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Yeah I have noticed a big push towards the home consumer market for all-in-one computers. In one way, yeah they are nice because it is a more compact form factor but it comes at a drawback. With many standard desktop platforms the hardware components are very standardized so that upgrading or...

In cases like this I'd suggest just running a Linux distro as a virtual machine within Windows 7 using a free virtualization software like VirtualBox or VMWare. However, if the computer only has a dual-core pentium processor (even the newer Sandy Bridges ones) it may not be the most efficient...

In a lot of ways I agree with what Techman has said. Yes, the computer industry as we have grown to know it is making a huge change. For the first time, the most prolific desktop operating system, Windows, will have touch as is primary input method with mouse and keyboard being a "compatible...

Don't get me wrong, I think Windows 8 will do great things in helping the coming touch technologies, like Techman stated above, but I fear that Microsoft has done so in a way that greatly hinders the normal desktop environment and normal desktop and laptop computers in terms of performance and...

In your BIOS settings, what do you have the SATA operation set as? Usually this will be an option of IDE, AHCI, or RAID. Most of the time we have had good luck with Windows 7 having default drivers to support drives set in AHCI mode (which is recommended for a single SATA hard drive) but...

I downloaded the first developer's preview of Windows 8 a while back and installed it on a couple computers to try out. Honestly... not impressed. While yes it pretty much has everything of a Windows 7 desktop, there's so much functionality that they ruined incorporating their Metro UI. The...

This sounds like quite the interesting project to take on. For laptops, running multiple monitors really isn't a problem. Most all laptops today have graphics chipsets along with physical wiring and connections to directly connect multiple external monitors. The number of displays which can...

I agree, I think the concept of being able to do "simple" redundant storage using non-identical drives is pretty neat, but is it something that most Windows users are going to mess with? I don't believe so. Especially since Windows 8 has been focused much more on the light and mobile systems...

I just read some interesting things planned for storage capabilities in the upcoming Windows 8 and thought others might be interested in taking a look as well. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012/01/05/virtualizing-storage-for-scale-resiliency-and-efficiency.aspx

Off-site solutions aren't always the most feasible for people largely in part due to the amount of data they have and the available internet connection. Yes, the reason why I'm asking about directly connected external drives to do backups is just that, to do a full backup of the NAS. RAID...

I have a question for you that have used Synology NAS devices before. Is the operating system running on most of these devices similar across several different of their devices? What all features and functionality do you have within the operating system? In other words, do you just access...

I definitely agree that hardware raid controllers offer huge benefits over simple software or integrated software RAID controllers. The difference is most simple NAS devices don't include a high-end hardware RAID controller as can be found in sever-class systems. Then again, that's a big part...

All of the points that you made are very good things to point out. One reason why I do not like to use RAID 5 (or any others for that matter really) is because it completely relies on the RAID controller to be able to access the data. In theory with a RAID 1 array, if your controller goes down...

Perhaps this is beyond the scope of what you're interested in, but have you thought about using a NAS or file server instead to host all of your art files in one place, that can be shared and accessed on all your computers? Then it's just a matter of doing a file search in Windows or OSX to...

There are a couple of things that make me kinda wonder about using a NAS device personally. First of all is backups. While NAS devices often integrate RAID setups, I very rarely (actually, never) trust RAID as a form of backup. If I use two drives in RAID 1, I have a completely separate...

I'm not really a fan of Dell stuff either (I've fixed more Dell laptops and desktops than just about anything else in the last four years of my computer business.) However, their monitors are something completely different. The professional monitors and ultra sharp monitors are beyond anything...

When it comes directly to the individual computer components, that is hard. Unless you're looking at high-end workstation and server platforms, there's no real "business grade" stuff it's mainly knowing what brands and components are higher performance and quality over other brands and...

The whole AMD vs. Intel debate comes up quite regularly, and it always will. That's because at its core it is a huge part of deciding what is right for your computer needs. Regardless that everyone will have an opinion, and that indeed some hardware will be better than others, the fact is that...

Casey seems to be right, these are indeed SATAII hard drives, just that they are specifically designed for server environments, hence the special Hot Swap designation. They should work just fine in a NAS just as they would in a full server. If you still are looking to get a server instead of...

The PC that will be running this plotter is a Shuttle micro computer, and I know that the motherboard on this system doesn't include a COM port output adapter. In the end here I've purchased a Rosewill PCI-Express x1 add-on card, a 25-foot null modem serial cable, and a spare 15-foot extension...