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I know it's a significant difference, which is why I listed the components individually. Obviously a lot of money could be saved by just buying a cheaper graphics card. If I bought an equivalent video card to the Mini (say a Radeon 7000 at $26) I would save $264, bringing the total to $998. I could buy only one hard drive, saving another $80, and still have twice the storage of the largest drive for a Mini. Now we are looking at only an extra $120 (at most, the online Mac store is down right now so I can't compare exact prices). For that extra money you get a computer with a processor that is 3-4 times faster, four times as much RAM as the standard Mini, a faster and larger hard drive, and a much better motherboard (twice as many USB ports, Firewire ports, two gigabit ethernet ports, built-in wireless with external antenna, faster front-side bus, etc.).

I understand that there's a market for the Mini, especially for the space savings. But the main thing that irks me isn't the price. It's the fact that I can't upgrade it without paying Apple to do it for me (unless I want to go ahead and rip the case off, voiding the warranty). We have a Mini at my office and it is dog slow, even for only browsing the web using Firefox (it's a model that was sold when they first came out to be fair). And if you have to do any development on it using Eclipse you are in for a world of hurt. The built-in visual editor tends to crash the program (happens on other Macs I've noticed, not sure if it is Eclipse's fault or the Mac implementation of the JRE) and causes the program to run even more slowly. We would have upgraded the RAM on it by now if it wasn't such a PITA. Instead, we replaced it with a new iMac with a 24" screen for about $2500. The new system runs well but would still get trounced by almost any benchmark vs. the system I built. With a new 24" LCD monitor costing about $530 my system would cost $1792, over $600 cheaper! Even if I bought one of the most expensive 24" LCD monitors at newegg ($810) my system would still be $400 cheaper at $2072. I selected this monitor because it has an equivalent or superior rating for each spec vs. the 24" display of the iMac (1000:1 contrast vs. 700:1, 500 cd/m vs. 400 cd/m brightness, same resolution, same viewing angle, 6ms response time vs. 14ms, better warranty--3yr free vs. 90-day or 3yr for extra money). And just so you know these numbers aren't coming out of my ass, here are my references.

Granted, I did have to use a weekend to setup my system (and I have experience building my own systems, which helps), but it is much more future-proof than a Mini or iMac since it is so much more upgradeable. While the build time should be a factor to be considered, so should the ability to individually replace components over time.

I know it's a significant difference, which is why I listed the components individually. Obviously a lot of money could be saved by just buying a cheaper graphics card. If I bought an equivalent video card to the Mini (say a Radeon 7000 at $26) I would save $264, bringing the total to $998. I could buy only one hard drive, saving another $80, and still have twice the storage of the largest drive for a Mini. Now we are looking at only an extra $120 (at most, the online Mac store is down right now so I can't compare exact prices). For that extra money you get a computer with a processor that is 3-4 times faster, four times as much RAM as the standard Mini, a faster and larger hard drive, and a much better motherboard (twice as many USB ports, Firewire ports, two gigabit ethernet ports, built-in wireless with external antenna, faster front-side bus, etc.).

I understand that there's a market for the Mini, especially for the space savings. But the main thing that irks me isn't the price. It's the fact that I can't upgrade it without paying Apple to do it for me (unless I want to go ahead and rip the case off, voiding the warranty). We have a Mini at my office and it is dog slow, even for only browsing the web using Firefox (it's a model that was sold when they first came out to be fair). And if you have to do any development on it using Eclipse you are in for a world of hurt. The built-in visual editor tends to crash the program (happens on other Macs I've noticed, not sure if it is Eclipse's fault or the Mac implementation of the JRE) and causes the program to run even more slowly. We would have upgraded the RAM on it by now if it wasn't such a PITA. Instead, we replaced it with a new iMac with a 24" screen for about $2500. The new system runs well but would still get trounced by almost any benchmark vs. the system I built. With a new 24" LCD monitor costing about $530 my system would cost $1792, over $600 cheaper! Even if I bought one of the most expensive 24" LCD monitors at newegg ($810) my system would still be $400 cheaper at $2072. I selected this monitor because it has an equivalent or superior rating for each spec vs. the 24" display of the iMac (1000:1 contrast vs. 700:1, 500 cd/m vs. 400 cd/m brightness, same resolution, same viewing angle, 6ms response time vs. 14ms, better warranty--3yr free vs. 90-day or 3yr for extra money). And just so you know these numbers aren't coming out of my ass, here are my references.

Granted, I did have to use a weekend to setup my system (and I have experience building my own systems, which helps), but it is much more future-proof than a Mini or iMac since it is so much more upgradeable. While the build time should be a factor to be considered, so should the ability to individually replace components over time.

if anyone wants to continue looking, i stopped here

Pretty good [cnet.com]. In fact, I'd reverse it and ask if any significant music players don't support it. I certainly wouldn't look at any that didn't.

The best reference would be the official Solaris Hardware Compatibility List (HCL). But here is a piece of advice: the whole family of nVidia nForce chipsets is generally well supported by Solaris: any motherboard based on the nForce 4, nForce 500 (and maybe nForce 600) chipset should work flawlessly with Solaris, that includes probably more than half of the market of entry-level and mid-range motherboards. In my case I wanted a cheap, low-power, GbE-enabled fileserver capable of serving files over NFS at a throughput of 70-80% of the bandwidth of a GbE link. So I bought the most inexpensive nForce 4 mobo I found on newegg, with on-board GbE (even entry-level GbE controllers are easily capable of saturating a GbE link nowadays), and with a socket 754 (so I could use it with a low-power 25W Turion processor).

