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Computer Hardware

Super Talent Pico C USB Flash Drive Review and Benchmarks

Nov 18, 2011 by Paul White

Super Talent Pico C USB Flash DriveI finally decided that my old USB flash drive was taking up a little too much bulk in my pocket.  That and I was close to maxing out its 8GB capacity.  So I upgraded to a Super Talent Pico C USB Flash Drive.  This is by far the smallest USB drive available ( That I know of ).  It also comes in Chrome, Silver, and 24K gold plated finishes.  Bling and Nerd Credit come together.  I know the question many are asking.  Is it all show and no go?  I put both my old drive and my new drive through some benchmarks for comparison. 

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Unplugging from Cable and Phone but keeping internet

Sep 20, 2011 by Paul White

Motorola SB6120 Surfboard DOCSIS 3.0 Extreme Broadband Cable ModemAfter getting our last bill from Comcast, I decided that I really don't need Cable or Phone.  After all both my wife and I have cell phones with unlimited talk, and even though we do occasionally watch TV, the quality of entertainment in my opinion has gone to crap.  I was able to shave $80 off my Comcast Bill, by keeping the internet only and buying my own DOCSIS 3.0 modem to avoid their $7 / month rental fee.

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SSD RAID 0 Benchmarks for Intel ICH10R ASUS P6T Deluxe

Nov 19, 2010 by Paul White

OCZ Vertex 2 SSD RAID 0 benchmark intel ICH10RSo I finally have made the move to SSD.  Unlike many who went with a single SSD drive I went with an SSD raid 0 Array.  Using 3 OCZ Vertex 2 60 GB SSD drives, I setup a RAID 0 array on my ASUS P6T Deluxe Motherboard's built in Intel ICH10R SATA controller.  The benchmarks were outstanding.  Maybe I could have gotten a little better performance from using a dedicated RAID card, but 700 MB/sec read and write is good enough for me.

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Windows 7 Backup and Restore Problems

Nov 17, 2010 by Paul White

During my quest to upgrade my computer from my 4 disk SAS raid array to a 3 disk SSD raid array, I had a few learning experiences with the windows 7 backup and restore system.  Hopefully my tips will help others.

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SSD vs Hard Drives on your Electric Bill

Apr 12, 2010 by Paul White

Long Term Electric Costs Comparison SSD vs Hard DriveI guess SSD drives have finally caught the eye of the joe average consumers, because the other day a client of mine called asking if they should upgrade to an SSD drive.  So I went about explaining to him the difference between traditional platter based storage hard drives and SSD ( Solid State Drives ).  Then I got to think that my explanation might be better suited for a blog entry. So here it is.

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upgraded to SMART1500LCD Tripp lite from OMNI1000LCD

Mar 27, 2010 by Paul White

SMART1000LCD UPS Tripp LiteAfter making several upgrades to my workstation over the last 6 months, my old Tripp Lite OMNI1000LCD just wasn't cutting it anymore.  So it was time to upgrade to a UPS that would be able to stay on for more than 5 seconds.  I upgraded to the SMART1500LCD by Tripp lite.  Its an older model, but it handles 1500 VA and 900 Watts peak.  Of course whenever you buy a UPS off ebay especially a used one, you can expect a few surprises.

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1627 Visitors
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Vantec Hot Swap Hard Drive Trays Review

Feb 5, 2010 by Paul White

Vantec Hot Swap TraysRecently I decided to add some hot swap trays to my system.  I searched for quite a while before I found trays that would maintain my personal sense of style ( Bling ), and have functionality as well.  I went with the Vantec Trays that include a blue LCD display giving you temperature stats on the drives.  Overall I am very happy with my decision, though Vantec could have done a slightly better job with these.

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Adaptec 4805 SAS RAID benchmark on Windows 7 review

Feb 5, 2010 by Paul White

Fujitsu SAS RAIDI knew I was going to make the switch to Windows 7, but I wanted to make a few upgrades before I did this.  These upgrades included hot swap trays for my SATA drives, and extending my SAS RAID array from 2 drives to 4 drives.  However this forced me to get a Dedicated RAID controller, as the ASUS board only supports two SAS drives.  On this blog I will focus on the SAS RAID upgrade using the Adaptec 4805SAS RAID card and 4 x 15K RPM Fujitsu SAS Hard Drives.

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Godaddy Dedicated Server Performance VS Colocated Server Performance

Nov 15, 2009 by Paul White

If you are thinking about getting a dedicated server with Godaddy because of their cheap prices, I understand. But how far will their server really take you?  After dealing with performance issues with godaddy with another client, I build my own server and colocated it.  Then I did some benchmarks comparing the two.  Huge difference. Click read to see the bench marks.

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Hacking more storage into your rack server

Oct 17, 2009 by Paul White

Western Digital 320 GB 7200RPM laptop hard driveEven though I will be running remote backups, I wanted to make sure I had a little more redundancy than just RAID 10 and remote backups.  So I took it upon myself to figure out how to cram an extra hard drive into an already crowded Server.  This 1U rack server already has 4 x 3.5" hard drives. Now lets see if we can cram a small laptop hard drive into this for a in the box backup storage medium.

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