Chad's News

Here at the Chad’s News Network Command Center, we haven’t yet taken plunge and purchased an SSD, even though we know it’s a simple-but-expensive way to speed up a computer. SSDs are becoming more popular, and as the prices decrease, more system administrators are thinking about using them at the enterprise level. Unfortunately, all is not well, and enterprise SSDs may not be such a good idea—or at least should cause one to take a good, hard look at their specifications.

The linked article warns about the case where an SSD’s internal transfer rate isn’t fast enough to support both its external transfers and its wear leveling activities. In such a case, the effective transfer rate will drop below the advertised rate, sometimes by a significant amount. The author also warns about using SSDs in a RAID system. The SSDs are simply too fast for the current crop of high-end RAID controllers, thus lowering the effective transfer rate of the drives due to bottlenecks in the RAID hardware.

Please note that these issues only apply to high-performance, high-traffic systems. They won’t affect the normal person with a single-user desktop or laptop computer.

Link: http://www.enterprisestorageforum.com/…
(via Slashdot)

June 12^th is the US government’s official cutoff date for wireless microphones that transmit in the 700MHz band. Turns out that these microphones, employed by quite a few churches, schools, and sporting venues, have been “squatting” in the upper regions of the UHF television spectrum (specifically channels 52 through 69). As part of the whole DTV transition, those channels are no longer being used for broadcast television, and rights to that part of the spectrum have been sold to various telecom companies. Starting June 12^th it will be illegal to use the old microphones, forcing many organizations to purchase new equipment.

Link: http://arstechnica.com/…

The best way to speed up older computers is by adding more memory. But in lieu of that, replacing the hard drive with a solid-state drive (SSD) gives a significant speed benefit. The linked article does note, however, that it’s almost more cost-effective to purchase a new computer.

Link: http://arstechnica.com/…

I remember when having 8MB of RAM on a graphics card was a big deal. But Matrox has just announced the M1988 PCIe x16, which supports eight monitors and has 2GB of memory. Not for the faint of heart, but imagine what you could do with such a system.

Link: http://hothardware.com/…
(via engadget)

Here at the Chad’s News network command center, we have long been aware of the difference between the hard disk capacity reported in decimal bytes by the manufacturer and the the same capacity reported in binary bytes by Windows. In fact, I was once published in a print magazine after the editors incorrectly answered a question on the subject.

Most computer programmers and system engineers already know why one kilobyte (KB) can either be 1000 or 1024 bytes, and the more experienced ones know that a kibibyte (KiB) is always 1024. For others, the linked article explains all. I found the most useful part of the article to be Tables E and F, which list the measurement type used for various protocols and computer components.

Link: http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/…

Astute Chad’s News readers already know that the performance of a Solid State Drive (SSD) deteriorates over time. The linked article explains why this slowdown occurs, and also describes how SSD manufacturers are working around the problem.

Link: http://hothardware.com/…

The linked article details 15 design mistakes from the early years of personal computers.

Link: http://technologizer.com/…
(via Slashdot)

Boy this takes me back. The title for the linked article is a bit inaccurate, since some of the products did actually die. And for several of them, only the naming rights have survived.

Link: http://www.pcworld.com/…
(via digg)

According to the interface specifications, all of my hard drives should be running at about 160MB/s. After using the HD_Speed utility, however, I found that actual, sustained transmission times are a fraction of the theoretical maximum. While this wasn’t a huge revelation, I was surprised to find a drive running at one-third the speed of the others.

Link: http://www.steelbytes.com/…
(via Lifehacker)

Why go to all the hassle of a dual- or triple-boot system when you can mechanically switch between hard drives? The linked article explains how to build the switch—or you can purchase one from the article’s author. One caveat: do not swap drives while the computer is powered on. Ever.

Link: http://www.thesataswitch.com/
(via Lifehacker)

The SheevaPlug is definitely the smallest PC I’ve ever seen. It’s literally the size of a power adapter and just plugs in to the wall.

Link: http://www.marvell.com/…
(via engadget)

Apple has been making changes to the standard 1⁄8” audio jack. Take a look at the picture in the linked article to see what I mean. My (older) iPod came with the normal three-part headphone adapter.

Link: http://www.appleinsider.com/…
(via digg)