HDHomeRun PRIME 6CC now available for preorder for $499.99

Timothy Daleo
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3
HDHomeRun PRIME 6CC now available for preorder for $499.99

With a release date of 07/18/11, you can now preorder the SiliconDust HDHomeRun PRIME 6CC for $499.99. This new six tuner CableCARD tuner would compliment any HTPC system that currently uses cable and Windows Media Center.

image

Six tuners may seem like overkill, but for those of you with multiple PCs in the house, six may be the right number!

Six Tuners? Really?

Say it is Monday night and you are watching football on the desktop (tuner 1) and your wife is watching Castle (tuner 2) on the laptop. You kids are watching Disney (tuner 3) over Xbox as an extender to the HTPC that is recording Muscle Car and Star Gate Universe (tuners 4 and 5). See how the tuners can add up quickly?

 

SiliconDust HDHomeRun PRIME 6CC

The tuner is at Newegg:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815345009

 

If you want to know more about the SiliconDust HDHomeRun PRIME 6CC then you can heck out it out at SiliconDust.

Directly from SiliconDust:

Six Digital Tuners, Anywhere on Your Network
  • Home-theater form factor… add 6 premium cable-TV tuners to your home theater system.
  • Premium cable TV (CableCARD).
  • Watch TV from any computer on your network.
  • Record full 1080i broadcast resolution.
  • Watch, Pause, Record, & Rewind Live TV.
  • Schedule and record all your favorite TV shows.
  • Expand with multiple HDHomeRun devices.
TV sources
  • US digital cable TV
Windows 7 Windows Media Center:
  • Record all your favorite TV shows by name.
  • Schedule future or season recordings.
  • Integrated TV guide.
  • Never miss your favorite show.
Compatible With:
  • Windows Media Center on Windows 7
Specifications:
  • Based on two 3-tuner HDHomeRun PRIME units
  • 17″ home-theater form factor
  • US Digital Cable
  • M-Card CableCARD interface (x2)
  • USB Tuning Resolver interface (x2)
  • 1000baseT (gigabit Ethernet) network interface (x2) (compatible with 100baseTX networks)
  • 1 year warranty
Requirements:
  • Dual Core PC
  • Windows 7
  • 2GB RAM
  • 4-8GB disk space per hour of HD recording, 1-2GB per hour of SD recording
  • 100 or 1000Mbit Ethernet network (1000Mbit/GigE Ethernet switch recommended).
  • Subscription to digital cable service
  • CableCARD (M-Card) from your cable provider (x2)

Kingston Digital Launches its Fastest USB 3.0 Flash Drive – the DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 G2

Andrew Edney
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2
Kingston Digital Launches its Fastest USB 3.0 Flash Drive – the DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 G2

Last week, Kingston Digital launched its fastest USB 3.0 flash drive – the DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 G2 USB Flash Drive.

DTU30_angleOpenTop_64GB

  • Allows users to transfer data faster than standard USB 2.0
  • Second generation solution offers higher performance
  • Backwards compatible with USB 2.0

Sunbury-on-Thames – May 18th 2011 — Kingston Digital Europe Ltd, an affiliate of Kingston Technology Company Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, today announced the launch of the Kingston DataTraveler® Ultimate 3.0 Generation 2 (G2). Kingston’s fastest USB Flash drive uses a native USB 3.0 controller for better performance and power management and is available in 16-, 32- and 64GB capacities.

Kingston’s DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 G2 features the latest technology for USB 3.0 Flash drives, making it ideal for IT professionals and enthusiasts who want to take advantage of all the performance improvements offered by USB 3.0 technology right away. The new DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 G2 has a read speed of up to100MB/s, and a write speed of up to70 MB/s. When plugged into a USB 2.0 port, the drive has read and write speeds of around 30MB/s.

“Kingston is committed to help drive market adoption of the new USB 3.0 standard and make it more accessible to the mass market,” says Jim Selby, EMEA Product Marketing Manager, Kingston Technology. “The growing number of platforms and computers supporting the USB 3.0 standard, as well as the benefits of the single chip controllers that allow better compatibility and performance, are helping drive the adoption of USB 3.0 technology.”