Regarding the SATA controller to use, I would recommend you either the Marvell 88SXxxxx family (such as the 88SX6081: 8-port, PCI-X, about $100), or the Silicon Image 3124 (4 ports, PCI-X, about $60), or an AHCI compatible controller (such as the built-in SATA controller found in modern Intel chipsets: ICH6, ICH7, etc, but you will need to use recent OpenSolaris builds: "Nevada B56" and up). Solaris supports SATA hotplug for these 3 families of SATA controllers.

I kept the list of what I bought 3 months ago:

If you buy this today, prices would be even lower ! I would feel jealous of you having a setup cheaper than mine :-)

The best reference would be the official Solaris Hardware Compatibility List (HCL). But here is a piece of advice: the whole family of nVidia nForce chipsets is generally well supported by Solaris: any motherboard based on the nForce 4, nForce 500 (and maybe nForce 600) chipset should work flawlessly with Solaris, that includes probably more than half of the market of entry-level and mid-range motherboards. In my case I wanted a cheap, low-power, GbE-enabled fileserver capable of serving files over NFS at a throughput of 70-80% of the bandwidth of a GbE link. So I bought the most inexpensive nForce 4 mobo I found on newegg, with on-board GbE (even entry-level GbE controllers are easily capable of saturating a GbE link nowadays), and with a socket 754 (so I could use it with a low-power 25W Turion processor).

Regarding the SATA controller to use, I would recommend you either the Marvell 88SXxxxx family (such as the 88SX6081: 8-port, PCI-X, about $100), or the Silicon Image 3124 (4 ports, PCI-X, about $60), or an AHCI compatible controller (such as the built-in SATA controller found in modern Intel chipsets: ICH6, ICH7, etc, but you will need to use recent OpenSolaris builds: "Nevada B56" and up). Solaris supports SATA hotplug for these 3 families of SATA controllers.

I kept the list of what I bought 3 months ago:

If you buy this today, prices would be even lower ! I would feel jealous of you having a setup cheaper than mine :-)

The best reference would be the official Solaris Hardware Compatibility List (HCL). But here is a piece of advice: the whole family of nVidia nForce chipsets is generally well supported by Solaris: any motherboard based on the nForce 4, nForce 500 (and maybe nForce 600) chipset should work flawlessly with Solaris, that includes probably more than half of the market of entry-level and mid-range motherboards. In my case I wanted a cheap, low-power, GbE-enabled fileserver capable of serving files over NFS at a throughput of 70-80% of the bandwidth of a GbE link. So I bought the most inexpensive nForce 4 mobo I found on newegg, with on-board GbE (even entry-level GbE controllers are easily capable of saturating a GbE link nowadays), and with a socket 754 (so I could use it with a low-power 25W Turion processor).

Regarding the SATA controller to use, I would recommend you either the Marvell 88SXxxxx family (such as the 88SX6081: 8-port, PCI-X, about $100), or the Silicon Image 3124 (4 ports, PCI-X, about $60), or an AHCI compatible controller (such as the built-in SATA controller found in modern Intel chipsets: ICH6, ICH7, etc, but you will need to use recent OpenSolaris builds: "Nevada B56" and up). Solaris supports SATA hotplug for these 3 families of SATA controllers.

I kept the list of what I bought 3 months ago:

If you buy this today, prices would be even lower ! I would feel jealous of you having a setup cheaper than mine :-)

The best reference would be the official Solaris Hardware Compatibility List (HCL). But here is a piece of advice: the whole family of nVidia nForce chipsets is generally well supported by Solaris: any motherboard based on the nForce 4, nForce 500 (and maybe nForce 600) chipset should work flawlessly with Solaris, that includes probably more than half of the market of entry-level and mid-range motherboards. In my case I wanted a cheap, low-power, GbE-enabled fileserver capable of serving files over NFS at a throughput of 70-80% of the bandwidth of a GbE link. So I bought the most inexpensive nForce 4 mobo I found on newegg, with on-board GbE (even entry-level GbE controllers are easily capable of saturating a GbE link nowadays), and with a socket 754 (so I could use it with a low-power 25W Turion processor).

Regarding the SATA controller to use, I would recommend you either the Marvell 88SXxxxx family (such as the 88SX6081: 8-port, PCI-X, about $100), or the Silicon Image 3124 (4 ports, PCI-X, about $60), or an AHCI compatible controller (such as the built-in SATA controller found in modern Intel chipsets: ICH6, ICH7, etc, but you will need to use recent OpenSolaris builds: "Nevada B56" and up). Solaris supports SATA hotplug for these 3 families of SATA controllers.

I kept the list of what I bought 3 months ago:

If you buy this today, prices would be even lower ! I would feel jealous of you having a setup cheaper than mine :-)

i double checked newegg.com. so yes, ONE 2.66ghz woodcrest xeon is $713.00. soooo... multiply that by two and we have $1426.00 already and that doesn't include the motherboard, FB-DIMM RAM, hard drive, case, cooling, etc. etc. etc. even with just the processors alone it is not a $1500 difference.

so, pray tell, how did you get $1000.43?

To answer both of your questions:

Yes, I did notice that all the Mac Pro's are dual processor (read, two dual core Xeons) *capable*. What you seem to have failed to notice is that they don't all come with dual processors, you jackass.

Also, 2gb of FB-DIMM RAM apparently isn't as expensive as you thought. Here is the best rated set of 1gb FB-DIMM's. $170. Well within what I quoted above.

