually a good number of free AV's out there now that do just as well as any you can buy. AVG for example is one of the best in the business. It's also one of very few that offers any kind of protection for all the fake antivirus malware that's been popping up a lot recently. I myself don't use any AV at all because I don't need one. Everyone that uses the network my PC is on is capable of avoiding malware.

The hardware is not cheaper. Find me a notebook with a built in multi-touch trackpad, decent resolution webcam, nice-ish keyboard, about 2 gigs of DDR3 RAM, Intel Dual Core CPU, GeForce 9400M or equivalent graphics and you will get a system close to $1300, the price of a Macbook with the same specs. Sure, one could argue that you don't need all the hardware, but the hardware itself isn't that expensive compared to the competition.

You may be right about the TCO for a Mac being lower (depending on the circumstances) but you're not right about the hardware being cheaper. Honestly, I can't believe anyone is even still trying to use this argument any more. Here, for example, is an HP with the same screen size that exceeds the capabilities of the $1300 Macbook in almost all aspects, and it sells for a whopping $900. Oh, and it has a mail-in rebate on it right now so you could actually get some money back on it too. But hey, the Macbook is only about 50% more expensive, so that's not a big deal right? Oh wait, I get it. The 50% price hike is for the multi-touch touchpad right? That's gotta be worth at least $450.

While Windows does have more software choices, a Mac is going to be able to do a whole lot more out of the box. And third party software is about the same price, but first party isn't. You can get iWork for about $50, while Office costs much more.

Sure. But then, all of that "out of the box" capability for the Mac is just a few free downloads away for the Windows PC.

That being said, Macs are great machines. They definitely have their place. And depending on the user, it certainly can have a lower total cost of ownership. For users who don't have the time or desire to learn how to fix their own software problems, the Mac system is definitely the way to go. Anyone who works at a PC repair shop or does phone support at any place that handles both PCs and Macs can tell you that without a doubt the Mac will have far fewer software problems. It's to be expected, because you're a lot more limited on what software you can run on it. (And particularly what free programs you can download online and run on it.) But for a Windows-savvy user who knows how to repair or avoid the majority of potential software problems and has the time to do it, the total cost of ownership is significantly lower with the Windows PC. For myself, I would not currently even remotely consider buying a Mac because it's just not worth it for me. For my sister though, the Macbook is perfect. It does exactly what she needs and she never has trouble with it.

"Macs are overpriced for the components they have " this has been shown to not be true many times.

Citation please? From my experience in looking at system specs at apple.com and the prices, this is absolutely true.

"e and are almost completely uncustomizable. " most people don't customize there PC.

Note that I said that the average user is fine with their non-customizable parts. It's even-slightly-more-than-casual gamers that do at least a LITTLE customization.

"...but for actual gamers it's not as good. "

no, it's better.

BTW, must hard core gamers don't customize their PC anymore either. It's pretty pointless these days.

I'm not really sure what you're talking about here. I don't know the gamers you hang around, but go to ANY large LAN party and you'll find that the majority of the people there built or at least added parts to their PCs. The people there with some sort of weird Dell XPS are usually made fun of.

"When I can build a Mac from scratch..."

you're becoming a niche user. Very few people want to do that. maybe .001% of all people with a PC want to do that.

Good luck buying equivalent parts for less.

Of, and most importantly. If you were truly and hard core gamers, and you new shit about computers, you would WANT OSX to run games because they will run better do to how it manages memory and devices. You get more performance out of a slower chip.

I was really going to ignore your awful grammar... but that paragraph was just bad. I won't let it stop me from refuting your actual points, but just know that it makes you look silly.

.001% of people? That's 1 in every 100,000 FYI. In the small town I grew up in (which had a population of about 14,000) I knew at least 100 gamers, all of whom built their computers. I'm glad you're capable of spewing random numbers.

Good luck finding equivalent parts for less? Let's do a fun thing here, and look at apple's lowest priced iMac ($1,199). Now I spent 5 minutes composing semi-equivalent parts (some are better), and I have almost halved Apple's price.

Thanks for not knowing what you're talking about. When you buy Apple, you're buying the brand, not really the value.

I feel your pain. It will get much worse before it gets better. Look at the top appointments at US Justice. The content industries are girding for a tough battle and they'll take no prisoners. They intend nothing less than criminal punishments for imaginary offenses.

