HP SureStore DAT40

Tape backup; boring, uneventful, necessary.  Nothing splashy or exciting about the oldest backup medium.  Why is it still in use? Tape is reliable, relatively inexpensive and gets the job done.  Most businesses running a server use a tape drive for…

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APC Line-R 1250

Power protection is something that comes up, oh, never.  You have the PC, monitor, printer and whatever else plugged into a $10 power bar you bought at Radio Shack.  This is bad.  Regardless of what’s passed before as acceptable, every…

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MSI MS-6103

Let’s take a look at the MicroStar MS-6103 Socket 8 motherboard. I know the first thing you’re going to say; why bother with a motherboard from 1995? My main reason is the number of search hits I get looking for…

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Asus A7Pro

Motherboards are a difficult item to review, for good reason. After listing the features from the manufacturer’s web site, what do you discuss? Installation is pretty well the same for all boards, depending on form factor. Benchmarks are difficult unless…

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Promise SuperSwap

I’ve talked a lot about ATA RAID these last few months, but have left out an important aspect of fault tolerance. To accompany a hot swappable RAID card like the SuperTrak100, you need removable drive cages or chassis. Promise has…

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Promise FastTrak

When one thinks of ATA RAID, the first name that comes to mind is Promise. The first company to mass market a controller for IDE drives continues the FastTrak line from the original to the 66 and 100 models, each…

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Promise SuperTrak100

The second card in our ATA RAID project is the Promise SuperTrak100.  Promise has had a long standing relationship with ATA RAID in the form of their FastTrak line, which we’ll look at next week.  With the SuperTrak line Promise…

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