As I said in a previous message, if you want the parts list I selected (obviously, with updated mainboard/processor), I'll gladly send it along. I admitted the mistake I made when I didn't notice they used a woodcrest processor, and I fixed it (and, obviously, I'm still correct in my pricing or that comment wouldn't be sitting at +4, now would it?).

Now, anything *else* you want to make your self look like more of an idiot over?

It was just my turn, I guess.

I guess it was my turn too since the timing was almost perfect (since I still had the invoice laying around and had just bought the system).

There's no tax so that more than offsets the shipping cost (which was $27). I could have bought a full version of XP professional for the same price but decided to try Vista since I already have XP and wanted to try DirectX 10. Also, I didn't run around, I just browsed a couple of tech review sights, read the reviews on Newegg and then ordered the products. I built the system over the weekend (built components and installed OS on Saturday, installed other programs and tested the programs on Sunday).

My boss just bought a top of the line Mac laptop a month ago from a local Apple store. It now won't turn on. Even though he bought the extended service warranty on it it will take a full week to replace the laptop. They also wanted to charge $50 plus tax to backup his hard drive (which he is unable to do himself since the drive is inaccessible and the computer won't turn on). At least with a computer I build myself I can at least repair individual components myself and not have to pay $50 to backup my software. Even if the computer was a Mini or an iMac I couldn't easily backup the drive if the computer wouldn't turn on (because you need a special tool to take the case off and ruin the warranty if you try).

Thanks, but I'll stick with building my own systems. Also, I'm not aware of any iMac that has the same performance as the system I built. If I were to build a similar system I could buy a cheaper graphics card, processor, buy only one drive, cheaper RAM, etc. As for the monitor I was only comparing to the Mini which doesn't come with one. If I want to compare to an iMac (which is almost completely impossible to upgrade, except for RAM) then I could buy a 20" LCD for $180 after rebate (ViewSonic Optiquest Series Q20WB Black 20").

It should go without saying that if you're going to compare an open-box item from one manufacturer, you should compare an open-box item from the other.

The MAC also has 802.11n. It /does/ have VGA out (via the included adapter). I don't know if you can use VGA, LCD, and DVI on the Asus (though it would be pretty cool if you could) but if you can't, that makes it irrelevant.

A nice bonus I found about the nVidia 7700 is that it has separate LUTs for each output. That means I can display simultaneously with two color profiles, meaning both my displays can be color calibrated simultaneously.

MacBook Pro 15.4"
Processor Intel Core 2 Duo T7400(2.16GHz)
Memory 1GB DDR2
Screen Size 15.4"
Resolution 1440 x 900
ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 128 MB
Hard Drive 120GB 5400 RPM
Optical Drive DVD±R/RW 6x
LAN 10/100/1000Mbps
WLAN 802.11g Wireless LAN
Bluetooth Bluetooth 2.0+EDR
Card slot 1 x ExpressCard/34 slot
USB Two 480-Mbps USB 2.0 ports
FireWire One FireWire 400 port at up to 400 Mbps
Video Port 1 x DVI (VGA output using included DVI to VGA adapter)
Audio Port Combined optical digital input/audio line in (minijack)
Webcam Built-in iSight Camera
Dimension 14.1" x 9.6" x 1.0"
Weight 5.6 lbs.
Currenly $1965 at Newegg

Asus A8JS
Processor Intel Core 2 Duo T7200 2.00G
Memory 1GB DDR2
Hard Drive 120GB 5400 RPM
Optical Drive DVD±R/RW 8x
NVIDIA GeForce Go 7700 512MB (about 25%-40% faster than the x1600, which is underclocked on the Mac)
Screen Size 14"
Resolution 1440 x 900
LAN 10/100/1000Mbps
WLAN 802.11a/b/g Wireless LAN
IRDA Yes
Card Slot 1 x Express Card
USB 5
IEEE 1394 1 (aka firewire)
Video Port 1 x VGA, 1 x DVI, 1 x S-Video TV-out
Audio Ports 1 x Headphone-out jack (SPDIF)
Card Reader MMC, SD, MS, MS PRO
Webcam 0.35 Mega-Pixel web-cam
Dimensions 13.19" x 9.65" x 1.37-1.46"
Weight 5.25 lbs.
Current $1380 at Newegg

Yes the screen is smaller but the resolution is the same and the laptop is an inch more compact in width as a result. Otherwise, the only major factors in the Mac's favor were the thinness, better construction, bluetooth (a $50 option I didn't need on the Asus), and an imperceptibly faster CPU. Everything else went in favor of the Asus. The price difference is currently about $600. At the time I was $700 ($1500 vs. $2200) or 46% higher for the Mac for a worse video card, no VGA out, no TV out, fewer USB slots, no memory card slot, and a bigger, heavier computer. There was just no comparison.

Comparing to Dell's web prices is misleading. Dell frequently gives out coupons that give $500-$1000 or 25%-40% discounts on their systems and laptops. Everyone knows Sony is way overpriced. That said, the high end MacBooks are premium computers and are priced in-line with other premium computers. If you're OK with paying extra for a premium computer, then that's fine. But if you do a little searching, you can find better notebooks for less, they just won't be well-known brands. If Apple doesn't fall egregiously behind (their new Santa Rosa MacBook will use an nVidia 8600 GT, which looks like it'll be a solid graphics card), my next notebook will probably be a MacBook so I can run OS/X.