Thomas Macaulay actually foretold what would happen 150 years ago:

I will only say this, that if the measure before us should pass, and should produce one-tenth part of the evil which it is calculated to produce, and which I fully expect it to produce, there will soon be a remedy, though of a very objectionable kind. Just as the absurd acts which prohibited the sale of game were virtually repealed by the poacher, just as many absurd revenue acts have been virtually repealed by the smuggler, so will this law be virtually repealed by piratical booksellers. At present the holder of copyright has the public feeling on his side. Those who invade copyright are regarded as knaves who take the bread out of the mouths of deserving men. Everybody is well pleased to see them restrained by the law, and compelled to refund their ill-gotten gains. No tradesman of good repute will have anything to do with such disgraceful transactions. Pass this law: and that feeling is at an end. Men very different from the present race of piratical booksellers will soon infringe this intolerable monopoly. Great masses of capital will be constantly employed in the violation of the law. Every art will be employed to evade legal pursuit; and the whole nation will be in the plot. On which side indeed should the public sympathy be when the question is whether some book as popular as Robinson Crusoe, or the Pilgrim's Progress, shall be in every cottage, or whether it shall be confined to the libraries of the rich for the advantage of the great-grandson of a bookseller who, a hundred years before, drove a hard bargain for the copyright with the author when in great distress? Remember too that, when once it ceases to be considered as wrong and discreditable to invade literary property, no person can say where the invasion will stop. The public seldom makes nice distinctions. The wholesome copyright which now exists will share in the disgrace and danger of the new copyright which you are about to create. And you will find that, in attempting to impose unreasonable restraints on the reprinting of the works of the dead, you have, to a great extent, annulled those restraints which now prevent men from pillaging and defrauding the living.

Now ask yourself... how many gigabytes on an iPod? Does your store take the 100packs of CDs and DVDs off the pallet, or they just leave the pallet in the aisle to save labor? What do you have that needs 7.5TB of storage in a consumer grade device? Photos? That's 2 million photos. Home movies? That's a lot of family picnics. He was right. People generally no longer care.

I looked over this list. Apparently part of their problem with Pakistan is that Pakistan authorizes the production of medicine for internal use without their permission. Let's see what the CIA has to say about Pakistan:

Pakistan, an impoverished and underdeveloped country, has suffered from decades of internal political disputes, low levels of foreign investment, and declining exports of manufactures. Faced with untenable budgetary deficits, high inflation, and haemorrhaging foreign exchange reserves, the government agreed to an International Monetary Fund Standby Arrangement in November 2008.

I can't bring myself to care that Pakistan makes medicine for its poor people without permission. To just let them die would be evil. I'm sure a lot of people feel the same way. That they can claim this is some "offense" reveals that they lack even the slightest hint of humanity. And so suddenly nobody cares what happens to them and their precious imaginary property.

But that doesn't help you in the here and now. Sorry.

It doesn't matter that much if the software eats up RAM because you can get 4 gigs of it for $50, and that's without any discount or sales or rebates. A two gig stick costs $20.

$20 can be a lot if you're talking hundreds if not thousands of PCs.

FYI here in Australia, 2GB of RAM recently cost me about $150. Why? For a start its DDR400 which is getting older now, but then most PCs that need more RAM are going to be the older ones, not the new ones that are built for today's OS's.

Even if RAM is cheap, why should someone switch to windows 7 (which may require more RAM) when their current OS works fine as is?

No. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116473

More like $290 then $320 for ultimate. So your 75% figure still stands though. Personally I think the OS should be $50-$100. $50 for the basic version to $100 for the every feature version.

Most here will say software should be free and all we pay for is hardware. To each their own.

In what way is it disingenuous? XP Home and XP Professional are not really all that different, and the version set of XP doesn't necessarily map the same way in Vista. I'd say, at least, Vista Home Premium covers the features of XP Pro, short of remote desktop. Even if you choose the Ultimate version of Vista, it still doesn't come out to $400.

Vista Home Basic Retail is around $180, and the system builder copies go for $100. I believe that you are covered under the system builder license as long as you build the PC yourself. At the very least, the few times I've built a PC I've used the system builder versions (before I had MSDN).

Regardless of the legality of system builder licenses, the cost of Vista is nowhere near $400, and it was dishonest of the original poster who stated this to suggest otherwise.

Vista Home Basic Retail is around $180, and the system builder copies go for $100. I believe that you are covered under the system builder license as long as you build the PC yourself. At the very least, the few times I've built a PC I've used the system builder versions (before I had MSDN).

Regardless of the legality of system builder licenses, the cost of Vista is nowhere near $400, and it was dishonest of the original poster who stated this to suggest otherwise.

You can get Vista for $100 at newegg.