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One thing I have been looking at for a long time has been doing formal “awards” or best-buy ratings on things I review. What a lot of even regular readers do not know is that I probably only post reviews of about 1/3 of the product I look at. Frankly, if I would rate something as an overpriced 2 out of 10, I would rather look at things that are a better fit for a segment.

Now, the downside is that I generally think that a lot of implementations of ratings or award systems are done fairly poorly. I think we all know why this happens, but it is something I have gone through pains to avoid. At one point I tried to make the process as objective as possible and had gotten up to two dozen dimensions and what amounted to a three-slide “summary” of a review dissecting any aspect I could think of, customized for each type of reviewed product. Clearly, this was not going to be tenable long-term. What I settled on was a few simple dimensions which I could customized depending on what segment a product was aimed at as there are clear distinctions between what one would expect of a system around just to playback HD content versus one to store vast quantities of media. Continue Reading

This mid-range guide was originally intended to have an AMD Bulldozer based build and an Intel E3 series based build. I have been playing quite a bit with the Bulldozer CPUs and frankly, it is very difficult to do at this point. On the plus side, the desktop AMD FX series Bulldozer CPUs support ECC so long as the motherboard can. Frankly, I wish Intel just did away with the Xeon E3 versus Core i5/ i7 designation and just allowed Core i5 and i7 series CPUs support ECC. AMD’s efforts here are commendable. Now, here is the issue, Windows Home Server 2011, Windows 7, and Windows 2008 Server R2 all seem to have the scheduler that keeps more Bulldozer nodes active than one would want. Microsoft has said that the Windows 8 generation kernel will support the Bulldozer architecture, but Windows 8 generation products are probably a year away. Continue Reading

One thing that I have wanted to do for awhile, is consistently update the buyer’s guides. Although technology changes in the home server space, there tends to be one or two big product launches each year that make it very worthwhile. The last Entry DIY Storage Server guide was done in December 2010, and it has been far too long since I did an update. Expect the mid-range and high-end guides to follow. As is customary with these, I am not going to focus on drives as the choice will vary based on the exact storage needs people have. Continue Reading

For those that are accustomed to IPMI 2.0 for their servers, with KVM-over-IP and the ability to remotely reboot a PC, Intel’s vPro platform provides some similar functionality. I have been working with vPro components quite a bit over the past few weeks and decided to try using my Apple iPad to reboot the machine. Continue Reading

Keeping a server online as much as possible means that one needs to manage several things. Good examples include maintaining network connectivity, ensuring all server components are functioning correctly and maintaining power to a server. In facilities such as Tier 1 data centers, keeping network connectivity and power feeds operating are both primary concerns. In the SMB and home server settings, power is likely to be more of an issue than in a reliable datacenter, but there are a few tricks that one can use to keep the server powered on as much as possible, beyond simply utilizing a UPS unit and a backup generator. Continue Reading

The Eye-Fi Pro X2 8GB combines a 802.11n WiFi connection and 8GB of Class 6 SD card storage in a standard SDHC card package, delivering a unique value proposition in the process. Serious and recreational photographers alike know that today’s flash storage is great in terms of digital photo storage but there are still memory constraints involved, especially with HD video and the physical act of transferring the cards from device to PC can be painful if done repeatedly. Eye-Fi products have been around for some time now with the cool feature of combining flash storage and a WiFi radio in a small package to alleviate capacity and transfer headaches. I recently became a user with my Canon DSLR and have to say, despite the steep price, I think it was a worthwhile purchase.

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The Eye-Fi Pro X2 is a cool product that I will be featuring a bit more on ServeTheHome.com. For those that are not familiar with the product, it allows one to transfer images and video from a SecureDigital card enabled camera to a PC, Android, or iOS device via WiFi. While the Eye-Fi Pro X2 model I have been using recently has 8GB of memory onboard, it also can transmit images and video directly from the camera/ memory card to the target PC. As someone that uses SSDs in my primary PC, I wanted to make sure that this data is not being written to the expensive NAND, and instead would save itself on my Windows Home Server 2011 machine with its cheap storage, backup and redundancy features that I do not have on my main workstation. Of course, I made a quick guide so other users can do this too. Continue Reading

One question I get weekly is whether or not one should use Absolute or Relative mouse in the AMI MegaRAC-based IPMI 2.0 KVM-over-IP solutions. The answer is relatively simple: it depends. Continue Reading

When Amazon.com announced that it was releasing its cloud player, whereby users can purchase DRM-free MP3′s and store them in the cloud, one question remained in my mind, could the service be the beginning of the end for home servers? After using the service for awhile, I think the answer at this point is no, but it is a really great value proposition. With Google and Apple launching cloud-based music solutions following Amazon’s lead, I thought I would take the opportunity to share some thoughts. Continue Reading

Previously we looked at how to install the Microsoft iSCSI Target software on a Windows Server 2008 R2 machine and then setup the iSCSI target on the server. The next step is being able to connect a client system to the iSCSI target. For Microsoft Windows, there is a built-in iSCSI initiator software that is very simple to configure to work with iSCSI targets.

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