Jeg har aldrig i mit liv haft så godt IT-udstyr!

Egentlig ville jeg bare lægge Windows 7 på min bærbare pc, men jeg havde ikke undersøgt tingene ordentligt på forhånd, inden jeg købte en fuld pakke med Windows Professionel 7. Min model var nemlig ikke på Acers liste over maskiner, der kunne køre Windows 7.

En god ven foreslog mig at købe en Solid State Disk (mere herom senere), hvis eneste opgave skulle være at køre Windows; data skulle så ligge på den originale harddisk. Jeg forhørte mig lidt hos et par forretninger, der kunne lave det for mig (jeg tør nemlig ikke selv rode med skruetrækkere i en pc). Ingen mente, det kunne blive rigtig godt.

Så begyndte jeg tillige at regne lidt på, hvad det samlet set ville koste at lave alle disse ting ved en tre år gammel bærbar pc, som har været udsat for tidens tand og meget slid, hvor z-tasten ikke virker, som bliver meget varm trods flere rensninger osv.

Jeg besluttede at købe en ny pc, og denne gang en stationær, som er mit livs første, fordi man for de samme penge får meget mere maskineri, og fordi jeg er så evigt træt af, at hver gang man gerne vil lave et eller andet med hardwaren, siger alle “årh en bærbar, nå så er det mere kompliceret”, eller “nej det tør jeg ikke rode med i en bærbar”.

Hertil kommer, at man på en bærbar stort set kan begynde forfra med alt, når man spilder et eller andet ned i tastaturet – jeg har fx levet uden en z-tast i flere år; z er slet ikke en uvæsentlig tast, og den kan anvendes til meget mere end Zoologi og Zebra, for CTRL Z fortryder som bekendt seneste handling i Windows-verdenen.

Summa summarum: jeg har investeret i en vældig pc og regner med at være rigtig godt kørende de næste mange år. Jeg fik anbefalet at kontakte Datatel, som bekvemt nok kun ligger et par kilometer fra mig, og vi sammensatte følgende. (“Vi” er måske nok så meget sagt, for jeg er så inkompetent på hardwaresiden, som man kan være.)

Motherboard: Gigabyte Ga-p55-us3l Motherboard I7 Socket 1156 Intel P55 Atx Raid Gigabit Ethernet Lan
Processor: INTEL CORE I5 750 2.66GHZ
Ram: OCZ OCZ3X13334GK OCZ Technology memory, DDR3, Capacity 4096 MB, Memory speed 1333 MHz, PC10600, CL 7 ms, 240 pin, Dual channel
Disk: OCZ Vertex Series Solid State Disk 60 GB
Disk: Samsung 1000 GB HD103UJ SATA II 32MB
Strømforsyning: ENERMAX Strømforsyning pc ECO 80+ 500W
Grafikkkort: Gigabyte GeForce GT 220
Skærm: Samsung SyncMaster P2370
Tastatur: Razer Lycosa

Jeg har installeret Windows 7 i 64 bit versionen på min Solid State Disk, og det er vildt fascinerende, at fra jeg tænder pc’en til Windows er klar på skærmen går der 32 sekunder! På min gamle pc går der nogle minutter.

Og hvad er så en Solid State Disk? Jeg har fundet denne beskrivelse på Computerworld:

Solid state-drev eller SSD’er lagrer data på flash-hukommelse. Til forskel fra harddiske, som lagrer data på roterende magnetiske plader, har SSD’er ingen bevægelige dele, hvilket gør dem mere robuste og mindre sårbare overfor nedbrud. SSD’er anses også for at være mindre strømslugende.

Flash-hukommelse giver hurtigere overførsel af data og bedre latenstid end harddiske, fortæller Michael Norman, der er interim director for SDSC i udtalelsen. Ny hardware som sensor-netværk og simulatorer leverer masser af data til supercomputeren, og flash-hukommelse lagrer og behandler disse data hurtigere.

SSD’en i min nye pc “slumrer” når den ikke laver noget, hvilket reducerer både støj og strømforbrug.

C-drevet er kun en systemdisk og skal ikke lave noget som helst andet end at afvikle Windows. D-drevet er til alt det andet: programmer, dokumenter mv. Jeg er snart (efter tre dages arbejde) færdig med at installere alting og at få det til at virke, og der er noget facinerende over stadig at have 882 GB ledig plads.

Det har været lidt af en udfordring at få installeret alt på D:\ i stedet for på C:\, for alle programmer vil default lægge sig på C:\. Det varede lidt, inden jeg fandt ud af, at man typisk skal vælge “brugerdefineret installation” for at få muligheden for at vælge drevet i stedet for som vanligt bare bevidstløst at klikke på “Næste”.

