Taipei, Taiwan, November 2010 - QNAP Systems, Inc., a leading manufacturer of world class NAS servers, NVR Video Surveillance Systems, and Network-based Media Players announced today its TS-259 Pro Turbo NAS server has been honored as one of the Top 100 Best Tech Products 2010 by PC World Magazine in the US. The TS-259 Pro is the entry-level model of QNAP’s Business Series NAS servers, a 2-drive unit with the distinction of being the first NAS to feature a dual-core Intel® Atom™ CPU and 1GB of RAM, delivering network transfer rates exceeding 100MB/sec, and the only NAS picked by PC World to receive the Top 100 Best Tech Products 2010 award.

I recently had an interesting argument with one of my friends about Power Supplies.  Our argument was about cooling fan size and placement within the power supply.  His argument was that a larger fan is better than a smaller fan.  As enthusiast, we have seen both employed, but for some reason, no standard has been defined.  Are Power supply companies just playing into the idea that bigger fans are better for cooling? Needless to say, this sparked some interest in research. Read More...

Taipei, Taiwan, November 2010 - QNAP Systems, Inc., a leading manufacturer of world class NAS servers today announced the latest refresh of its rack-mounted Business Series Turbo NAS servers which are hugely popular with corporate and entry-level enterprise customers for their sheer performance and business-ready features.  Announced today are two new 4-drive units, the TS-459U-RP+ and the TS-459U-SP+ with up to 8TB of networked storage, and the TS-859U-RP+ with up to a whopping 16TB of online storage (using 2TB hard drives). These new rack-mounted Business Series TS-x59U-RP+ models incorporate the new dual-core Intel® Atom™ processor D525 with 1.8GHz clock speed and 1GB RAM, which can achieve up to 113MB/s transfer rates (FTP/Samba reads) via dual Gigabit LAN ports while maintaining guaranteed low power consumption.

If I have said it once, I have said it a thousand times... it takes a lot to impress me.  Computer cases have made a wicked transformation over the years and there seems to be a few staples for me when it comes to my top picks.  My main rig runs out of my Zalman Z-Machine GT1000 and my server makes its home inside the simple yet industrial Lian Li PC-75B (one of my all time favorite cases).  As computer cases come and go here in the lab I hear the same song and dance; "This will be the best one you have reviewed yet" and for some reason a lot of them just fall short.  BitFenix thinks they can break the current losing streak cases have had here with a design that is tough like Ray Lewis yet soft like Cinemax late night movies.  Enter the Colossus. Read More...

Taipei, Taiwan, November 2010 - QNAP Systems, Inc., a leading manufacturer of world class NAS servers today refreshes its popular mid-range NAS business lineup with new 2- and 4-drive desktop models, TS-239 Pro II+ and TS-439 Pro II+. The Turbo NAS servers adopt Intel's new D425 single-core Atom CPU with 1.8GHz clock speed and 1GB RAM, which delivers superior performance and high reliability with versatile business features. The new models provide maximum storage of 8TB (using four 2TB hard drives and single disk volume/JBOD configuration). The TS-239 Pro II+ and TS-439 Pro II+ NAS servers are compatible with VMware, Citrix and Windows 2008 Hyper-V clusters virtualization platform, ideal for file sharing, backup, and advanced server applications in the office environment.

Taipei, Taiwan, November 2010 - QNAP Systems, Inc., a leading manufacturer of world class NAS servers, NVR Video Surveillance Systems, and Network-based Media Players today announced the TS-x19P+ lineup of affordable Turbo NAS servers targeted primarily for home and SOHO users. The new models utilize Marvell's new 1.6GHz embedded processor and include 512MB of DDRIII memory and Gigabit LAN ports, mustering up transfer rates exceeding 100MB/sec and offering a unique blend of performance and features at very affordable price points. The new models include the 1-drive TS-119P+, 2-drive TS-219P+ and 4-drive TS-419P+. With up to 8TB of networked storage, the TS-x19P+ series NAS servers combine an attractive industrial design, outstanding performance, consumer-friendly features, and above all, legendary QNAP quality and reliability.

After switching from iOS to Android and being entrenched in the Google experience, my curiosity leads me in the direction of trying all kinds of new things.  After my initial introduction to Google Voice, I was impressed with the service and with some of things that Google gives us for FREE so I was naturally curious about Google Latitude.  Latitude is an experiment that allows you to see where your friends are right now, and vice verse using Google Maps. Read More...

Taipei, Taiwan, November 2010 - QNAP Systems, Inc., a leading manufacturer of world class NAS servers today expanded their hugely popular Business Series Turbo NAS lineup with the addition of a new 8-drive desktop model, TS-859 Pro+ Turbo NAS. The TS-859 Pro+ incorporates Intel's new D525 dual-core Atom CPU with 1.8GHz clock speed and 1GB RAM, which can achieve up to 116MB/s transfer rates (FTP/Samba reads) while maintaining guaranteed lower power consumption. The Turbo NAS provides up to 16TB of extremely large storage capacity (using 2TB hard drives and single disk volume/JBOD configuration), and is targeted for business users and workgroups who need a tower server to fit in their office environment for backup and sharing of enormous amount of documents, digital pictures, videos, and applications. Meanwhile, the TS-859 Pro+ has been certified as compatible NFS and iSCSI datastore with fully VMware Ready, Citrix Ready and Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V clusters compliant. QNAP continues its industry-leading iSCSI support for server clustering and virtualized environments including support for MC/S, MPIO, SPC-3, and thin provisioning. With built-in iSCSI initiator and target service, network storage can be virtually expanded by simply adding additional QNAP Turbo NAS units to the network and adding virtual volumes, up to 8 per device.

"Businesses and corporate users are looking to cut IT costs, be greener, and move more IT functions into the cloud," said Laurent Cheng, Product Manager of QNAP Systems, Inc. "With the ready of 8-drive desktop model available, QNAP refreshes a complete business series lineup, including 2-drive TS-259 Pro+, 4-drive TS-459 Pro+, 5-drive TS-559 Pro+, 6-drive TS-659 Pro+, and the newly added 8-drive TS-859 Pro+ to help different types of business achieve these goals by delivering Turbo NAS servers that can fully take advantage of cloud computing environments while being very energy efficient," Mr. Cheng added.

Every once in a while I run across some information that I find intriguing.  Even less often, I find something useful, but today is not one of those days.  If you haven't guessed it, I am a geek... and geeks love computers.  Given that there are 13 of them running in my house at any given time I would say that I qualify as a habitual offender.  I find more often now that I use my laptop more than any of the other machines in my house out of brutal convenience though; what I didn't realize is that it has an added bonus. Read More...

Another debacle by an increasingly annoying company has made me late for work today.  It seems that Apple has neglected to fix a bug with its iOS operating system that ignores the Daylight Savings time changes in its alarm application.  Read More...