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USB KVMs Compared
EconolineCrush writes "KVM switches have always been a great way to control multiple machines, and now they're coming with all sorts of cool USB peripheral sharing and audio switching functionality. The Tech Report has a compared a couple of the newest KVM switches from Belkin and IOGear that're worth a look if VNC just doesn't do it for you."
have lots of problems. I've had 3 at work, they all have had the same scenario, they'll drop my mouse, perform actions I didn't do, quit working and until I power cycle it. I find VNC or RDP to be much easier, the only machines I connect to are servers, home and work. If I want to play a game, I'll use my high end workstation, but for all server tasks, It's all about VNC/RDP it has a lot less issues.
--fetch daddy's blue fright wig, i must be handsome when i release my rage
Forget USB, I want a KVM that doesn't make my video cards output look like crap on my LCD... Why don't the manufacturers care about video quality at 1600x1200??? Just because I want to run multiple machines from one keyboard / LCD, doesn't mean that I'm running at VGA resolutions...
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Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
Forget KVM switches, VNC, RDP, or anything else that takes you away from a shell prompt. OpenSSH is your friend. Your keyboard. Your display. Your $ prompt. Available at web sites while source code lasts.
Buy another keyboard, mouse, and monitor. That's not a problem KVMs were designed to fix. Think instead about the server room full of machines. Now, what do you do if/when you actually have to access one of those directly (ie, from the console, not over the LAN) (don't focus on the wrong part here. There are reasons you may need to directly access the console, like say your NIC died, or you're in the process of installing the OS. The reason here doesn't matter, what matters is that there are reasons why you would need to access the console directly rather than via ssh or vnc or X or terminal server or whatever)? Wheel out the cart with the monitor and keyboard? Or just go sit down at the station where you already have the monitor, keyboard, and mouse setup, with all the machines connected to Cybex KVM switches (the heavy-duty server room KVM switches are quite a bit different than the 2-port or 4-port switches you'll use at your desktop)? With the latter option, you never have to dig around behind a machine for the cables, or try to get back there to plug in that monitor on the cart. Just hit the hotkey, pick the machine you need to access, and you're there at the console.
If you only have two or three machines that all need audio, it's probably a better idea to either buy a small mixer board (the slightly expensive or skill-required choice) or run them all through one another (the cheapass choice.) If you have two machines there's really no reason not to do this, unless you plan on turning one off occasionally while using the other- but if you're a KVM kinda guy chances are you leave the damn things on eternally. If they're close enough to one another and you don't use cables that are too long or loop around other things- one could use a 8 inch mini cable to connect a pair of towers sitting next to one another- you won't have any signal problems.
The clear choice seems the IOGear device- it comes with cables, has OSD, and does not hail from the nauseating Brushed Metal Plastic Alien Bubbles school of design.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
I use an Avocent SwitchView DT KVM in my home server rack right now, but it still necessitates the need to be physically at the server rack. The server rack is in a climate controlled room downstairs, but my home office is upstairs.
Ideally, what I would like to do is put ALL my computers (including my development workstation) in a new rack downstairs, so that all I have on my desk is my monitor, keyboard, mouse and speakers. A perfectly quiet office would be so nice. The problem is, how do I run video from the downstairs rack to my office (easily a 40' run)?
Any suggestions?
Be careful!
All the units besides the IOView degrade the video quality, I understand from long conversations with sales people. The IOView, with a Hitachi Elite 751 19 inch monitor and a Matrox G-450 video card at 1600 x 1200 and 75 Hz, actually gives slightly better quality. Odd result, I know, but I'm testing the IOGear MiniView SE 4-port as I type this.
The Tech Report article about 4-port units says, "The other units lack explicit video signal enhancement features, but their quality was the same on both a 17" Trinitron and a 19" NEC AccuSync 95F. Note that this does not mention the video card or the resolution or the refresh rate, indicating that the reviewer was probably not thinking that these were critical. Also, many people are just not good at seeing degradation.
The IOGear MiniView SE 4-port has a VERY funky way of switching between computers. One way, to press a control key twice, is okay, but only goes to next computer in line. The other is amazingly foolish:
[alt]+[ctr]+[shift]+[1 or 2 or 3 or 4]+[Enter]
(See page 14 of the MiniView SE 4-port manual (NOTE:
According to Samantha Martinez of KVM Switches Online (Samantha@kvm-switches-online.com Phone: 303-604-0237 Fax: 303-604-0724), "The only manufacturers that hold that resolution at that refresh rate are Aten/IOGear and Avocent." (They don't sell the Belkin unit, apparently. Aten makes IOGear. You can buy Aten units directly, but they are a worse buy.)
Note that you get 2 4-foot cables and 2 6-foot cables with the MiniView, not 4 6-foot cables.
I think having USB keyboard/mouse eliminates a common no no of plugging keyboards and mice in while the system is on with a port that is not designed for hotplugging.
Conversely I don't have to shut down every time (not horribly common, but enough to bug me) I dis/re-connect my mouse.
I don't need dead ports on my motherboard. Oh, and thats two less specialized ports on the system.
Someone set us up the bomb, so shine we are!
No reason - in your case don't switch. But future PC designs probably won't have the PS/2 port, so if you're buying new keyboards and mice then it makes sense to buy USB variants.
At the moment, connectors are simply a mess. Just think of the number of different types on a typical, well-equipped PC:
- PS/2
- USB (sometimes split into 1.1 and 2.0)
- Firewire
- Serial
- Parallel
- RCA sockets
- MPU-401 compatible (gameport to most, MIDI port to me
- S/PDIF
- VGA
- RJ-45
- RJ-11 for modem
Don't now about DVI - does it take a different connected to VGA? If so, add DVI to that lot. Gives you eleven (twelve including DVI) different connecters excluding the power cable, and we haven't started on the internal mess yet.On the whole, standardising on the smallest number of connectors possible is a good thing. I'd personally like to see USB die as well and everything go firewire (and no, I'm not on a Mac), but that's a pipe-dream that isn't going to happen.
Cheers,
Ian