MacBook Pro 15.4"
Processor Intel Core 2 Duo T7400(2.16GHz)
Memory 1GB DDR2
Screen Size 15.4"
Resolution 1440 x 900
ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 128 MB
Hard Drive 120GB 5400 RPM
Optical Drive DVD±R/RW 6x
LAN 10/100/1000Mbps
WLAN 802.11g Wireless LAN
Bluetooth Bluetooth 2.0+EDR
Card slot 1 x ExpressCard/34 slot
USB Two 480-Mbps USB 2.0 ports
FireWire One FireWire 400 port at up to 400 Mbps
Video Port 1 x DVI (VGA output using included DVI to VGA adapter)
Audio Port Combined optical digital input/audio line in (minijack)
Webcam Built-in iSight Camera
Dimension 14.1" x 9.6" x 1.0"
Weight 5.6 lbs.
Currenly $1965 at Newegg

Asus A8JS
Processor Intel Core 2 Duo T7200 2.00G
Memory 1GB DDR2
Hard Drive 120GB 5400 RPM
Optical Drive DVD±R/RW 8x
NVIDIA GeForce Go 7700 512MB (about 25%-40% faster than the x1600, which is underclocked on the Mac)
Screen Size 14"
Resolution 1440 x 900
LAN 10/100/1000Mbps
WLAN 802.11a/b/g Wireless LAN
IRDA Yes
Card Slot 1 x Express Card
USB 5
IEEE 1394 1 (aka firewire)
Video Port 1 x VGA, 1 x DVI, 1 x S-Video TV-out
Audio Ports 1 x Headphone-out jack (SPDIF)
Card Reader MMC, SD, MS, MS PRO
Webcam 0.35 Mega-Pixel web-cam
Dimensions 13.19" x 9.65" x 1.37-1.46"
Weight 5.25 lbs.
Current $1380 at Newegg

Yes the screen is smaller but the resolution is the same and the laptop is an inch more compact in width as a result. Otherwise, the only major factors in the Mac's favor were the thinness, better construction, bluetooth (a $50 option I didn't need on the Asus), and an imperceptibly faster CPU. Everything else went in favor of the Asus. The price difference is currently about $600. At the time I was $700 ($1500 vs. $2200) or 46% higher for the Mac for a worse video card, no VGA out, no TV out, fewer USB slots, no memory card slot, and a bigger, heavier computer. There was just no comparison.

Comparing to Dell's web prices is misleading. Dell frequently gives out coupons that give $500-$1000 or 25%-40% discounts on their systems and laptops. Everyone knows Sony is way overpriced. That said, the high end MacBooks are premium computers and are priced in-line with other premium computers. If you're OK with paying extra for a premium computer, then that's fine. But if you do a little searching, you can find better notebooks for less, they just won't be well-known brands. If Apple doesn't fall egregiously behind (their new Santa Rosa MacBook will use an nVidia 8600 GT, which looks like it'll be a solid graphics card), my next notebook will probably be a MacBook so I can run OS/X.

get something like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16817332011

the RAID is in the external box. just add 5 drives set the RAID level and go. So you have to use an external SATA connection. They have cards for that if your computer doesn't have one already. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16815108103

I was thinking of doing this for myself. One for data storage and another for backup. Can be bigger then the single USB/fire wire external drives, and some redundancy.

get something like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16817332011

the RAID is in the external box. just add 5 drives set the RAID level and go. So you have to use an external SATA connection. They have cards for that if your computer doesn't have one already. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16815108103

I was thinking of doing this for myself. One for data storage and another for backup. Can be bigger then the single USB/fire wire external drives, and some redundancy.

First, forget hardware RAID solutions. While their effectiveness is debatable for commercial and enterprise applications, it's definitely overkill for a home solution (particularly a media server). (Unless of course you have more money than sense.) But Linux RAID (md, multi-disk) is mature, stable, and well-tested. It's portable from one machine to another. It's free. With even modest hardware, it will be plenty fast for a home media server. Don't even bother with those pseudo RAID solutions that are built into your motherboard (or implemented via firmware or a proprietary driver): Linux software RAID and true hardware RAID beat these solutions in just about every conceivable way.

Now, do you really need RAID? Many people equate RAID and backup. They are not equal. RAID is no substitute for a good backup. In the case of a media library, you do own all the media, right? :) There's your backup. Worst case, you lose the time spent ripping the media. So there's an argument to just use JBOD. However, I do use RAID5 for a bit of safety. If two drives fail simultaneously, I fall back on the media. But if only one drive fails, then I can replace the drive, rebuild the array, and lose very little time. It's quasi-backup. It's just too expensive for an individual to maintain multiple live copies of this much data.

If I were to build a fileserver for someone right now, this is what I'd use:

• Case: Lian Li PC-A16B, with an additional hard drive module (I actually have one of these on order right now)
• Motherboard: Biostar TForce TF7025-M2 (on-board gigabit LAN, high-quality solid capacitors, low-power single chip north- and south-bridge, integrated video)
• Cheapest AM2 processor (single core is fine for a strictly fileserver)
• 1 GB RAM (even 512 MB would probably be fine, but RAM is cheap right now!)
• Seasonic S12-400 power supply
• 4x Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD5000AAKS 500GB hard drives (500 GB is pretty sweet for price/capacity right now; SilentPCReview is currently recommending the Western Digitals for coolest/quietest high-capacity drives)
• A PATA-to-Compact flash adaptor (such as this one), and a 1 GB or bigger compact flash card to use as your "system" disk (i.e. install the OS here).

I have another post on this thread where I went into more detail about the choice of case. Quick summary: if you care about noise, don't cram your drives close together, or you'll have to use an obscenely loud high-speed fan to keep them cool. If you allow at least 0.5" between each drive, you can keep your drives cool with a low-speed (quiet) fan. That's why I'm buying the Lian Li case mentioned above: room for up to nine drives, with adequate spacing between each.