The Kingston DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 G2 USB Flash drive is the perfect solution for easily storing and quickly transferring large documents, hi-res photos and HD video. It is also backwards compatible with USB 2.0**. The DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 G2 is backed by a five-year warranty, 24/7 tech support and legendary Kingston reliability.

Kingston DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 G2 Features and Specifications:

  • Capacities*: 16GB, 32GB, 64GB
  • Requirements: system with USB 3.0 port
  • Backwards compatible: with USB 2.0
  • Speed**: When plugged into a USB 3.0 system: up to 100MB/s read and 70MB/s write; when plugged into a USB 2.0 system: maximum specification performance (around 30MB/s read and write)
  • Dimensions: 2.90″ x 0.87″ x 0.63″ (73.70mm x 22.20mm x 16.10mm)
  • Operating Temperature: 32°F to 140°F (0°C to 60°C)
  • Storage Temperature: -4°F to 185°F (-20°C to 85°C)
  • Practical: durable casing with a solid lanyard loop
  • Warranty: 5 Years

* Some of the listed capacity is used for formatting and other functions and thus is not available for data storage. For more information, please consult Kingston’s Flash Memory Guide at kingston.com/Flash_Memory_Guide.
** Speed may vary due to host hardware, software and usage.

Kingston DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 Generation 2

Part Number Capacity and Features MSRP (ex VAT)
DTU30G2/16GB 16GB DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 G2 USB Flash Drive £40.10
DTU30G2/32GB 32GB DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 G2 USB Flash Drive £60.15
DTU30G2/64GB 64GB DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 G2 USB Flash Drive £110.70

 

Having high speed, high capacity USB flash drives is becoming more and more of a necessity every day. I know for me personally that not a day goes by when I don’t use one!

Look out for the UWHS review shortly.

For more information check out the Kingston Digital website

Western Digital Introduce WD Caviar Green Hard Drive with SATA 6 Gb/s Interface

Andrew Edney
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0
Western Digital Introduce WD Caviar Green Hard Drive with SATA 6 Gb/s Interface

Western Digital have now added SATA 6 Gb/s support for their WD Caviar Green Hard Drive range.

Cool, quiet, eco-friendly and extremely reliable. Due to WD´s innovative WD GreenPower Technology™ the WD Caviar Green internal hard drives offer reduced power consumption as well as best-in-class acoustics and operating temperature. With massive capacities of 1.5, 2 and 3 TB these drives are ideal for high-capacity custom PCs and external storage devices. Besides the award-winning WD Caviar Blue™ and the WD Caviar Black™ series now also the WD Caviar Green drives feature a future-ready SATA 6 Gb/s interface.

wd

Here is what WD say about their SATA 6 Gb/s range:

Over the years the industry has increased bus bandwidth from PATA through SATA 1.5 Gb/s and SATA 3 Gb/s to keep up with the demand for higher transfer rates. The next evolution of bus bandwidth has now been achieved with the introduction of SATA 6 Gb/s, (SATA 3.0). We’ve added a SATA 6 Gb/s interface to our award-winning WD Caviar Blue, Green, and Black desktop hard drives in capacities from 250 GB – 3 TB. This transition to a SATA 6 Gb/s interface aligns with the introduction of SATA 6 Gb/s-supporting chip sets and motherboards coming to the market.

Learn more from the WD website

Drive Bender Home Edition Discount Offer

Andrew Edney
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1
Drive Bender Home Edition Discount Offer

Following on from last weeks news about the release of Drive Bender Beta 3 and that Tranquil PC will be incorporating Drive Bender into its Leo hardware, they have a pre-release offer you might be interested in.

image46_thumb1_thumb

Here is what they said:

We also have some other exciting news we’d like to share… we have set down a “pre-release” offer for everyone involved in the beta program.

Announcing Drive Bender – Home Edition. Home Edition will be a single license that supports a single pool, containing any number of drives.

For our devoted and dedicated beta testers, we will be offering a “pre-release”, heavily discounted version of Drive Bender Home Edition for $20 USD. This pricing will be available to all current members, and those that register prior to the beta cut-off date (mid-June). The pre-release sale will start in June and finish two weeks after the final release.