Installationen af Java drillede noget, men pludselig genså jeg både netbanken og arkivalieronline.dk, og det var rigtig dejligt. Med en 24″ skærm skal man forresten ikke maksimere billederne fra arkivalieronline, for det er da helt vanvittigt så store, de bliver. Men det står skarpt og klart, og forbedringen fra en 15,4″ skærm er til at tage og føle på! Pludselig giver det mening at arrangere vinduerne lidt på skrivebordet og at kunne se det hele på én gang. Skærmen er med fuld HD, så jeg kan vist også se TV på den, men så langt er jeg endnu ikke nået.

Jeg vil faktisk gerne anbefale Datatel som en rigtig god forretning med en rigtig god kundeservice. Det skyldes følgende: Min printer – en Canon i 865 – er 5-6 år gammel, og da jeg skulle installere den, meddelte Windows, at CD’en ikke kunne bruges, da den var forældet. Nåh ja, tænkte jeg, 5-6 år på bagen, nyt styresystem, 64 bit i stedet for 32, der var nok ikke meget at gøre, så jeg ringede til butikken og ville faktisk høre, om de havde nogle kvalitetsprintere til salg. “Næh nej” sagde han, “det skal du ikke gøre, jeg finder lige nogle drivere til dig og sender dig et link”. Den slags er efter min opfattelse rigtig god kundeservice.

Samlet set har jeg jo ikke nået at bruge pc’en så meget endnu, men den umiddelbare oplevelse er:

• Windows 7 er rigtig lækkert – det bedste fra Vista sammen med driftssikkerheden fra XP
• Jeg har endnu ikke oplevet programmer, der ikke kunne fungere med 64 bit
• Fremragende at have Windows kørende på 32 sekunder
• Fantastisk at have fået en kæmpe stor skærm
• Støjgenerne er fuldstændig væk
• Det gør bestemt ikke noget, at der er lys i tastaturet (faktisk er det rigtig flot) og at alle taster virker.
• Det samlede visuelle indtryk er bare i orden.

Der er én udfordring tilbage: iPod og iTunes… det lykkedes mig i går at destruere min kalender og iTunes fryser hver gang jeg når til et bestemt punkt. Jeg må vist på nettet og se hvor mange i denne verden, der oplever lignende problemer og ikke mindst, hvordan man løser dem!

We’ve been providing news on the hottest PC notebook to come out in years as it comes and rather than write a whole bunch of words here, I will just let the specs speak for themselves.

Core 2 Duo 1.4 Ghz ULV processor (kind of on the weak side, compared to the MacBook Air’s 1.8 and 2.0 Ghz C2D)

4 GB DDR3 800 Mhz RAM

128 GB Solid State Disk (SSD)

13.4″ WLED screen with 1366 x 768 resolution

Intel GS45 integrated graphics

2 USB (1 more than the MBA)

Mini Display-port

802.11n & Bluetooth

Webcam

User replaceable battery in two options: 20 watt/hr = two and a half hours after full charge, or a 40 watt/hr = about 5 hours (super thin battery and its swappable makes the MBA look sad)

Dimensions: 0.4″ x 13.39″ x 10.78″ (thinner than the MBA…can notebooks get any thinner than this?)

3.2 pounds (this thing is heavier than my HP Mini netbook! that weighs only 2.38 lbs)

Runs Windows 7

Price: $1799

Release date: TBA, but Dell says in time for the holidays

PC World was able to nudge some prototype information from Dell. Here is what the Dell Adamo XPS could have been.

- 4″ Multi-touch LCD touchpad

- Touch capacity keyboard (no pressing feed-back would be awkward…)

PC World

Die SSD mit ihrer hohen Leistungsfähigkeit steht bereit, die Enterprise-Festplatte bald zu ersetzen. Der Einsatz von Solid State Disks in Speichersystemen ist aber nicht ganz leicht. Alle Parameter müssen stimmen, damit die SSD zu höchsten Leistungen kommt. Ernst Mutke, Experte für das Tuning von Oracle- und SQL-Datenbanken mit Highend-SSD-Systemen, gibt auf einem Intensiv-Seminar Einblick in das Tuning und die Analyse von Speichersystemen mit SSDs, erklärt die auf dem Markt befindlichen Produkte und zeigt das richtige Sizing, den Umgang mit der Messsoftware und wie sich Leistungsengpässe identifizieren lassen.

Lesen Sie hier mehr zu dieser interessanten Veranstaltung.

