Events

NVIDIA SLI Multi-GPU Technology Power World’s Fastest Desktop Gaming Platforms

News
Tech

Andrew Edney

-

Nov 14, 2011

NVIDIA SLI Multi-GPU Technology Power World’s Fastest Desktop Gaming Platforms

NVIDIA SLI Multi-GPU Technology Paired with Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition Processors Power World’s Fastest Desktop Gaming Platforms.

Here is what NVIDIA said today:

SANTA CLARA, Calif.—Nov. 14, 2011— NVIDIA today announced that system builders worldwide are now shipping the fastest PC gaming platforms ever built, thanks in part to NVIDIA® SLI® technology and the just-released Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition processors and X79 chipset-based motherboards.

The combination of NVIDIA SLI technology – which allows for multiple GPUs to run on a single PC – and new X79-based motherboards allow gamers to customise their PC experience with up to four NVIDIA GeForce® GTX GPUs, including the GeForce GTX 580 and GTX 570, the world’s fastest DX11 GPUs. Licensed by the world’s leading motherboard manufacturers – including Intel, ASUS, ASRock, EVGA, Foxconn, Gigabyte and MSI, SLI technology is crucial for playing this year’s hottest graphics-intensive games, such as the recently released Battlefield 3 and upcoming Batman: Arkham City with detail, resolution and immersion settings cranked up.

“Falcon’s entire desktop lineup will be moving to Sandy Bridge-E, and NVIDIA SLI technology was an absolute necessity for every model we make,” said Kelt Reeves, president of Falcon Northwest. “It was critical for us to offer our clients multi-GPU options, and pairing Sandy Bridge’s monstrous new CPU horsepower with SLI’s monstrous graphics power will give gamers and enthusiasts smoother frame rates and a better visual experience.”

NVIDIA SLI technology is now available for all consumer-based desktop and mobile PC platforms, including previous versions of Intel Core i7, Core i5, Core i3, Core 2 Quad and Core 2 Duo processors, as well as those based on the AMD Bulldozer and Phenom II CPUs.

NVIDIA DX11 GPUs are designed to deliver the world’s fastest performance for DX11 games, and are the only consumer GPUs to feature multiple tessellation engines for advanced graphics rendering capabilities. NVIDIA GeForce GPUs also provide gamers with additional features not found on any other discrete graphics solutions, such as NVIDIA PhysX® technology for deeper gaming immersion, and support for NVIDIA 3D Vision™ technology, delivering eye-popping stereoscopic 3D on a single display or spanning across three screens for an immersive gaming environment.

I’ve only just built a new system – sounds like it’s time to build another one!

Review of the Lenovo IdeaPad Tablet K1

Andrew Edney

-

Nov 14, 2011

3

We first saw the Lenovo IdeaPad Tablet K1 back at IFA in September. Now it’s time for our review.

The ultimate entertainment tablet—loaded with great apps and optimized for enjoying movies, music, social networking and the Web.

Android 3.1 installed, a rich interactive platform optimized specifically for tablet devices
Full Flash support so you can fully enjoy your favourite online sites
HD display and HDMI output for vibrant resolution on your tablet or on a monitor
More than 30 apps preloaded, plus access to Lenovo’s App Shop
Front and rear cameras for better two-way video chats
Integrated cloud storage to save and share your files across multiple devices

IdeaPad Tablet K1: Open the Box and Play

Weighing just 1.63 lbs, the highly mobile IdeaPad Tablet K1 offers integrated Bluetooth and 802.11 Wi-Fi connectivity. The IdeaPad Tablet K1 offers several key features and tools as standard, for flexibility, power and security to enjoy digital content anywhere. Simply put, the Lenovo IdeaPad Tablet K1 helps users who want:

More out of the box: The Android-powered Lenovo IdeaPad Tablet K1 is preloaded with more than 40 apps from partners like Netflix, Amazon, Adobe, Electronic Arts, Rovio, Zinio, Dataviz, and others (over $50 in value), including favourites like Need for Speed Shift, Angry Birds, Kindle reading app and Documents to Go.

