IBM Riser card

Advantages: Very versatile mid range server
Disadvantages: support web site can be awkward to navigate

...and and 4 143GB 15K disks for the data configured as RAID5 (with the addition of an IBM 7k RAID card) with a hot spare. This gives a 73GB OS partition which should be ample for most SBS installations including the exchange store. I tend to find that most SBS base builds come to about 20GB once everything is installed. This leaves just over 50GB for the exchange store and page file. The data partition would then be about 250GB which should be ample for most SMB's. Inside the server is just as good and as this model has the dual power supplies installed I would imagine it also comes with 6 cooling fans. If you see a cheaper price for the same model make sure it has dual supplies. There is a thick perspex cover directing air from 2 of the fans over the CPU and memory slots whilst two fans at the bottom suck air through the hard drive bays... Read review

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Advantages: Interchangeable processors
Disadvantages: Its a desktop

...The IBM PC 300GL was origionaly made for the business sector. The higher spec machine similar to the 300GL was the 300PL which some had AGP graphics and LAN comunications support. This was the lower spec of the two machines but still there wasn't alot of difference. If you wanted to have better graphics or LAN support you could fit a PCI graphics card or an extra LAN card. Many motherboards of this spec had at least 4 PCI slots and for this machine that was enough. Some machines were fitted with Celeron 233-333 processors and others were fitted with Pentium 2's or 3's. The higher Pentium 3 machines were the better becuase of the extra 256 or 512 L2 cache which made processing quicker. My origional machine had a Celeron 333 with 64mb ram fitted. The machine i then upgraded to a Pentium 3 which had 512 L2 cache and 384mb... Read review

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Advantages: Flatpanel : take up little space. Great quality sound.
Disadvantages: Simplistic design, slightly flimsy. Lack of volume/treble/bass switches. Expensive.

...Introduction Late last month, I was asked to build a high quality PC for a friend. I don't just mean high quality internal components either, the guy wanted a high definition monitor, top class keyboard and optical mouse...and yeah you guessed it : brilliant speakers. Being only used to purchasing speakers for under 20 quid, I was rather stumped when he asked for speakers in the 50 pounds and up range. So off I went, scouring the computer fairs of the northwest in search of some super speakers. Eventually I came across a stall which seemed to specialise in input components and speakers. After browsing for awhile I caught sight of the IBM multimedia speaker box. The first thing I noticed was the pricetag, a rather hefty 59.99 pounds. I'm no pro regarding speaker specs, but a quick scan of the back of the box convinced me... Read review

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