Here is a recap of the DNF Corp newsletter for August:

• 2.5″ SSD support
• Virtualization for SMB
• Assigning a volume to Windows

Read the complete newsletter. If you would like to have DNF news delivered to you monthly via email, sign up now.

The common misconception of solid state drives (SSDs) is that they are unreliable and unable to withstand wear and tear. According to Storage Swiss: Enterprise Flash SSD is reliable now. Check out the full article to get the scoop.

Are you using SSDs for your enterprise storage needs? Our customers are. Our Voyager IP SAN appliance supports SATA, SAS, and SSD. Check out the Voyager to learn more.

Buffalo has released its super small USB Thumb Drive called RMUM-8GH that measures just 5MM. With this device, you can transfer diverse types of data such as photos and movies taken by your cell phone camera between your system and PC to read write them. The storage capacity of the device is 16GB.You can use this device directly into a slot inside the male fitting of the USB connector. Besides, it has an artistic appearance and attributable to its smooth. You can have this device in Black and White colors for ¥ 15,500.00.

Click to know about USB Portable Hard Disk from Buffalo

[ Source ]

640GB Hard Disk has joined the group of Seagate Free Agent category. It is an external Hard Drive uses 2.0 interface and is available in Tuxedo Black and Titanium Silver. You can have this disk in 250 GB, 320GB and 500GB of storage capacity. This thinnest portable drive features compact cable and is available in your favorite colors to suit our style.

Click to know about External USB Sata Drive Dock

It is supposed to work for automatic backup for peace of mind and it brings encryption technology to keep our files safe. Moreover, you can have easy synchronization with most recent version. It features fast data transfer with USB.

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MasterDrive SX Solid State Drive is the latest product from Super Talent that has been equipped with 128MB of DRAM cache to offer better performance. It has a 2.5-Inch form factor and it uses SATA II 3GBPS interface.
It has a new 8-channel controller based on MLC NAND Flash. Moreover, it offers up to 220MB/s Sequential Read Speed and up to 200MB/s Sequential Write Speed.

Click to know about Shock Proof HDD

In addition, these model devices are more power efficient consuming just 0.15-wat while idle. If you want to purchase this device, you can have in 64GB, 128GB and 256GB capacities. The price of the device comes around $359.

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HD-PXU2 is a new model external HDD comes out with a huge storage space to fulfill your need of storage space. It is available in 250 GB and 500 GB capacity and it has been equipped with a shockproof case to secure you from unwanted power leakages. Moreover, it is integrated with a USB cable and you can use this device on the go.

Click to know about Buffalo USB Portable Hard Disk

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Microsoft has a quite good tutorial on moving your spool folder to another drive. I used it to move it to move the folder to my RAMdisk as the spooler is just another temp directory that writes a lot to your ssd and pushes it further to its write limit.

A RAMdisk is a pretty good tool, especially if you use a computer with a SSD (Solid State Disk) like I do in my EeePC 901 (12Gb version). There are a lot of RAMdisks out there but most of them are not free. I recently found a really good RAMdisk software that costs nothing and has enough settings for my wishes. You can download it here – there is also a description how to use it.

But in short: unpack the downloaded zip, fire up the ramdisk.exe and click “Istall Ramdisk”. After that enter your settings. I use 384 Mb for the RAMdisk on my eee pc 901 with 2Gb RAM. Choose a drive letter (I kept the R:) and set the Media Type to “Fixed Media”. Finally click “Apply” or “OK”. Now you are done – you can see the result in “My Computer” as there is now a new drive “R:” (or whatever letter you asigned to it).

Now on to the fun stuff: right-click on “My computer”, then select Properties->Advanced->Environment variables. Then look for all the TEMP and/or TMP entries and change the according path to R:\Temp or any other directory on your RAMdisk. You wouldn’t even need to specify a diretory but I think it keeps everything a little bit more tidy.

You can also move your Temporary Internet Files, your Firefox Cache or any other browsers temp files there. These files are used a lot so the wear off your SSD faster. But be aware: not using a browser cache slows down your browsing (a bit) because frequently used sites are no longer cached. I have a quite fast connection most of the time so I don’t care about downloading a few bytes more or less – I switched to a cache on the RAMdisk and didn’t regret it.

If you worrying about your memories stored in photographs, just stop worrying about it. Because this is a new model, digital Portable device called ALBUM Portable Digital Photo Gallery. It can bring the finest solution for your memories.