More entertainment: Users can browse all websites and watch online videos with ease thanks to Adobe Flash Player 10.3. Plus, with DRM, they can rent movies in every available format. At a later date shortly after launch, users will also be able to both rent or buy movies to play off-line with a new application Lenovo will pre-load.

More social networking: Users can access an entire network of friends and social sites all in one place, with Lenovo’s exclusive SocialTouch app, which effectively creates a one-stop social connection. And since one picture is still worth a thousand words, the Lenovo IdeaPad Tablet K1 comes with a two-megapixel front-facing and a five-megapixel rear-facing webcam.

More true HD: Users can watch movies and videos in breath-taking HD on a 1280 X 800 resolution screen. The mini HDMI connection allows up to 1080p HD viewing when connected to an HDTV or monitor, resulting in a powerful visual experience.

More cloud sharing: Users can sync, store and share files, music and photos with more integrated cloud storage, and less reliance on their local storage.

More Apps: Users can access hundreds of thousands of apps in Android Market and apps tested exclusively for premium function on the IdeaPad Tablet K1 in the Lenovo App Shop.

Who are Lenovo?

From their website:

Lenovo creates and builds exceptionally engineered personal technology, but we are much more than a tech company. We are defining a new way of doing things as a next generation global company. That means we are years ahead of the game in terms of understanding what it will take to win 5, 10 years from now.

Formed by Lenovo Group’s acquisition of the former IBM Personal Computing Division, Lenovo builds on its dominant position in China to grow globally. The expansion from East to West – such as by introducing our newest products in China and then spreading across the globe – is a new way of viewing the world, one we believe will be the way of the future.

That focus on the future is based on a strong history of success that is driving results today. Long the leader in China, Lenovo is growing rapidly and winning market share in all parts of the world. This balanced growth is what has made Lenovo the fastest growing major PC company and enabled us to consistently grow faster than the market.

Achieving optimal balance in all that we do is Lenovo’s operating philosophy. This mind-set encompasses every aspect of Lenovo’s business, from balancing leadership with consensus-building, to valuing both short- and long-term thinking. As a result, we have created a balanced business model and strategy that take maximum advantage of profit and investment across both core and new businesses. The result is balanced performance and market share growth across all regions, customer segments, products and business models.

Our mission is to become one of the world’s great personal technology companies. We aspire to achieve this objective by leading in three key areas:

Personal Computers: Lead in PCs and be respected for our product innovation and quality.

Convergence: Lead the industry with an ecosystem of devices, services, applications and content for people to seamlessly connect to people and web content.

Culture: Become recognized as one of the best, most trusted and most well-respected companies to work for and do business with.

Specifications

NVIDIA® Tegra™ T20 1.0GHz Processor
Android™ 3.1
10.4” x 7.4” x .5” and less than 1.7 pounds
Up to 10 hours battery life
Up to 1GB DDR2 memory, up to 64GB SSD storage
Integrated Bluetooth® and 802.11b/g/n WiFi connectivity
MicroSD card reader, mini HDMI connector and optional docking port
Integrated front (2M) and back (5M) mounted webcam

WHS 2011 Add-in: Drive Bender Updated to version 1.2.1.6

Andrew Edney

-

Nov 14, 2011

0

Drive Bender, the add-in for Windows Home Sever 2011 that replaces Drive Extender, has now been updated to version 1.2.1.6.

What is it?

Drive Bender is state of the art, single point storage pool technology for Microsoft Windows. Drive Bender presents multiple hard drives as a single pool of data storage, either as one or more drive letters, or a network shared drive. Drive Bender is able to do this with any drive recognized by Windows, including external drive such as USB, Firewire etc.

