Is That A PC In Your Pocket?

FXI Cotton Candy is a neat little device I ran across while tech surfing. Is it cheap? Yes. Useful? Maybe. either way I want one just to nerd around with. If you want a lower end version, check out these nifty little gems.

AMD Trinity is Awesome, but is it Good?

The Verge Review

[H]ardOCP review

The GTX 670 aka The GTX 680 mini-me

nVidia releases their GTX670 kepler GPU, but is it a worthwhile purchase at $399? We don’t think so.

[H]ardOCP Review

High Resolution for under $400?

I’ve been noticing a trend of cheap off brand 27” 2560×1440 resolution monitors popping up lately and most users who have taken the plunge are pretty happy with them. You can find them on ebay. some of the notable ones are the Catleap 27Q, Achieva Shimina QH270, Auria EQ276W. Just be sure to get one with a 240v to 110v adapter.

Remember to post your comments on: www.homeservershow.com/forums or send us an email at byob@homeservershow.com. You can also follow us at twitter at www.twitter.com/byobpodcast

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You can also view this episode on the HSS YouTube channel. http://youtube.com/homeservershow

Thanks to our guest Patrick Kennedy.  Follow him on Twitter and servethehome.com

SkyDrive

PogoPlug

Gladinet

Otixo

DMZ Tip for Media Center Protected Recordings

Toy Story 2 Backup Failure YouTube It happens to everyone!

Paul Thurrot’s Gear

Windows 8 Release Dates?

Synology Conference for Texas Listeners

Intel Xeon E3 V2 Ivy Bridge Lineup

Intel Xeon E31230 V2 Ivy Bridge Review

SuperMicro X9SCM-F Motherboard

If you want to support this podcast please shop via our affiliate links.

iOS App Store

Newegg.com

Amazon.com

Dell.com and Dell Outlet

KeepVault for Windows Home Server

HomeServerShow.com is hosted by KnownHost.com

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Latest on the Windows 8 Blog

Virtual Drive Extender on Windows 8 Server

Dave argues that Windows 8 should be available as a download. Proof, thanks to the live chat.

Are there 6 million Media Center users?

HD Home Run on iOS. Read the reviews.

Windows 8 will be a great HTPC!

Home Server Smart

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Special Guest – Chris Barnes

Chris Barnes is host to the thEndUsr Podcast at theDMZ. He was kind enough to join the BYOB crew this week to talk about his systems as well as weigh in on the rest of this weeks topics. Thanks Chris!

Get more at his blog Barnesian.com and twitter @chrishalebarnes

VPN into WHS2011 without 3rd part tools

The Beast is Back – The GTX690 brings dual GPUs as the new top video card

nVidia beats the 7990 to the market with their dual GPU GTX690.

[H]ardOCP review

AnandTech review

Amazon Cloud Drive – Yet another hat in the ring

Amazon Cloud Drive

Remember to post your comments on: www.homeservershow.com/forums or send us an email at byob@homeservershow.com. You can also follow us at twitter at www.twitter.com/byobpodcast

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Basic Setup

To test this, I used a fresh install of Windows 7 in a VM with only security essentials to avoid any type of conflicts. I figured that this would prove to be the best experience with the least variables.  As I began to get my testing started, I immediately came across my first problem.  It seems that when you select to stream your own media, PlayOn will not remember any network shared folders in its configuration.  After about 6 or 7 attempts, I finally resorted to copying some files to the local drive for testing.  That allowed the configuration to be save, even though this is not a practical solution and the problem is downright silly.  The second annoyance I ran into is setting up the internet streaming.  First off, you can’t setup internet streaming unless you first configure the mobile version within you network.  Forget the fact that you know the IP, want to use a DNS forward, or anything else for that matter as you have absolutely no options to configure your connection.  It is setup for you automatically and you cannot make any changes whatsoever.  I use a DNS forwarding service  so I do no have to worry about changing IP address, but on this thing, that is not an option.  Even after your first configuration, you cannot make changes as it does not allow you to change the configuration in any way.

Software and Configuration

Basic setup and configuration is pretty straight forward.  No real mysteries here.

Excellent choice of services.  The ones I tried where less than special, none the less, it is an impressive list of supported services.

