IBM Simple-Swap 250 GB

Advantages: Great value for money
Disadvantages: Only ATA100

...IBM/Hitachi are very well known for their quality hard drives, well at least up until their 120GXP range which had abnormally high returns rates within a few short months of purchase but thankfully the problems they had with the 120GXP have been ironed out in their 180GXP range. I have had my 120Gb 180GXP for around 5 months now and the only problem I have had with it was last week when it suffered a bad sector that prevented me from booting but was sorted out no problems using Hitachi's Drive Fitness Test utility. I have my hard drive split into 3x40Gb partitions (which I soon regretted due to the amount of data I have). With quick access rates it proves a great drive, especially with its 8Mb of cache and is also fairly quiet which is what most people need these days with them being left running for longer periods of time... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful

Advantages: Super simple data/File sharing across a home network
Disadvantages: Can't really think of any, that's why I bought another one !

..., Width 4.7 in / 119.5mm, Weight 3 lbs / 1.36 kg) I now can confirm that it's also possible to add multiple NetDisk's to your network - up to a total disk space of 1.6 terabytes (!) - and I've not noticed any change in the access speed with 2 devices connected to the network. There's also software included for "asynchronous mirroring" (RAID1) for data protection that continuously creates and saves a copy of data in real time onto a second NetDisk whenever data is written to the first NetDisk ! Alternatively "aggregation" allows two NetDisk units to be recognized as one large drive. I have to admit that I've not yet tried this now I have 2 NetDisk's, but will let you know if I do. Watch this space... Overall, this is another great item and a very valuable component of my home network, especialy with a massive 250GB of storage space... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful

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

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful