IBM BladeCenter 8677

Advantages: Quite a fast drive.
Disadvantages: One of the "Deathstar" drives.

...Whether you are thinking of buying this drive (2nd hand, most likely as it's a couple of years old) or own one of IBM's 60GXP, 75GXP or 120GXP models, read on for important information about issues with these drives and fixing them. ** THE DRIVE ** Capacity: 40 GB (38.3 GB as reported in windows) Rotational Speed: 7200 RPM Interface: ATA-100 Average seek time: 8.5 ms It's a fast enough drive. It seems to perform quite a bit better than the 5400 rpm 45 GB Western Digital drive I had, it's quite a bit quieter and this one's not dead ... yet. ** BORROWING NAMES FROM STAR WARS ** The main reason I thought I'd write a review on this drive, is to hopefully help a few others who have this or one of the other 60GXP, 75GXP or 120GXP models (as I've read these are equally affected). It didn't take long for a lot of people... Read review

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Advantages: Good extra features. Can play CD's from keyboard
Disadvantages: Price?

...Now here’s an opinion that nearly didn’t get written, mainly because I’m too busy using the damned thing to write about it. I’m talking about my IBM Rapid Access Keyboard. I have been using this for about 18 months now, and if I remember correctly it cost me about £30 from PCW, the shop whose name I can’t bring myself to say in full! Since keyboards can be had for a fiver upwards, what’s so special about it? Well, nothing from the “Immense Bowel Movement”* is ever going to be cheap, but it does carry some extra features, which set it part from the “fiver jobs”. *Some “IBMers” have their own pet theories. “I Bin Moved” is one heartfelt cry, whilst German employees have been known to call it “Ich Bin Müde” – I am tired. Firstly... 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

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