No news yet on just how much it will be, but if $20 is”heavily discounted” then it might be quite an expensive add-in.

More news when we get it.

For more information check out the Drive Bender website

BYOB Episode 44 Out Now

Andrew Edney
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0
BYOB Episode 44 Out Now

The guys over at the BYOB podcast, including our very own Tim Daleo have just released episode 44.

BYOB300_thumb_thumb_thumb

Here is what is included in this weeks show:

[box style=”rounded” border=”full”]Z68 roundtable, Issues with Vertex 3 and WHS, a great mini ITX build with bad execution, and HDHR Prime on this week’s BYOB Podcast.[/box]

As usual you can listen to the show from here.

Review of the Fractal Design Array R2 Mini-ITX Case

Andrew Edney
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13
Review of the Fractal Design Array R2 Mini-ITX Case

Back in January at CES, I met up with Fractal Design to talk about some of the cases, including the Array R2 Mini-ITX case. Well now it is time for our review of it.

UWHS Review - Fractal Design Array R2 Mini-ITX Case

The Array R2 Case

Here is how Fractal Design describe the Array R2:

The Array R2 Mini ITX NAS case is setting new standards for the Home Server/DIY NAS market. With it’s whopping six(!) hard drive bays in a very small enclosure, hardly bigger than your average bread toaster, it’s certainly creating a new niche.

Built in high quality aluminium straight through with a nice touch for details, the Array R2 case provides a very exclusive way to store all your important data. The hard drive cage with room for six 3,5-inch HDD and one SSD, is removable and fitted with silicone anti-vibration grommets to minimise noise from the hard drives. In the front our award winning Silent Series 140mm is fitted, together with a washable filter. It takes in air from the side ventilation holes in the front panel. This ensures an efficient, but yet silent, cooling over the hard drives.

Furthermore, there is a SFX 300W PSU included, rated at more than 80% efficiency, with a silent temperature controlled fan. We have decided to include this PSU in the package, since it’s fairly hard to find quality SFX PSU’s in the market that is also silent, and not too expensive.

You can fit a Mini ITX or a Mini DTX motherboard into the case and there’s also room for two expansion cards, for example a RAID card which you’d typically want to get the most out of your six hard drives. All necessary components and software naturally needs to be purchased separately, but we can recommend to use specialised NAS/Home Server software such as FreeNAS or Windows Home Server. Please note that there is no room for a 5,25-inch drive, we deliberately left this out since you don’t generally use that in a NAS/Home Server environment, and it saved us a lot of space which we could use for fitting hard drives instead.

Who Are Fractal Design?

This is how Fractal Design describe themselves:

The concept – Design

The concept of Fractal Design is to provide products with an extraordinary design level, without compromising the important factors of quality, functionality and pricing. The computer of today has come to play a central role in most people’s home, creating a demand for appealing design of the computer itself and its accessories.
Our main product areas are computer enclosures, power supplies, cooling, and Media Center-products, such as Home Theatre-enclosures, keyboards and remote controls.

Designed and engineered in Sweden

All Fractal Design products have been thoroughly designed, tested and specified in our Swedish head quarter. The well known ideas of Scandinavian design can be found through all of our products; a minimalistic but yet striking design – less is more.

Visions and goals

Our vision is to have a constant, healthy growth together with our partners worldwide. Our goal is to be widely recognized for our designed products and to have them available in all major market regions within EU and US. We should be a good alternative to the already established retail brands of today. It’s of great importance for us that our partners understand the values of Fractal Design, therefore we are putting great effort into choosing the right partners from the start. We will work actively to maintain sales territories and profitable business for our partners.

The way to reach our goals

In the competitive market of today, it’s not enough to just provide excellent products. Regular and well planned marketing activities in close cooperation with the channel and the available media, are key points to succeed. We are well experienced in marketing brands in the IT business, and we will use this to create efficient marketing tools – to gain a bigger market share and good earning possibilities for our channel.

