PC Tech Thread

Good to hear!
Any plans on downsizing once you've got it all up and working/proof of concept? I've seen some nice small quiet cases, although they aint cheap.

Not really. Once it's all running it will only be accessed remotely so I'll hide it away somewhere.

@TW If it's just a home storage server the ram requirements aren't too bad. FreeNAS recommend 1GB of ECC RAM Per 1TB of storage with an 8GB minimum, but I'm getting by with 4GB for 10TB of storage. You just won't be able to run all sorts of bells and whistles.

Yeah, maybe it was just me. I have 24TB of disk, and that dictates RAM needs that change the parameters of everything else.

I think the RAM needs of ZFS get brutal very fast, especially if you run other things in the jails too.

While we're on the subject, what's going to be the best / cheapest way of increasing my storage capacity at home. I have a PC with loads of free storage slots, just bung a load of 2TB drives in there and run freeNAS? The PC isn't always on, but I rarely have the need for remote access, and could leave it running if I did.

Need a mundane laptop or maybe two. Thinking of Chromebook but most people seem to have stopped making them.

Previously I've bought ex corporate thinkpads off eBay which has been successful but they are heavy and can run a bit hot.

Any suggestions?

Chromebooks are still going strong I think. Latest OS update started to allow android apps to run which is occasionally useful.

I have an Asus Chromebook Flip which is very nice. Very light and feels quite premium, about a year old so you may be able to get them cheap.

Thanks - will look at Assus. Dell and Samsung/Google seem to be in between models or something.

Chromebooks def are still around. They just over took Apple for units sold!

They're taking a lot of the educational market it seems, taking business from ipads.

Best value for a 1tb external hard drive?

Western Digital elements/passport seem to be cheap on the high street but value isn't necessarily equal to cost.

We use these:http://www.jigsaw24.com/pws/ProductDetails.ice?ProductID=ref089aaa&gclid=CITuiLTu984CFYkp0wodlcEH9g

They're twice the price of the WD Passport but I've literally never had one fail and I own about 40-50 of them.

The older models are made of metal and are very nice and snazzy with the same reliable mechanism but the new models have plastic casing which helps if you're clumsy as the weight mitigates some drop damage. They also have the ATC enclosure thing which is allegedly drop proof and completely water proof - comes in USB3 or Thunderbolt flavours.

Can't recommend them enough.

Yeah I appreciate the cost vs. quality debate but I'm literally going to tidy up an old lap top and a smaller external hd I have and back up all my music and photos onto the hard drive as an archive, will only be using it occasionally to back up rather than daily.

Decided that my Sony duo 11 is on it's last legs and thinking about an upgrade either to the upcoming mac or venture to the new Lenovo yoga book:

Always used WD for the uni days and IMO works wonders and the price isn't too shabby for the price:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/wd-usb-30-1tb-my-passport-ultra-portable-hard-drive-blue-a30wn

Will you be using the full 1TB?

Cloud? Google Drive has 1TB a year for the cost of a 1TB drive :/

Or Amazon Backspace has unlimited files for $60 a year?

The new yoga 710 I have seems to come with unlimited one drive cloud storage? Ill be using this for photos and docs.

Hard disk is for back up back up.

I've got 2-300 gb of music and a lot of photos, also want the music to be offline and portable.

Figured with the increasing size of photo and video files a TB makes sense as will be longer till I outgrow it.

Figured with the increasing size of photo and video files a TB makes sense as will be longer till I outgrow it.

In that case I'd go for 2 or 3TB, as that's the sweet spot £/TB at the moment

My fanless plex server is, on the whole, working well. The only issue is it gets a bit warm when the processor is maxed out, normally when stuff is being transcoded to be synced to mobile.

I want to set it so that a fan comes on at a certain temperature. I've tried doing this in the BIOS settings and using fancontrol in Ubuntu and neither make a difference.

From reading a little I suspect I may need a PWM fan but not entirely clear. Does this sound correct? If so, any recommendations for 120mm or 140mm fan?

I use Speedfan on my 'puter to control the fans.

http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php

Edit: Opps... Windows only...

Ended up getting an Asus C201P - really like it. Battery life is excellent and it's quick for the stuff I want it for. Happy so far...

Not quite what I wanted but I've downloaded it for my laptop and seems to be showing it running pretty hot, time to get the can of compressed air out I think.

Yep, they're pretty nice for the price.

If you're technically minded it can be worth installing Linux. It's not amazing because the ARM processor means that not everything is compatible but it's useful for some stuff. https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton It also has a native SSH client which can be useful.

Polarr is a good offline photo editor and Caret a good, basic text editor that can be used offline too.

Is there something better than the Dell UltraSharp U2515H you guys were recommending earlier in the year? I still haven't got around to replacing this but should. The Dell UltraSharp U2515H is £20 more than it was 6 months ago which doesn't compute in my head for IT kit.