The 4-3 devices modules are cute, but a pain to deal with when you want to replace a drive (you have to rip apart 4 sets of cables). I'm not entirely satisfied with the 4-3 modules that I have, I prefer the older 3:2 units with a 80mm fan. Stick to only putting 2 drives in those old 3:2 units and you get superior airflow because there's no strange grillwork between the intake fan and the hard drives. You might get the same out of those 4-3 units if you install a drive in the middle upside down to create a decent gap.

But if you want maximum storage density, go look at the SuperMicro (or others) SATA 5:3 backplanes. Hot-swap (assuming your chipset supports it) SATA trays that fit (5) drives into (3) 5.25" bays. Merge that with a 4U rackcase or one of the (9) 5.25" bay cases from Lian Li (PC A16) and you have (15) SATA slots to play with. Or you could do (3) 5:3 and (1) 3:2 in that CM Stacker case for a total of (18) drives. (There are 3 types of SATA hotswap backplanes, 5:3 for cases with clean sides in the 5.25" bays, 4:3 for cases with guide-rails or tabs in between the 5.25" bays, and 3:2 units. Some cases have metal tabs designed to guide 5.25" devices into place, they'll interfere with 5:3 backplanes.)

One caveat to the "X-in-Y" drive boxes (where X is the number of 3.5" hard drives and Y is the number of 5.25" bays and X > Y): noise (and/or cooling). In my experience (home Linux software RAID-5, 4x400), you need at least 1/2 inch between drives to cool them quietly. When I had a house, I kept my drives in a Chenbro SR10769. This case has a 120mm fan directly behind each group of 4 drives, and a 92mm fan in front of each group of drives. I ran ultra-high speed Delta fans in that case, and stored the server in the basement. The drives stayed under 30 degree C, but the case sounded like a jet engine.

I moved into an apartment, and no longer have the luxury of keeping my drives in an enormously loud server. So I put the drives in the lower drive bay of the Antec P180 case. Now the drives have one low-speed (quiet) 120mm fan behind them. The drives stay in the mid 30s, which is plenty cool. But the case is very quiet. I credit the fact that the P180 gives a good 1/2 inch or so between each drive. Compared to the Chenbro (and every other X-in-Y solution I've seen), which sandwich the drives together as close as possible, you get effective cooling with substantially less airflow.

If quietness is of any concern, put at least a half inch between each drive. Doing so will allow you to cool your drives effectively and quietly.

Also, FWIW, the CM Stacker case can be useful: just put one 3.5 inch hard drive in each 5.25 inch bay. The only tricky part is rigging some kind of airflow over the drives. I tried doing this, actually. I sealed off all the non front or back openings of the Stacker (including the sides). I used shock cord (aka bungee cord) to soft mount the drives. I built a 3x120mm fan frame out of foamboard to mount behind the drives (i.e. between the drives and the motherboard). It worked, but was quite ugly. I now have the Lian Li PC-16B on order with an extra hard drive module. The mounting is semi-soft (rubber grommets are used to reduce vibrations) and the spacing is one drive per 5.25 bay. Plus, there's a 120mm fan in front of each drive. In the future, when I upgrade my array, I'll buy another hard drive module, and have room for a total of nine hard drives (two four-drive arrays plus one system disk).

Just get a couple of these.They're cheap enough that you can use one for live storage and one as a backup.

2G (1Gx2 dual channel kit) DDR2 starting at $60 at newegg.

Suffice it to say that my next upgrade is going to be an extra 2G DDR2 instead of 1G, and I just might buy 4G and unplug the 2x512 installed. The limit is what my motherboard will take, not financial this time. The price of DDR2 has dropped to less than half what it was since Vista was introduced.

Thank you, Bill Gates for the help in upgrading my Debian box!!!

Link to the 7700-AlCu you mentioned.

I have the 9700 NT. Like you, I was concerned with the huge size and weight of some of the towers. The Zalmans provide most of the benefit of the towers (performance, "silent"), while weighing in much closer to spec. They also include the fan, rather than some of the towers where you attach a 120 mm. That can be good or bad depending on whether you wanted to install your own quiet fan.

The difference between the 9700 LED that they reviewed and the 9700 NT that I own is primarily that the LED version has a manually-adjustable fan speed, while the NT is adjustable based on temperature through the BIOS if your board supports it. NT is also black instead of copper and nVidia branded. Both actually include the LED, which I didn't know until I bought it.

I use the Zalman to run a 2.4 GHz E6600 at 3.2 GHz with 50C idle/55C load. It would be better with a cooler case than the Lian Li A05 I own. I believe the Intel whitepaper puts the thermal recommendation at 61C max for Core 2 Duos, in case anyone is interested. With the auto fan speed, it only ramps up the fans to 100% when I'm playing games.

Link to the 7700-AlCu you mentioned.

I have the 9700 NT. Like you, I was concerned with the huge size and weight of some of the towers. The Zalmans provide most of the benefit of the towers (performance, "silent"), while weighing in much closer to spec. They also include the fan, rather than some of the towers where you attach a 120 mm. That can be good or bad depending on whether you wanted to install your own quiet fan.

The difference between the 9700 LED that they reviewed and the 9700 NT that I own is primarily that the LED version has a manually-adjustable fan speed, while the NT is adjustable based on temperature through the BIOS if your board supports it. NT is also black instead of copper and nVidia branded. Both actually include the LED, which I didn't know until I bought it.