Specifications

Case Specifications
  • Built in high quality aluminium
  • Silent, efficient 300W SFX PSU included
  • Room for six silicone mounted 3,5-inch HDD
  • Room for one SSD
  • Removable HDD cage for easy mounting
  • Silent Series 140mm fan included in front, with washable filter
  • Space available for CPU cooler: circa 90mm height
  • Space available for expansion card: circa 140mm length
  • Fits Mini ITX and Mini DTX motherboards
  • Two expansion slots
  • Case dimensions (WxHxD): 250x200x350mm
  • Net weight: 4.1kg
PSU Specifications
  • 80 PLUS rated SFX 300W PSU
  • Silent, temperature controlled fan
  • 7x SATA-connectors, 1x Molex, 1x 4-pin and 1x 20/24pin
  • Meets CE, TUV safety requirementsDC Output
    Max load
    Max output+3.3V
    20A
    125W (combined +3.3V and +5V) 

    +5V
    22A
    125W (combined +3.3V and +5V)

    +12V1
    14A
    216W combined 12V1 and 12V2

    +12V2
    16A
    216W combined 12V1 and 12V2

    -12V
    0.5A
    6W

    +5VSB
    2.5A
    12.5W

    Total combined power
    300W

Seagate Announce GoFlex Satellite Mobile Wireless Storage for iOS and Other Mobile Devices

Andrew Edney
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0
Seagate Announce GoFlex Satellite Mobile Wireless Storage for iOS and Other Mobile Devices

This week Seagate announced the new GoFlex Satellite Mobile Wireless Storage drive that enables you to stream media to your iPad or other mobile device.

The drive is 500GB and is available now for pre-order for $199.99.

Learn more from here

Take your media library with you. Stream it to your iPad.

  • Take more than 300 HD movies on-the-go1
  • Stream media over Wi-Fi to 3 iPads at the same time
  • Automatically sync media and documents from your PC or Mac® computer
  • Up to 5 hours battery life2

goflex_satellite_hero_320x340goflex_satellite_leftangle_320x340goflex_satellite_profile_320x340goflex_satellite_top_320x340

Here is the full press release:

Seagate Debuts First Mobile Wireless Storage For iOS And Other Mobile Devices

GoFlex Satellite™ Mobile Wireless Storage Expands the Media Capacity Without Wires or the Web

SCOTTS VALLEY, Calif. – May 16, 2011 – Seagate (NASDAQ: STX), today announced GoFlex Satellite™ mobile wireless storage, the first battery-powered external hard drive to wirelessly extend the storage capacity of any Wi-Fi enabled mobile device. With 500GB and Wi-Fi access over 802.11 b/g/n and a rechargeable battery, this latest member of the GoFlex® family provides the ability to carry an entire library of video, music, pictures and documents with you. Devices are wirelessly connected directly to the GoFlex Satellite drive by use of the free GoFlex Media™ app–available now on iTunes and the Apple App Store–or a web browser. GoFlex Satellite is available immediately for preorder from Seagate.com, Amazon and BestBuy.com for a manufacturer’s suggested retail price of $199.99, and is scheduled to arrive in Best Buy stores in July 2011. Global availability is planned for later this summer.

The Seagate® GoFlex Satellite mobile storage wirelessly streams content to an iPad®, iPod touch®, iPhone® or other Wi-Fi enabled device. Now take your entire media library with you – no Internet or cable required. MSRP $199.99

“With the growth of the tablet and iPad markets and the larger volumes of high-quality media now being consumed, there is a clear need for access to content that is not plagued with the challenges of streamed video over the Internet,” said Patrick Connolly, vice president and general manager of Seagate’s retail group. “The unfortunate fact is that these popular new mobile devices are hampered by their limited storage capacity while one of their primary functions is that of media consumption.

“With the GoFlex Satellite mobile wireless storage, we wished to create an elegant solution that provides real value to the multitude of iPad users out there by delivering a seamless connection to local storage. No longer will a consumer feel as though it is a compromise to purchase a lower capacity tablet or iPad. With GoFlex Satellite, people will be able to carry their entire media library with them without the need for wires or the web at a fraction of the cost of adding 3G or purchasing or a higher capacity tablet.”