Expandability

Drive Bender also provides the user with the ability to seamless expand their storage pool by simply adding a new drive. Adding a new drive expands the pool by the size of the new drive. Existing data within the pool is redistributed to the new drive to ensure the pool remain balanced.

Drive merging and converting

Drive Bender also offers a merge capability, allowing users to take a drive that contains data, and merge that drive (and data) into the pool. In addition there is also a drive conversion feature. This can take and existing drive letter (mounted against a physical drive) and convert this into a pooled drive. Once completed, new hard drives can be added to expand the once fixed drive.

Data redundancy

To further ensure data safety, Drive Bender can automatically duplicate any file added to a Drive Bender pool. File duplication is determined at the folder level and occurs on the fly as data is being written to the pool. More importantly, files are only duplicated across physical drives ensuring maximum safety and data redundancy.

Non-destructive

One of the key Drive Bender features is its non-destructive file system technology. In short, this means that all drives within a Drive Bender pool are utilizing standard NTFS format and file structures. This is to such an extent that a drive can be pulled from the pool and read on any machine capable of reading an NTFS formatted drive. More over, drives attached to the pool can be done so without modification, if a drive is added (not merged) that contains existing data, that data will remain untouched.

Ease to try

Because of our non-destructive file system, taking Drive Bender for a test drive is easy. Simply specify the drives to be included in the pool, and you are ready go. The drives are not formatted (unless specified), the only change made to the drive is the addition of a folder that holds the contents of the pool and a small number of configuration files.

The technology

Drive Bender employs existing, proven kernel mode file system technology. Having spent many years developing kernel mode drivers, we are able to use this experience to great extent. The end result is a product whose performance will closely match that of the underlying drive.

The story

Early in 2010 we prototyped a Drive Extender style application with the view of releasing a product that would work with all versions of Microsoft Windows. However soon thereafter, Microsoft announced Vail (a new version of Windows Home Server) and a small business server product, codename Aurora, both of which contain their Drive Extender technology. Given this, and the possibility that Drive Extend may well make its way to other Microsoft platforms, we shelved the project.

However later that same year, Microsoft announced that they would be dropping Drive Extender from all their products (including Windows Home Server 2011), leaving the door open for Division-M to resurrect the Drive Bender project!

Release v1.2.1.6 release (2011-11-12)

– Bug fix: During the duplication process (i.e. enabling duplication on a folder) could cause a file to have its read only flag removed.
– Bug fix: The file / duplication count for a pool can sometimes read zero.
– Update: Some performance improvements on file duplication.
– Update: Some performance improvements on file / folder renaming and deleting.
– Bug fix: The Drive Bender Manager does not display changes in mount points.

Download Drive Bender from here

Amazon UK Launch Kindle Daily Deal

Gadgets
News

Andrew Edney

-

Nov 14, 2011

0

Today is the first day of the Kindle Daily Deal for us here in the UK. What is it you may ask?

Basically, the Kindle Daily Deal is a daily deal (hence the name) where you can get a selected Kindle book significantly cheaper. Each day there will be a different book.

Today’s daily deal is Where the Shadows Lie – with a 75% discount making the book only 99 pence!

Check back every day for the daily deal.

View the Amazon Kindle Daily Deal here

Two Minute Review of the Iomega eGo Mac Edition Portable Hard Drive

Andrew Edney

-

Nov 14, 2011

0

Two Minute Review of the Iomega eGo Mac Edition Portable Hard Drive

Last week we told you that Iomega had released a new eGo Mac Edition portable hard drive. We got our hands on one and here is our two minute review.

The Iomega eGoTM Portable Hard Drive, Mac Edition has great style and triple interface connections for Mac users! Two FireWire 800 and one USB 2.0 port combined with high-performance 7200 RPM disks offer industry leading performance and connectivity. The included Drop Guard Case helps protect the drive from drops up to 2.1m. Keep your files secure with built-in 256-bit hardware encryption. Plus, the Iomega eGo Portable Hard Drive requires no external power supply and includes Iomega Protection Suite, Mac Edition software via easy download.