I use the Zalman to run a 2.4 GHz E6600 at 3.2 GHz with 50C idle/55C load. It would be better with a cooler case than the Lian Li A05 I own. I believe the Intel whitepaper puts the thermal recommendation at 61C max for Core 2 Duos, in case anyone is interested. With the auto fan speed, it only ramps up the fans to 100% when I'm playing games.

Check it out, baby. Silent as it gets.

If you look at the prices for Core 2 Duos, the difference between something like the E6600 and the X6800 is $750. Slap a $50 cooler on the E6600, clock it up to 3.2 GHz easily (~3.6 GHz max on air) and you have a CPU that performs better than one that would have cost you $700 more. You'd have to be kinda crazy not to overclock the Core 2 Duos.

You're right that most users don't, but they should. It's a worthy investment.

At newegg, 11.1" and smaller will cost you at least $1500. Here's something smaller for a thousand bucks less. Sounds good to me.

Of course, you'll get less machine in this deal... presumably it has no hard drive, no optical drive, and so on. But that's what tradeoffs are all about.

For me, I think it's a great device. I would love to have a subnotebook that is just powerful enough to run X and ssh and fits in a reasonably sized man-purse. But I don't want to spend over $1200 on such a thing, especially when a normal laptop costs only $600 or $700.

But I have serious doubts that this thing can work well for Palm's business. The trick is marketing technology to non-geeks. The iPhone is almost certainly going to make a mint, not because of the new technology it has, but because Apple can use its phenomenal reputation to sell a smartphone to the masses. An ultraportable or a subnotebook is great to have for meetings, trips, conferences, mass transit, etc. But right now, no one but a geek would consider buying one.

Palm is trying to use the appeal of smartphones -- not just Treo, but competitors' phones as well -- plus its industry position to get this thing into phone stores and convince normal, non-geeks to try it out. I don't think it will work, but I do wish them luck.

One thing that could work in their favor is software integration. There really is a ridiculous amount that needs to be done in this area. The sad thing is, it's often not even a matter of technical problems, but obstacles like the DMCA that are thrown up by the powers-that-be.

>> An Israeli startup has squeezed a complete hardware firewall into a USB key.

Oh my God! With only 16 GIGABYTES of space how could they possibly ever SQUEEZE a customized version of Linux onto a USB key!

As if any full blown Linux distro would take anywhere near that much space with a basic install, let alone a stripped down custom install.

look for the Cowon iAudio players (here's some). Cowon's website proudly states linux compatibility, and they support FLAC and ogg vorbis.

This one works for me. Tiny, 1GB, $50, plays mp3, mp4, wmv, etc. Charges USB, formats fat. Works with linux. I blogged about this earlier today. There are instructions there for converting DVDs to a format it can use. They have bigger ones, but who needs to load up three days worth of AV?

Note: this is new, not remaindered I don't think.

buy a iaudio
the x5l
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16855603827
beats the pants off of the ipod. it can play more audio formats(ogg and flac too) and last longer.

And we all shine on.

The better choice really depends on whatever is important to you. If you put a lot of value on por.. err... photos and video, then you might like the glossy display. If reading text is more important to you and your lighting conditions are unpredictable, then you might want the traditional matte-finish display.

Intel® Pentium® dual-core proc T2080(1MB Cache/1.73GHz/533MHz FSB
...
15.4 inch Wide Screen XGA Display with TrueLife(TM)(glossy)
2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHZ, 2 DIMM
...
Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950

Note that Newegg.com has 2GB 667MHz kits starting at $80 ($5 shipping).

Handsfree with short cords. I still haven't found one that allows me to have my phone in my side pocket in my pants. And I still haven't found a bluetooth handsfree with traditional lanyard design.

I can't say I have ever seen this problem with it being too short. Bad sound quality, yes. Crappy painful-to-your-ears, yes. This is the best in-ear headset I have used:

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82 E16826106063

Although maybe not that good for jogging cause it has a stupid volume box a few inches from the headset which will probably flop around a lot and eventually break the wires. Good sound quality though.

Not $0, $30. I could be completely wrong. I guess no one really knows the true cost of Windows on PCs. I was just trying to point out that the revenue of the adware/trial software that comes preinstalled on a Windows machine could either completely, or partially offset the cost of the Windows license itself. I looked around and I did find a $104 ($89 + tax) number for a refund of Windows XP home to a British customer here. I also found this article which speculates that the cost of XP home is $30.

I also found this story in which a person got a 42 Euro refund for Vista Home Basic. This seems to make the refunds vary wildly, but since you can get XP Home OEM for $89 plus tax here at NewEgg, I kind of doubt that Dell pays what you or I would pay if we were building a computer. My guess is that the guy that got the $89 refund did so because Dell isn't allowed to disclose the price they pay for Windows and the Dell CSR went of a public OEM price from a local vendor. In most of the refund cases I have read about, especially the ones that go to small claims court, seem to usually end with Dell stating that they cannot disclose the price they pay and refunding the cost at a local vendor. Anyway, this seems to point to my price of $30-$40 for XP Home or Vista Basic.

Next, from this article, you get the $60 price of the adware/trial software that comes pre-bundled on Dell machines. Once again, we don't know the exact number, but that link seems to point towards a price in the $60 ballpark.

So to sum up:

* Dell pays Microsoft more that $0, but it is most likely much, much less than you or I would pay if we were building our own computer due to the volume of sales Dell has. I estimate this at around $30-$40.
* Dell makes money from putting trial software on their PCs. This has been estimated at around $60.
* Estimates seem to indicate that base versions of Windows (the kind most home users get) seem to have a negative net cost for Dell (by that I mean to say they make money).
* Ubuntu (hopefully) will not include adware or trial software, so therefore, it costs the same or possibly more than Windows does.

