This is not so much a review but a cautionary tale. Let me begin by saying I’ve been a longtime supporter (and purchaser) of Maxtor drives. They’ve had a few bumps in the road but I stick with them.
Just after Christmas the Maxtor Maxline Pro 500 GB drives were going on sale online. It makes sense that Seagate would be clearing them out and they’re the only drive really left available in Maxtor’s high end line that wasn’t SCSI. I’m building a new server to test …

I’m always on the lookout for bargain gear, especially after Christmas. I spotted the OCZ Technology Roadster 1 GB for $10 CDN and grabbed a couple, since USB flash drives are always handy. When the package arrived I was blown away by the size of the unit: 3.5 cm long and 2 cm wide.

Inside the black plastic case is the actual drive; everything is contained in the space of the USB connector. Unfolded it connects to an available USB port; it doesn’t lock into the open position, so you may …

Small businesses and higher end home users can ( should? ) embrace rack mount equipment. Why? For one thing it forces you to set up a rack and add equipment in a central location with proper power, cabling and organization. Is it obvious I come from a corporate computing background yet? The real inhibitor has been corporate prices for this kind of thing, i.e. way too much money for the small business and certainly for the home user. Let’s take a look at an introductory …

Storage and ATA RAID are a few focuses here at eBabble, and a drive cage is particularly handy when you want quick access to installed hard drives. In a rack mount environment drive cages become a must, as fiddling with rack screws and hauling systems off a rack is hernia inducing. Let’s take a look at the BPU-320 from iStar USA, a company making its way into the North American market.

In the box is the drive cage, three 0.5 meter SATA cables, mounting screws and a open page …

I wasn’t in the market for a portable hard drive as I had a very nice 80 GB Samsung laptop hard drive in a Daytek aluminum case inside a leather carrier. Very nice and repurposed several times. Unfortunately I was wondering my local Costco and came across the 120 GB Western Digital Passport Portable Drive for $120 CDN, or $1 per GB. I couldn’t pass it up.

In the package you get the very slick and shiny drive, one 22″ USB cable, a neoprene case and a quick install guide. The …

Like all my motherboard reviews, this isn’t a review per se but my collected experiences with a particular piece of hardware.
My uncle had a socket 754 motherboard that had received a power surge and fried.  Everything else was still good ( except the power supply ) so he needed a new motherboard, so I picked up an MSI K8N Neo-FSR ( MS-7030-020 ).  I don’t really understand why MSI uses product names and product numbers interchangeably but they do.  I installed this board and reinstalled everything and ran Passmark’s Burn In repeatedly …

I picked this up at my local Costco for $28 Canadian ( APC part USB-KIT ).  I needed a USB 2.0 hub and a USB extension cable.  This kit includes a four port USB 2.0 hub, three, six and ten foot A-B cables, and a ten foot extension cable.  Great value, expecially considering the lifetime warranty after registration.
The hub is smoked black and silver, and has a power LED.  It’s small and gets the job done.  The cables are a thick grey and feel solid, with double shielded braid and …

We’ve completely retooled our server recommendation. Previously we built an SME server at the $4000 CDN mark that filled most business requirements. We’ve scaled that back to a SOHO server that stretches to the SME segment for backup duties of up to ten clients.
CPU: Intel Celeron Dual Core E1200
To start things off I went with the Celeron Dual Core processor at 1.6 GHz: lots of power for this application.
Motherboard: Asus P5N-MX
The Asus e-7050 motherboard is solid, utilizing the Nforce 610i chipset. Rock solid with cutting edge features …

The $1500 Home System attempts to accommodate the day to day uses of a family. Finances, internet access, word processing and gaming all come into play.
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
Intel leads the CPU market right now, and the quad core Q6600 processor is just too much of a deal to pass up.
Cooling: Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro
Arctic Cooling has consistently impressed me with their high performance and low cost units. I’m tempted by massive towers of copper and aluminum but the price scares me off.
Motherboard: Asus P5N-D Nvidia 750i …

I just installed my second Nvidia SLI configuration, and experienced the same setbacks.  My first rig used dual eVGA 7800GTs, and I just upgraded to eVGA 7900GT KO Superclock models.  I used the eVGA Nforce 4 SLI motherboard for both; it handles SLI a little different than the rest by having three PCI-E 16x slots.  Use the middle slot if you have one video card, or the outer two if running SLI; no fussing with anything.  I had one card running without issue.
After installing the second card and shuffling the …

The name says it all.  AMD has come to the rescue of those who experience software issues running two cores.  The utility synchronizes the time stamp counter on both cores and works with processor affinity issues.
AMD Dual-Core Optimizer