The eGo Mac Edition portable drive comes in either black or white and in either 500GB or 1TB capacity options.

Who are Iomega?

From their website:

Iomega Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of EMC Corporation headquartered in San Diego, is a worldwide leader in innovative storage and network security solutions for small businesses, home offices, consumers and others. The Company has sold more than 410 million digital storage drives and disks since its inception in 1980. Today, Iomega’s product portfolio includes industry leading network attached storage products, external hard drives, multimedia drives, and our award-winning removable storage technology, the REV® Backup Drive.

Specifications

Cache – 8 MB
Data Transfer rates: USB 2.0 – up to 480 Mbits/s; FireWire 800 – up to 800 Mbits/s
Hardware Encryption: AES 256-bit Encrypted Storage Controller

Iomega Protection Suite Software (via download)

Trend Micro™ Smart Surfing for Mac (12 month free subscription)
Iomega QuikProtect
MozyHome™ Online Backup service (2GB free)

System Requirements

Built-in USB connection
Built-in FireWire 800 connection

Mac OS X 10.5 – 10.7
128MB RAM

Weights and Dimensions

13.5 x 9.0 x 1.9 / 2.26* (cm)

0.24 / 0.26* kg

All dimensions L x W x H are approximations.

*1TB version.

What’s in the Box?

Along with the eGo drive, are one FireWire 800, one conversion FireWire 400-800, and one USB 2.0 cable, the usual paperwork and a drop guard case used to protect the drive.

A Closer Look

Using the Drive

Fitting the eGo drive into the rubber drop guard case is easy and gives it that little bit of extra protection.

Connected the eGo to my Mac was simple and the drive worked straight away.

Final Thoughts

The drive is very simple to use and does exactly what you would expect from a drive. The addition of a pass-through port for FireWire will make the drive more desirable for some.

My MacBook Air doesn’t have any FireWire ports so I could only test the USB 2.0 port, and using that connection the drive seemed “fast enough” for my needs on the Mac. It also worked perfectly with Time Machine as a backup drive.

I could have reformatted the drive and run proper performance tests on Windows but that seemed a little pointless as if you wanted a Windows drive you wouldn’t buy this one as it’s aimed at Mac owners!

The drop guard is a good idea, and worth having on all the time – sooner or later you will drop a drive, so better to be prepared.

The Iomega Protection Suite software is very useful and is a good addition to the package.

Price wise, the 500GB version retails for £138.00 and the 1TB version for £176.00, so not the cheapest portable drives available.

Learn more from the Iomega website

No More Logitech Revue with Google TV Devices

Andrew Edney

-

Nov 14, 2011

3

No More Logitech Revue with Google TV Devices

Last year we brought you the news that Logitech had launched a device called the Revue with Google TV. Well that device just didn’t sell well and now Logitech have called it a day on the device.

According to website TheVerge:

CEO Guerrino De Luca pulled absolutely no punches in describing the “mistakes” the company made with its Logitech Revue Google TV set top box. Calling the company’s Christmas 2010 launch “a mistake of implementation of a gigantic nature,” De Luca told investors that the company had “brought closure to the Logitech Revue saga” by making plans to let inventory run out this quarter and that there are “no plans to introduce another box to replace Revue.”

De Luca suggested that Google TV was far from ready at launch, going so far as to call it “beta” software on one presentation slide, and that the company made a massive misstep by believing that it would revolutionize television right out of the gate. In short, Logitech “executed a full scale launch with a beta product and it cost us dearly.” He added more color about Logitech’s failure to read the television market in his remarks:

To make the long story short, we thought we had invented [sliced] bread and we just made them. [We made a commitment to] just build a lot because we expected everybody to line up for Christmas and buy these boxes [at] $300 […] that was a big mistake.