I love Linux. I am typing this from a computer with Edgy installed. I have installed Ubuntu on most of the servers at the company I work for. I love Ubuntu and I hope it continues and is successful. I also still do not see a market for these machines. I fear that Dell will not have many sales, and will discontinue them. I most likely would not buy one because I still need Windows for a few things. Why pay the same or more for a computer with just Ubuntu, when I could get a computer with Ubuntu and Windows myself? Anyway, it will be interesting to see how this all plays out.

...burning a copy of a 8.4GB movie DVD costs almost as much as just buying the DVD from MalWart.

As far as I can tell, being a massive hardware geek, that's a no. Most LCD monitors ARE 8 bit. Hell even cheapo LCD panels are 8 bit.

I'd say it's reasonable that a consumer would understand "Millions of colors" as 8 bit. I don't, but I get pissy when a sales clerk or website provide dick-all in terms of specifications. The bottom line is, don't buy something unless you know the specifications and understand them, even if you trust the manufacturer.

However, knowing everything about every product is impossible, and most of us approximate based on loose specifications. It's like a can of beans. I don't think too many of us would pick up a can that just had a label "beans." What kind of beans? However, if we bought "pinto beans" and what was inside was a really rare, weird variety of pinto beans that taste or look different than normal "pinto beans" we'd be justifiably angry. The court is just deciding in this case if the product labeling was deceptive. We just don't know what merit that may have, until the court is done. What I do know is that this was rather shady out of a company like Apple, who sells on trust as well as honest specifications, and of whom we generally expect better.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16858179020

It has pretty much everything the iPhone has plus a few extras such as GPS/maps and the ability to add applications of your choice. It runs Windows Mobile 5.0 but is otherwise a pretty decent piece of equipment.

strike

1 TB of disk space doesn't matter if the warranty isn't that good. Sure, I'll still lose my data if I don't have a backup system that works but I want to put off a backup system as long as possible when I have to pay the Newegg price for this drive. If I get a failure on a drive that costs that much it better be covered, for a long long long time, whether my data is okay or not. I wouldn't be paying for another one at that price. By the way, I looked at the webpage Newegg linked to for this drive on Hitachi's site and it didn't list a warranty (I was forced to look at Hitachi's site since Newegg no longer includes warranty info in their specs of hard drives- very annoying).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16822102004

Fill one now, fill one later.

I used to have an elcheapo Linksys router (back when elcheapo was $100) before they merged with Cisco. It had the indicator you mention, basicly.

The only current Linksys router I can find with a similar panel is this BEFVP41 10/100Mbps VPN Router.

It doesn't do gigabit, so there's no 1000 indicator. There's no 10 Mb indicator, since that's the default activity. By lighting activity and 100 together, that indicates that it's at 100.

Probably as close as you need to be to what you want from consumer hardware. If you need more than this for some reason, you probably need better hardware than what consumer stuff can bring to the table anyway.

Not 100% related, but I ordered a 965-based motherboard because Intel has open source drivers for the X3000.

Yup. I bought a new machine recently for work that's Intel-based (essentially this, minus the monitor). I mainly use it for kernel development. My criteria were:

1. I want the fastest kernel compile I can get for cheap. (Turns about to be 3.5 minutes with my kernel config, for about $700 spent. Not bad.)
2. I want to boot the latest kernel out of git and have a fighting chance that everything will Just Work.
3. I want to know that number 2 will still be true in a few years.
4. I don't care about top-notch video performance but, hey, I enjoy the wobbly windows, and maybe the occasional game of tuxracer or something.

It turns out the gigabit ethernet and the video both needed kernels more recent than the first distro I tried (they're fine in the latest fc7 betas), but otherwise it's worked out well. So when the student interns came in this summer and needed machines, we ordered five more. I'm considering another to replace my again home machine, too, if I can get an idea how loud it is. (My office has too many noisy machines, so it's hard to tell.)

Maybe consumers aren't the idiots Slashdot'ers think they are?

Or maybe they are. Anyone who would buy a crappy iPod video when the Zen Vision and A2 exist is an idiot.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16855102014
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16855603835

vs.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16855101008

Maybe consumers aren't the idiots Slashdot'ers think they are?

Or maybe they are. Anyone who would buy a crappy iPod video when the Zen Vision and A2 exist is an idiot.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16855102014
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16855603835

vs.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16855101008

Maybe consumers aren't the idiots Slashdot'ers think they are?

Or maybe they are. Anyone who would buy a crappy iPod video when the Zen Vision and A2 exist is an idiot.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16855102014
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16855603835

vs.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16855101008

How about instead of just making up arbitrary numbers that support your hypothesis, lets take 30 seconds and go to NewEgg.com and see for sure.

Windows Vista 32-bit Ultimate - $189.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16832116213

Windows Vista 32-bit Business - $139.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16832116207

Windows Vista 32-bit Home Premium - $111.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16832116202

Windows Vista 32-bit Home Basic - $94.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16832116195

The 64-bit versions are a few dollars more expensive, and if you buy the 3-packs, the per-unit is a few dollars less expensive.

Figure that Dell gets a higher volume discount than this, so they pay even less.

How about instead of just making up arbitrary numbers that support your hypothesis, lets take 30 seconds and go to NewEgg.com and see for sure.

Windows Vista 32-bit Ultimate - $189.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16832116213

Windows Vista 32-bit Business - $139.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16832116207

Windows Vista 32-bit Home Premium - $111.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16832116202

Windows Vista 32-bit Home Basic - $94.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16832116195

The 64-bit versions are a few dollars more expensive, and if you buy the 3-packs, the per-unit is a few dollars less expensive.