Click to use start menu in Portable Devices

Features of this device:
•4GB onboard storage
•40,000 photo capacity as optimized resolution
•Download direct from SD card or Digital Camera
•3 hours battery life
•Slideshow
•Includes protective leather case
•Case also works as a stand

Specifications of this device :
•7” Screen
•800 x 480 pixels
•4GB internal memory
•SD card slot to expand memory
•Compatible with USB devices
Contents of this device :
•Album Digital Photo Gallery
•Instruction manual
•Mains adapter with UK, European and US plugs
•Leather case

Dimensions of this device :
•Measures: 19.5cm x 11.3cm x 1.4cm
•Weighs: 408 grams
Firmware of this device:
•The latest version of the firmware is downloadable here:
Firemware 1.8 (2.1MB)
•To install: Make sure ALBUM is plugged in, connect to your computer via USB and copy the firmware to the ALBUM. Disconnect and reboot to start the update process.
Manual of this device :
•The manual is downloadable here:
English ALBUM Manual (1.7MB)
•Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader or other PDF viewer.

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This is a portable HDD comes from Buffalo called Buffalo USB Portable Hard Disk Drive. The name of this HDD is HD-PEU2 series and looks more stylish. The storage capacity of this device is 250 GB to 500 GB comes in just 2.5” size. The form factor of this device is 2.5-inch and it can work with the USB 2.0 interface.

Click to know about colorful HDD from I-O Data

The dimension of this external HDD is W81×H16×D130mm and Data Transfer Rate (DTR) is 480Mbps or less (Theoretical Value). This device is available in Rub Red, Crystal Black and Pearl White at the cost of ¥ 12,300.00.

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With movies and games becoming more graphically intense, the file sizes have sky-rocketed into the multiple Gigabyte (GB) range. This means of course, that if you want to have a bunch of High-Definition movies, games, etc. on your computer, you will need a lot of storage, and the good folks at Western Digital (WD) have you covered. WD’s new hard drive (HDD) has surpassed Seagate’s 1.5 Terabyte (TB = 1,024GB) and just released a 2TB HDD! Now that’s a lot of storage for one HDD! This Serial-ATA (SATA) HDD has 32MB cache, 5400 rpm, and a new feature called “Intelliseek.” (There is a great video provided by WD (linked below) so you can visualize this feature) Intelliseek is a technology that the HDD uses to calculate the most efficient means to travel between two spots on the HDD, thus resulting is less power consumption and less vibration from the HDD itself!

However, if you want super lightning fast IO (read/write) speeds, this HDD is not for you. It does have enough IO speed for the average user, but if you want truly super lightning fast speeds, you will want a Solid State Disk (SSD) (basically a hard drive with no moving parts, it is a very fast, albeit expensive, on-board flash drive, but SDD’s are another post…)

Now for some math:

This HDD is pretty expensive looking at GB/dollar (2048GB/$300 = 6.82GB/$ compared to Seagate’s 1.5 TB: 1536BG/$130 = 11.8GB/$), so in my opinion, I would either go with a pair of Seagate HDD’s (2 Seagate 1.5TB HDD’s-totaling 3TB-from Newegg.com cost $260, while one 2TB WD HDD costs $300 from Newegg) or just wait until the price drops (like everything does in the world of computers).

Newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136344&nm_mc=EMC-IGNEFL040709&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL040709-_-HardDrives-_-LC3B-_-22136344

Western Digital 2TB product website: http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?DriveID=576

Western Digital home page: http://www.wdc.com/en/

-Da DreamBuild Crew

SSD (solid state disks) are all the rage in storage:  from netbooks to laptops to arrays to IP storage.

On paper, these disks look like the best way to solve all of the storage problems:  power consumption, disk performance and disk reliability.

But the catch:  these disks are much more expensive than standard disks, and have far lower capacities.

On an up note, these disks can be used as part of tiered storage  — aka different classes of disk for different purposes.  In a single system you might combine high performance disks for same day recordings:  to record the data quickly, and make it easy and fast to review the day’s footage.  Then offload the data to slower, cheaper disks for a longer term archive.  And after a few months move the footage to storage facilities, and turn off the live system, to save energy and reduce storage requirements by using tape.  (Learn about using tape for movable storage)

So today, we are investigating which surveillance applications are a good fit for SSD, and so are our partners like Milestone.  Stay tuned for our results and recommendations.

George Crump @ Storage Switzerland has a great post on evaluatiing whether or not SSDs make sense for your IT environment.

The steps to figuring out if you are a good candidate?

1. Gather statistics about your environment: storage I/O, application server performance
2. Figure out your CPU utilization — to help you determine if your problem is the application stack or the storage
3. Delve deeper to find out if storage I/O is the problem:  can you figure out is the disk queuing commands, and there is a backlog?
4. Can you improve response time with more drives?

Answer these questions, and you should be able to figure out if you can take advantage of SSD.   Read the full article for more advice on what you should look for in these tests.