The mistake, plus “operational miscues in EMEA” cost the company “well over $100M in operating profits.” De Luca did throw Google a bone by saying that he believes Google TV will have a chance sometime in the future, but it would be a “grandchild of Google TV” that would do it. Logitech clearly has no plans to help make that happen, opting instead to sit “on the bench” (as De Luca had put it in an earlier call) until Google can find success.

Logitech posted this on their blog:

As our CEO Guerrino De Luca stated earlier this week, Logitech will not manufacture new Logitech Revue units. That said, we do believe that consumers in the U.S. will be able to purchase the product during this holiday season. And all owners of Logitech Revue will receive the automatic and free update of Google’s recently announced updated version of Google TV, which we expect to roll out before the end of the year.

So, just as I predicted the Logitech Revue with Google TV is dead.

Do you own one? Let us know your thoughts….

QNAP TurboNAS Firmware: 3.5 Deep Dive Part Four: Cloud Backup Services

Jim McCarthy

-

Nov 14, 2011

4

QNAP TurboNAS Firmware: 3.5 Deep Dive Part Four: Cloud Backup Services

This is Part Four of our QNAP TurboNAS Deep Dive series and we look at cloud backup services. Read on for details!

In Part One of this series, we told you how to set up the ISCSI target functionality in TurboNAS 3.5. In Part Two, we covered adding users. In Part Three, we covered volume management and SMART data. In Part Four, we’ll cover cloud backup services.

Cloud Backup: Services Available

TurboNAS support establishing cloud backups with two services: Amazon S3 and ElephantDrive. Here is how the help file describes the two services:

Amazon S3

Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) is an online storage web service offered by AWS (Amazon Web Services), and it provides a simple web services interface that can be used to store and retrieve any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web. With Amazon S3 support, you can now easily upload the data from your NAS to Amazon S3 or download the data from Amazon S3 to your NAS.

Note: Before starting use this service, you will need to create your AWS account.

ElephantDrive

ElephantDrive is an online storage service for users to back up data to their ElephantDrive account and restore data. The ElephantDrive service on the NAS allows you to create an ElephantDrive account and back up your NAS data to the online storage and restore data to the NAS via ElephantDrive website.

I’ve seen S3 before and it is a great service. Amazon describes their service here:

Amazon S3 is storage for the Internet. It is designed to make web-scale computing easier for developers.
Amazon S3 provides a simple web services interface that can be used to store and retrieve any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web. It gives any developer access to the same highly scalable, reliable, secure, fast, inexpensive infrastructure that Amazon uses to run its own global network of web sites. The service aims to maximize benefits of scale and to pass those benefits on to developers.

Amazon S3 is intentionally built with a minimal feature set.

Write, read, and delete objects containing from 1 byte to 5 terabytes of data each. The number of objects you can store is unlimited.

Each object is stored in a bucket and retrieved via a unique, developer-assigned key.

A bucket can be stored in one of several Regions. You can choose a Region to optimize for latency, minimize costs, or address regulatory requirements. Amazon S3 is currently available in the US Standard, US West (Oregon), US West (Northern California), EU (Ireland), Asia Pacific (Singapore), Asia Pacific (Tokyo) and GovCloud (US) Regions. The US Standard Region automatically routes requests to facilities in Northern Virginia or the Pacific Northwest using network maps.

Objects stored in a Region never leave the Region unless you transfer them out. For example, objects stored in the EU (Ireland) Region never leave the EU.

Authentication mechanisms are provided to ensure that data is kept secure from unauthorized access. Objects can be made private or public, and rights can be granted to specific users.

Options for secure data upload/download and encryption of data at rest are provided for additional data protection.

Uses standards-based REST and SOAP interfaces designed to work with any Internet-development toolkit.

Built to be flexible so that protocol or functional layers can easily be added. The default download protocol is HTTP. A BitTorrent™ protocol interface is provided to lower costs for high-scale distribution.

Reliability backed with the Amazon S3 Service Level Agreement.