Streaming over the Internet has enabled video access for tablet owners, but the quality is at the mercy of the Internet connection, be it over Wi-Fi or 3G/4G. With more connected devices per hotspot, it’s often difficult to watch video without choppiness or pixilation. Rather than rely on a buffered stream from a distant provider, GoFlex Satellite mobile storage wirelessly serves up media content as a local attached storage for up to three devices at the same time. With a stand-by battery life of up to 25 hours, the powerful lithium polymer battery delivers up to 5 hours of continuously streaming video. To help with extending battery life, the free GoFlex Media™ app provides a progressive download feature, which temporarily loads the video on to the iOS device it is being streamed to, allowing the drive to go into stand-by mode.

GoFlex Media™ App

Initially available for Apple iOS devices, such as: iPad, iPhone and iPod touch; the GoFlex Media app provides a seamless way to connect the mobile wireless storage to your iPad or iPhone. The Android app is expected to be available by this summer. Those that currently use an Android smartphone or tablet can access content on a GoFlex Satellite device through its browser.

Media Sync software

The easy-to-use Media Sync software, also included free with purchase, makes grabbing media from a Windows® PC or Mac® OS X computer a breeze. Wherever the files are stored, whether that is a file structure of your own creation or in an iTunes library, the Media Sync software will load all of your desired music, videos, photos and documents on to the GoFlex Satellite drive. Media Sync is easily configured to only place files on the drive that are compatible with your iOS device. Even music and videos purchased through iTunes can be loaded to the GoFlex Satellite drive and will play on all authorized devices.

Loading Media

For rapid loading of media content, the wireless mobile storage comes equipped with the superfast USB 3.0 cable to get files from your computer to the GoFlex Satellite drive. The USB 3.0 cable will also continue to work with USB 2.0 ports and is easily removed for portability. In addition to the USB 3.0 cable, the GoFlex Satellite drive comes complete with a car charger and a compact wall charger.

About Seagate
Seagate is the worldwide leader in hard disk devices and storage solutions. Learn more at http://www.seagate.com.

 

Diskeeper 2011 Build 954 Now Available

Andrew Edney
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0
Diskeeper 2011 Build 954 Now Available

If you are running any version of Diskeeper 2011, then there is an update available now called build 954.

DK_2010_logo_cmyk-wht

Check out our review of Diskeeper 2011 for Windows Home Server here Check out our review of Diskeeper 2011 Professional here

So what’s included in this update:

Fixes:

  • Fixed an incorrect warning in the Performance Report. If a volume is smaller than 2GB (e.g. a recovery partition), on which IntelliWrite may not be enabled, this is not flagged in the Performance Report as not optimal configuration.

New Features:

  • Added date, time, and product version to the saved and printed Job Reports.
  • IntelliWrite, if you have licensed HyperFast, can now be enabled on SSD-backed volumes (note the default setting is “off”).

You can update your copy from within Diskeeper 2011.

And don’t forget to enter our Diskeeper 2011 giveaway here

Green Makeover – Windows Home Server Edition

Andrew Edney
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0
Green Makeover – Windows Home Server Edition

My friend and fellow MVP Tim Barrett has just posted a really interesting article on his blog, NoGeekLeftBehind.com about upgrading from WHS V1 to WHS 2011 and reducing his power requirements – definitely worth a read.

And my god Tim, I love the amount of monitors you have – Tim will be jealous!

image_thumb

Read Tim’s article here – and see more of his setup!

My Movies for Windows Media Center and My Movies Collection Management 4.01 PR2 Released

Andrew Edney
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1
My Movies for Windows Media Center and My Movies Collection Management 4.01 PR2 Released

If you have been using the fantastic My Movies for Windows Media Center version 4, then there is an update, well actually two updates. They are pre-release updates that fix a number of bugs and add some new functionality.

1_thumb32_thumb3

Here is what is included in PR 2 (and PR1):

My Movies for Windows Media Center and My Movies Collection Management 4.01 Pre Release 2

Fix: TV Episode listings could be blank due to an invalid SQL sentence.
Fix: SaveTV properties file included an incorrect running time.

My Movies for Windows Media Center and My Movies Collection Management 4.01 Pre Release 1

Added: Ctrl+W and remote “Clear” button now toggles an elements watch status when clicked in lists.
Added: Small and Transparent icon styles.
Added: “By episode added date” sorting added.
Added: Resume functionalities for movies, including VIDEO_TS folders.

