One of the biggest new features in Service Pack 1 for Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V users is the new Dynamic Memory functionality. Instead of partitioning physical memory into separate silos for each virtual machine, Dynamic Memory basically allows the Hyper-V hypervisor to allocate a pool of memory to be used for various virtual machines and then allocate...
It has been a long time since I have posted about The Big WHS. At the last update in May 2010, the machine occupied 8U using two 4U enclosures, and was topping 60TB of raw storage capacity. Since then there have been quite a few developments that I thought I would write about.
The current hardware list is as follows:
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A commonly asked question is what makes up a good RAID controller. There are many purveyors of RAID cards out there that will sell a FakeRAID solution supporting RAID 5 or RAID 6 for a premium.
The RAID Controller
Here one generally looks for a RAID on Chip controller (RoC). While RAID 0, 1, and 10 are fairly easy for a...
Many users are familiar with Windows networking and browsing shared folders over a local network. For constantly accessed shared folders, a simple way of accessing the same folder immediately is to simply create a shortcut. The other, and potentially better way to regularly access information from a server is to map the shared folder as a network drive. When...
This week I had a few tidbits that looked interesting related to the new C200 series chip sets for the new Xeons, iSuppli NAND consumption, Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 released to MSDN and Technet subscribers.
I am on a plane from California to London at the moment, so if any exciting news happens today, I will likely...
A question that came up recently was how does one setup common applications that work well with NAS systems to write data to network storage versus solid state drives. I decided to take a few snapshots of the test network using Windows 7 libraries, iTunes, Amazon MP3 Downloader, Handbrake and FRAPS which all have highly sequential writes. Another advantage...
After recently reviewing the ASUS P8H67-M EVO I thought it would be a good idea to take a look at a larger ATX motherboard, the ASUS P8P67 Pro. Based on the P67 chipset, the ATX board sacrifices being able to use Intel's Sandy Bridge on-die GPU to provide video connectivity in favor of a few distinct advantages....
One thing that virtually every major storage player and enterprise has been using for the past few years, and is continuing to use, is a tiered storage approach. This is mainly due to the fact that lower capacity, higher-cost drives tend to have higher performance than larger and less expensive alternatives. The basic premise is to have the most...
After the Intel Core i7-2600K review, quite a few comments came in regarding the chip's much less expensive Sandy Bridge cousin, the Core i5-2500K. This article will discuss the Core i5-2500K which sheds a few features from the Core i7-2600K while gaining a price advantage. As mentioned in the Core i7-2600K piece, the Sandy Bridge platform is ideal for...
This week did not have any ultra exciting announcements like Windows Home Server 2011, a Cougar Point bug or anything of that nature, so I picked a few top tidbits that I saw this week.
TrendFocus releases Q4'2010 Hard Drive Market Analysis Report
TrendFocus published its Q4 2010 report on the worldwide hard drive market titled Storage Demand Analysis System...