As you can see, Amazon S3 is a pretty decent service. US pricing starts at $0.140/GB/Month for the 1st 1TB of data transferred.

ElephantDrive support was added recently as well. Here is how ElephantDrive describes themselves:

SIMPLE, SAFE AND SECURE ONLINE BACK UPS AND STORAGE

Military grade encryption keeps your files safe and secure

Intelligent software moves your data fast

Access and share your files anytime, anywhere

One program to unify your data

Secure 128-bit SSL transfer Information sent from you to ElephantDrive is protected by the same system that banks and financial institutions use to secure their transactions.

Advanced 256-bit AES encryption Before transfer, your files are encrypted with the preferred algorithm of the U.S. government (approved for “Top Secret” use by the NSA).

Innovative delivery technology Our engineers have designed an advanced, proprietary system for maximizing your available bandwidth while minimizing the effects on your system.

Differential backups ElephantDrive recognizes which files are new or have been modified so that after your first backup completes, all future backups will go much faster.

Universal access With ElephantDrive’s web-based portal you have 24/7 access to all of your files, wherever you are!

Easy and secure file sharing Share any file with a single click (great for files that are too large to email), and set a password for extra security.

Multiple devices and multiple platforms Works with laptops, servers, external storage devices, MACs, PCs, and most server operating systems.

Powerful administrative controls Create independent sub-accounts with different access privileges (Business Plan required), and monitor your account activity and data usage.

Personal plans start at $9.95 per month and QNAP offers a 30 day free trial. Since there is a free trial and since I’ve never looked at ElephantDrive before, I decided to try it out here.

Installing ElephantDrive

Under the Backup tab in the web admin page, click on Backup and then Cloud Backup.

If you are setting up Amazon S3, you are in the right place! Since we’re doing ElephantDrive, click on the ElephantDrive tab. Enter the email account and password that you want to use with Elephant Drive and click the Create button.

Tranquil PC Announce the Silent Riley Server Series

News
Tech

Andrew Edney

-

Nov 13, 2011

2

Tranquil PC Announce the Silent Riley Server Series

Today Tranquil PC announced a new series of silent servers called the Riley series.

Since September 2007, Tranquil PC have brought to market numerous innovative Windows Home Server appliances – the T7, T2, SQA and in 2011 the Leo performance server.

Since July 2011, the next generation have been evolving. The next generation, known as “Riley“ series are now being completed for release for sale.

After selling 10,000’s of servers, getting substantial customer feedback over the various appliances, and more recently completing a huge customer survey, the Riley series will set a new standard in the market:

Processor units powered by Intel dual core Atom, or i3/i5 processors
Processor units include two 2.5” HDD bays to provide server OS drive and server backup drive
Storage units provide RAID0, 1, 5 or 10 (default 5) optimisation across the 4x internal 3.5” HDD bays
Multiple storage units can connect to the processor units (depending on processor model)

Key features (both processor and storage)

100% fan less operation
Near silent operation (processor <3.5dBA, storage <6dBA)
Low power consumption
Single piece construction, without vents or any joints
Optimised for ‘living space’, visually and acoustically desirable
3 year limited warranty
Designed and manufactured in UK

With a new strap line, the message is clear, these are servers to be seen, but never heard.

Amazon Announce Kindle Fire Newsstand

Andrew Edney

-

Nov 13, 2011

0

Amazon have announce the Kindle Fire Newsstand – a place to get over 400 full colour magazines and newspapers for their forthcoming Kindle Fire device.