Fix: Some TV Series on the Dune’s did not play.
Fix: An invalid genre could cause a crash.
Fix: minor error when editing profile pictures.
Fix: Minor adjustments due to incoming crash logs.
Fix: Bug when adding a new TV series without a language specific title and showing it in the title list.
Fix: Print report did not include nodes in series/box sets.
Fix: Null pointer error when trying to get the name of an episode without a name.
Fix: If a title somehow got an empty title, the Dune index could get destroyed by it.
Fix: error in FolderMonitoring when handling queue with directories that has been updated.
Fix: Update of all persons didn’t update the date for when the person was last updated.
Fix: Update of TV Series is now done one series at a time, to avoid freeze of progress.
Fix: Decades on Dune meta-data storage could include titles from wrong production years.

Change: Debug disabled by default.
Change: Overlay icons changed to match profile.
Change: Last added now sorts by “Episode added date” instead of added date for TV Series and Seasons.
Change: Watched icon on lists are now also configurable.
Change: Watched icon on lists are now also configurable.

Update: MediaInfo.dll files

Make sure you read this first:

[box style=”rounded” border=”full”]Before installing a pre release version, you must make a backup of your database using the Collection Management program. There are no guarantee that a pre release version functions as expected, and it should therefore only be used for evaluation purposes. The database backup ensures that you can revert back to the latest stable version. My Movies 4.01 Pre Release 2 can be used as client for My Movies for Windows Home Server 2011 2.0 Pre Release 5.[/box]

mm4 pr2

Download My Movies 4.01 PR2 now

I’m installing 4.01 PR2 right now!

What do you think of My Movies?

DriveBender Comments on Tranquil

Jim McCarthy
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2
DriveBender Comments on Tranquil

Anthony Smith, Technical Director—Division-M, has responded to our request for comment on Andrew’s announcement that Tranquil is using DriveBender rather than DriveHarmony.

DriveBender

To recap, Tranquil has announced that they have dropped DriveHarmony from DataCore in favor of DriveBender in their upcoming Leo HS4 and Leo SS4 servers.  I asked DriveBender for their comment and this is what they sent me today:

Yes, we are very excited about the Tranquil PC partnership. Although I can’t comment in detail on the DataCore product, I can say that for WHS users the DataCore solution is not seen so much as a DE replacement, but instead as another RAID solution. Our view is that if a user wanted RAID (hardware or software), they would implement this independent of WHS. In the early days we looked at a RAID style implementation, but felt it didn’t fit with the Drive Extender style product we had in mind. Given the level on interest in beta 3 it would appear that others share this same view.

Cheers,

Anthony Smith
Technical Director – Division-M

Thanks, Anthony.

I’ve asked DataCore for their comment as well and will bring that to you as soon as we can.

In the end analysis, I intend to evaluate all three options: DriveBender, DriveHarmony and StableBit DrivePool before I decide.  How about you?

Tranquil PC Windows Home Server 2011 Hardware to use DriveBender

Andrew Edney
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11
Tranquil PC Windows Home Server 2011 Hardware to use DriveBender

Today we talked about beta 3 of DriveBender for Windows Home Server 2011, and now we can reveal that Tranquil PC will be using DriveBender with its Leo HS4 and Leo SS4 servers instead of DriveHarmony from DataCore.

leohs4__26654_zoom

Originally Tranquil were planning on shipping their servers with the DataCore DriveHarmony product, however this has now changed.

This is what Tranquil told us:

DataCore, of Florida, have an innovative solution for Home Servers 2011. They have expert knowledge in virtualised disk management. DriveHarmony has been tested by Tranquil. The Add In runs a sort of ‘soft RAID’. Adding HDDs to the ‘pool’ is straight forward (except that the first HDD can’t be used at all). Choosing to build a ‘protected’ pool means the use of ‘paired’ HDDs. Remembering that HDD1 (incl the OS partition) can’t be included in the ‘pool’ or a ‘protected pool’, sadly forced our engineers to look further.

So now they are looking at DriveBender:

The specialised ‘driver’ company in Australia have also been working hard to develop a data / disk management system. As they do not have the heavy legacy of the two previous companies they, like Tranquil, can bring new concepts to the table, and put in huge efforts to complete designs. Sometimes a fast, lean organisation is needed to listen and implement the needs of it’s customers (quickly).