Figure that Dell gets a higher volume discount than this, so they pay even less.

How about instead of just making up arbitrary numbers that support your hypothesis, lets take 30 seconds and go to NewEgg.com and see for sure.

Windows Vista 32-bit Ultimate - $189.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16832116213

Windows Vista 32-bit Business - $139.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16832116207

Windows Vista 32-bit Home Premium - $111.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16832116202

Windows Vista 32-bit Home Basic - $94.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16832116195

The 64-bit versions are a few dollars more expensive, and if you buy the 3-packs, the per-unit is a few dollars less expensive.

Figure that Dell gets a higher volume discount than this, so they pay even less.

How about instead of just making up arbitrary numbers that support your hypothesis, lets take 30 seconds and go to NewEgg.com and see for sure.

Windows Vista 32-bit Ultimate - $189.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16832116213

Windows Vista 32-bit Business - $139.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16832116207

Windows Vista 32-bit Home Premium - $111.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16832116202

Windows Vista 32-bit Home Basic - $94.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16832116195

The 64-bit versions are a few dollars more expensive, and if you buy the 3-packs, the per-unit is a few dollars less expensive.

Figure that Dell gets a higher volume discount than this, so they pay even less.

I'm not an OEM, but it appears that for the end-user Vista Business is exactly the same price as XP Pro. At least configuring identical dell latitudes and optiplex's, one with Vista Business the other with XP Pro, they come out exactly the same price.

And a quick look at NewEgg puts them at exactly the same price for OEM/System Builder versions:

Vista Business
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16832116207

XP Pro
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16832116059

I'm not an OEM, but it appears that for the end-user Vista Business is exactly the same price as XP Pro. At least configuring identical dell latitudes and optiplex's, one with Vista Business the other with XP Pro, they come out exactly the same price.

And a quick look at NewEgg puts them at exactly the same price for OEM/System Builder versions:

Vista Business
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16832116207

XP Pro
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16832116059

There are a lot of different ways to do this under Linux; someone has already posted several links to some resources. The easiest way I found, and the way I've been running my two-seat, single-machine setup at home for about a year, is simply using the capabilities of newer versions of X Windows as described on Chris Tyler's blog (included in those links earlier).

All of the other methods I've seen require non-standard kernel modules or non-standard X servers, etc. This way uses standard software, and I think it should work for most modern distributions (I'm using Gentoo).

What you need hardware-wise:

1. One graphics card per seat. I have an old AGP Radeon 9000 and a super-old PCI Matrox Mystique.
2. A monitor extension cable if you want the seats far apart. I first bought a 15ft brand-name one from Buy.com that was absolutely worthless (thin cable, ridiculous ghosting even at low resolutions) - then I bought this "generic" one which works perfectly.
3. One keyboard/mouse pair per seat. One of my seats has a PS2 keyboard and a USB trackball, and the other has a PS2 mouse and a PS2 keyboard on a PS2 to USB converter that works perfectly hanging off the end of a 10ft USB extension cable.

The software setup is described fairly well in Chris Tyler's blogs (don't skip the comments - there are useful tips from others in there, and on this followup page), but here's the basic idea: You run two separate X instances, each with a different ServerLayout section in the config file. They obviously need to point to different video cards (and I found that using the "SingleCard" option was necessary to get both to work), and you also need to separate the input devices between the two. The best way to do this that I know of (again, avoiding odd kernel modules or other software) is evdev. It's somewhat complicated, but it lets you specify input devices based on where they are plugged in or their specific model numbers, etc. It's fairly flexible.

Once you have two separate X instances up and running, it's a fairly simple matter to get gdm (and I assume most other *dm applications) to launch both automatically with independent login screens.

Good luck!

There are a lot of different ways to do this under Linux; someone has already posted several links to some resources. The easiest way I found, and the way I've been running my two-seat, single-machine setup at home for about a year, is simply using the capabilities of newer versions of X Windows as described on Chris Tyler's blog (included in those links earlier).

All of the other methods I've seen require non-standard kernel modules or non-standard X servers, etc. This way uses standard software, and I think it should work for most modern distributions (I'm using Gentoo).

What you need hardware-wise:

1. One graphics card per seat. I have an old AGP Radeon 9000 and a super-old PCI Matrox Mystique.
2. A monitor extension cable if you want the seats far apart. I first bought a 15ft brand-name one from Buy.com that was absolutely worthless (thin cable, ridiculous ghosting even at low resolutions) - then I bought this "generic" one which works perfectly.
3. One keyboard/mouse pair per seat. One of my seats has a PS2 keyboard and a USB trackball, and the other has a PS2 mouse and a PS2 keyboard on a PS2 to USB converter that works perfectly hanging off the end of a 10ft USB extension cable.

The software setup is described fairly well in Chris Tyler's blogs (don't skip the comments - there are useful tips from others in there, and on this followup page), but here's the basic idea: You run two separate X instances, each with a different ServerLayout section in the config file. They obviously need to point to different video cards (and I found that using the "SingleCard" option was necessary to get both to work), and you also need to separate the input devices between the two. The best way to do this that I know of (again, avoiding odd kernel modules or other software) is evdev. It's somewhat complicated, but it lets you specify input devices based on where they are plugged in or their specific model numbers, etc. It's fairly flexible.

Once you have two separate X instances up and running, it's a fairly simple matter to get gdm (and I assume most other *dm applications) to launch both automatically with independent login screens.

Good luck!