Here is what Amazon said:

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) today announced that the Kindle Fire Newsstand will offer over 400 full-color magazines and newspapers. Kindle Fire customers who subscribe before March 1, 2012 will also receive an exclusive free three-month trial of 17 Condé Nast magazines, including Vanity Fair, GQ, WIRED and Glamour. Kindle Fire, which ships next week, is a new class of Kindle that brings the same ease-of-use and deep integration of content that helped Kindle re-invent reading to magazines, movies, TV shows, music, apps, games, books and more. Magazines and newspapers look beautiful on Kindle Fire’s 7” vibrant multi-touch color touch-screen that delivers 1024 X 600 pixel resolution at 169 ppi and 16 million colors in high resolution. Kindle Fire Newsstand customers will be able to enjoy their favorite magazines in rich, glossy, full-color from publishers such as Condé Nast, Meredith, and Hearst. Interactive editions with built-in video and audio are also available for many magazines such as Better Homes & Gardens, Allure and Self. To learn more about the Kindle Fire Newsstand, visit http://www.amazon.com/kindlefirenewsstand.

“We think Kindle Fire customers will love the beautiful, intuitive reading experience we’ve built for their favorite magazines such as Us Weekly, The New Yorker, and Reader’s Digest,” said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President, Kindle Content. “The response from publishers has been overwhelmingly positive and they are excited to make their magazines and newspapers available on Kindle Fire, and we’re adding new titles all the time.”

“We’re excited to work with Amazon to give Kindle Fire owners access to our magazines digitally,” said John Loughlin, EVP/GM, Hearst Magazines. “Kindle Fire’s beautiful touch-screen creates a great experience for readers, who will be able to enjoy magazines like Cosmopolitan and Esquire in a full-color, glossy format.”

“We are very pleased to be working with Amazon and getting our content to an even wider audience,” said Monica Ray, Executive Vice President, Consumer Marketing, Condé Nast. “Their Newsstand will provide the kind of access and ease-of-use consumers value and demand.”

“Meredith has worked with Amazon to create Kindle Fire optimized interactive apps, so readers can enjoy videos, how-to diagrams and more while reading magazines like Better Homes & Gardens and Parents,” said Liz Schimel, Chief Digital Officer, Meredith. “We think readers will love the experience of discovering our magazines in this new way on Kindle Fire’s beautiful full-color touch-screen.”

Kindle Fire offers more than 18 million movies, TV shows, songs, books, magazines, apps and games, as well as free storage in the Amazon Cloud, Whispersync for books and movies, a 14.6 ounce design that’s easy to hold with one hand, vibrant color touch screen, a powerful dual-core processor and Amazon Silk – Amazon’s new revolutionary web browser that accelerates the power of the mobile device by using the computing speed and power of the Amazon Web Services Cloud – all for only $199. Customers also enjoy a free month of Amazon Prime giving them access to Prime Instant Video with 13,000 movies and TV shows available for unlimited streaming and the new Kindle Owners’ Lending Library where Kindle owners can now choose from thousands of books to borrow for free including more than 100 current and former New York Times Bestsellers – as frequently as a book a month, with no due dates.

Are you going to buy the Kindle Fire, or have you already pre-ordered it? If so, let us know!

If not, why not pre-order it today?

Exclusive Review of the Acer AC100S Small Business Server 2011 Essentials Box

Andrew Edney

-

Nov 13, 2011

1

Exclusive Review of the Acer AC100S Small Business Server 2011 Essentials Box

Back in June we told you that Acer were planning on launching a Small Business Server 2011 Essentials box called the AC100S. We have been using it for a while now and so here is our exclusive review.

The Acer AC100S delivers essential server-class features and expandability along with unique Acer utilities¹ and Microsoft Small Business Server 2011 Essentials to ensure the success of start-up and small-size businesses. The ultra-micro tower server is ENERGY STAR certified and features an 80 PLUS efficient power supply that saves space and energy while keeping your employees and office highly productive.

Who are Acer?

From their website:

Since its founding in 1976, Acer has achieved the goal of breaking the barriers between people and technology. Globally, Acer ranks No. 2 for total PCs and notebooks. A profitable and sustainable Channel Business Model is instrumental to the company’s continuing growth, while its multi-brand approach effectively integrates Acer, Gateway, Packard Bell, and eMachines brands in worldwide markets.