As the company is ‘aligned’ to Home Server, they understand the need of the customer “a product as near to, and as good as the original Drive Extender”.

Another important function is the ability for HDDs in a protected or unprotected pool to be able to be read ‘outside’ of the server (ie on a PC). DB uses standard NTFS systems, which ensures that Data can be easily recovered, from a single HDD (Data Transit).

The product (now at Beta3) is nearing it’s pre-production phase, and is looking very good. Performance is also very good. In it’s final version the product will be very much like DE – simply adding mixed sizes of HDDs to a pool, and then determining which ‘folders’ should be protected. It may not have the complex virtualisation functions behind the scenes that DriveHarmony may ultimately offer, or the simple hardware RAID that the Intel RST may have on specific hardware platforms – but as far as we can see – it will deliver the best ‘all round’ package – Performance, Reliability, Data Transit.

Current plans are that Tranquil will work further with DriveBender, towards a customised version of the Add In for Leo HS4 and Leo SS4 Servers.

So, it looks like DriveBender has become the add-in of choice for Tranquil.

Snoop-De-Dupe Updated to Version 1.20

Jim McCarthy
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1
Snoop-De-Dupe Updated to Version 1.20

Jim from electrongoo tells me that they have released an updated versions of their add-in Snoop-De-Dupe.

SnoopDeDupe

Snoop-De-Dupe is now at version 1.20.  The latest updates for this application, according the the release notes, are:

  • Added support for Windows Home Server 2011 and Windows Small Business Server 2011
  • Added CPU usage throttling
  • Added hard disk write access limiting
  • Added worker thread prioritizing
  • Added support for hard-links (WHS/SBS 2011 only)
  • Installer now signed with class-3 Authenticode certificate
  • Minor bug fixes

As we told you in the Integrity Checker update, addition of the class-3 certificate is the result of feedback from our readers.  Keep the feedback coming!  The developers do listen.

Snoop-De-Dupe is an application to help manage duplicate files on your Windows Home Server.  I am almost done reviewing the prior version, so I’ll update the test box and complete that review soon.

The developer’s summary for what Snoop-De-Dupe does is:

Keep your server’s storage space optimized! Snoop-de-dupe will automatically scan your server storage and display duplicate files in an easy-to-view layout directly within the server’s user Console. Once snoop-de-dupe locates duplicate files then you can respond to them as you choose. You can delete the duplicate files, ignore/keep the duplicate files, or replace the duplicate files with a hard-link (available in WHS/SBS 2011 only). You will be in command of your server storage space like never before!

If you have the earlier version, go grab your update.  If you are curious, check it out!

Snoop-De-Dupe Snoop-De-Dupe Developer Interview electrongoo

Integrity Checker Updated to Version 1.22

Jim McCarthy
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2
Integrity Checker Updated to Version 1.22

Jim from electrongoo tells me that they have released an updated version of their add-in Integrity Checker.

integrity checker

Integrity Checker is now at version 1.22. The change log includes:

  • Added CPU usage throttling
  • Added hard disk write access limiting
  • Added worker thread prioritizing
  • Installer now signed with class-3 Authenticode certificate

The last item, an installed signer, was added explicitly due to feedback from UsingWindowsHomeServer.Com readers posting comments and the developer wanted to expressly thank our readers for calling that to their attention.

Integrity Checker is a useful utility to managing changed files on your homeserver. I have a video review almost finished here, and that will be published soon. Short story: it does exactly what the developers say it does, which is:

In this digital age, data originates from many paths and numerous devices. With your server at the heart of your data, it’s necessary for you to guarantee integrity. Integrity Checker runs on your Windows Server; quietly, efficiently, and automatically watching for new data. As data is detected, Integrity Checker automatically generates hash-stamps to guarantee the integrity of your data.
Integrity Checker supports Windows Home Server, Windows Home Server 2011, and Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials. See our FAQ and How To pages for details on how Integrity Checker can work for you.

Check it out!

Integrity Checker electrongoo Our Integrity Checker Developer Interview
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