Acer strives to design environmentally friendly products and establish a green supply chain through collaboration with suppliers. Acer is proud to be a Worldwide Partner of the Olympic Movement, including the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter and London 2012 Olympic Games.

Over 30 years of making history in the fast-paced IT industry, Acer’s far-reaching strategy of focusing on R&D and marketing development has laid the foundations and created a company ready to embrace the challenges of the future. The Acer Group employs 8,000 people worldwide. Estimated revenues for 2010 reached US$19.9 billion.

Acer were also one of the big players that supported the original V1 Windows Home Server.

Specifications

Processors and Chipset
· Intel® Xeon® E3-1200 series processors
· Intel® Core™ i3 series processors
· Intel® Pentium® series processors
· Chipset: Intel® C206
Memory
· Memory capacity:
Unbufferred DIMM: 2, 4, 8 GB
· Maximum capacity: up to 16 GB unbuffered DIMMs when fully populated with 1 DIMM per channel in 2 slots
Note: 8 GB DIMM availability may vary by region.
Network Controllers
· Integrated single-port Intel® 82579LM Gigabit Ethernet
Storage
· Hard disk form factor: 3.5”
· Type: SATA
· 3.5” Maximum capacity:
Up to 8 TB SATA HDD (2 TB 3.5″ x 4 HDDs)
Storage Controllers
· Intel® C206 onboard storage controller
Expansion slots
· 1 x PCIe x8
Management
· System LAN LEDs, System Health LED
· System Health Monitoring
Note: available in AC100S SKU only
· Intel Active Management Technology (Intel vPro)
Note: available in AC100S SKU with Intel Xeon processor only
Security
· Front panel key lock
· Rear Kensington lock hole
· Chassis intrusion
Deployment/Serviceability
· Acer Smart Setup
· BIOS Update Tool
Chassis/Form Factor
· Micro tower
Power Supply
· 200 W 80 PLUS® bronze-level efficient fixed power supply

For this review, we have the Intel Xeon E3-1260L series processor, 2GB ram, 2 x 500GB hard drives.

What’s in the Box?

• Power cable
• Server console
• Door keys (x2)
• Easy setup guide
• Server recovery disc
• Warranty booklet
• Network cable

Who are Lenovo?

Specifications

What is it?

Expandability

Drive merging and converting

Data redundancy

Non-destructive

Ease to try

The technology

The story

Release v1.2.1.6 release (2011-11-12)

Who are Iomega?

Specifications

Iomega Protection Suite Software (via download)

System Requirements

Weights and Dimensions

What’s in the Box?

A Closer Look

Using the Drive

Final Thoughts

Cloud Backup: Services Available

Amazon S3

ElephantDrive

SIMPLE, SAFE AND SECURE ONLINE BACK UPS AND STORAGE

Military grade encryption keeps your files safe and secure

Intelligent software moves your data fast

Access and share your files anytime, anywhere

One program to unify your data

Secure 128-bit SSL transfer Information sent from you to ElephantDrive is protected by the same system that banks and financial institutions use to secure their transactions.

Advanced 256-bit AES encryption Before transfer, your files are encrypted with the preferred algorithm of the U.S. government (approved for “Top Secret” use by the NSA).

Innovative delivery technology Our engineers have designed an advanced, proprietary system for maximizing your available bandwidth while minimizing the effects on your system.

Differential backups ElephantDrive recognizes which files are new or have been modified so that after your first backup completes, all future backups will go much faster.

Universal access With ElephantDrive’s web-based portal you have 24/7 access to all of your files, wherever you are!

Easy and secure file sharing Share any file with a single click (great for files that are too large to email), and set a password for extra security.

Multiple devices and multiple platforms Works with laptops, servers, external storage devices, MACs, PCs, and most server operating systems.

Powerful administrative controls Create independent sub-accounts with different access privileges (Business Plan required), and monitor your account activity and data usage.

Installing ElephantDrive

Who are Acer?

Specifications

What’s in the Box?