My third bug (so far) is that this software just nails your CPU doing nothing and just idling.  As you can see below I am using 32% of the CPU doing NOTHING.  That is absolutely unacceptable and unnecessary considering other comparable packages barely use that much when then are transcoding or converting.  This just shows there lack of attention to details.

iPad Applications

As you can see from the several screen shots below, the user interface for the iPad apps are pretty bad and not well thought out.  Although I did not picture it, there are many small interface issues when rotating portrait/landscape as well as how it shows the previews of your content.

Conclusion

Absolutely the only salvation for this software is sheer number of services they support as well as the package deal of getting a lifetime license and a Roku LT for $79.  On its own, this is one of the worst packages I have tested in while and to my recollection, even worse than the first time.  Unless you absolutely need to support all these services to an internal network, I would look elsewhere for a solution.  This is poorly thought out, poor user interface, buggy, and in my opinion not worth the cost.

Serviio

HowToGeek Setup Media Center Connector to Windows Home Server

AOC USB Monitor

The Digital Lifestyle – Stream TV from HD Home Run to iOS devices

Air Play it

Play On Roku Deal

Windows 8 and Server on your iPad with Splashtop and Another

Drive Bender Extended Trial Version Available

StableBit DrivePool

Raxco coupon for May MAY10MULTI

The Office Maven

Amazon Cloud

Google Drive

KeepVault

Amazon S3

Box.net

Crashplan

Skydrive

Dropbox

Wuala

SugarSync

SMEStorage

Otixo

SkyDrive on WHS by BYOB’s PCDoc

This episode was recorded with a heavy heart.  The Home Server Show lost a a great dog on May 3rd, 2012.

“Sister” 1998 – 2012

If you want to support this podcast please shop via our affiliate links.

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I had been thinking of the possibility for some time to upgrade my the 320GB WD Blue drive that was stock with my Acer 1810T but had been waiting for the right price or the right deal. Some time ago I had checked Crucial’s web site – while there they recommended their 512GB SSD to replace the 1810T 320GB drive — the price was pretty steep and I knew I had my 320GB drive only loaded to about 180GB at most so I estimated that a 256GB would be enough — if a good deal appeared.

Watching the Home Server Show on my Acer 1810T

Several weeks ago a sale at Newegg motivated me to give it a try. Newegg had a sale on the Crucial M4 CT256M4SSD2 2.5″ 256GB SATA III so I pulled the trigger.

Last December during the holidays I had purchased the Family Pack of Acronis True Image Home 2012 and had added the Plus Pack (one of those holiday rebate deals).

Before I began I removed the battery pack from the Acer 1810T, then removed the stock 320GB WD Blue drive from the Acer 1810T. (I also used a grounding strap and ground mat.)

Boack of Acer 1810T with Battery pack removed and HD Cover removed

Western Digital 32GB Blue Laptop Drive removed from the Acer 1810T

This was going to be the first time I had tried using the cloning feature of Acronis Plus. Initially I was using 2 USB docking stations to hold the 320GB drive and the M4 to work on with Acronis, but the cloning process would fail before it had been completed. So I opened up my Desktop machine and attached the 320GB drive and the M4 to SATA ports within the Desktop. That did the trick. It took about 70 minutes and Acronis was done. While Acronis was doing it’s thing I noticed that I would get an error message from Microsoft that my copy of Windows was not a licensed copy. After Acronis was finished cloning the OS and Data from the old 320GB to the M4 – when I rebooted the Desktop the Microsoft error message went away.

The Western Digital 320GB Blue Laptop Hard Drive that was removed from the Acer 1810T

The 256GB Crucial M4 in the external USB Dock -- this ultimately did not work and I used SATA ports inside my desktop to attach the drives to clone them with Acronis

I next installed the M4 into the Acer 1810T with very little trouble. The first time I turned on the Acer 1810T with the new M4 I was amazed by the increased performance. I measured the performance of the Crucial M4 256GB SSD with ATTO and compared to what I had tested the WD Blue 320 in the Acer 1810T.

Western Digital Blue 320GB Laptop Hard Drive ATTO Performance

Crucial M4 256GB SSD ATTO Performance

As you can see in the above ATTO charts the 256GB M4 has about 5 times the performance of the 320GB WD Blue laptop drive.  The Windows Experience Index for the hard drive in the Acer 1810T has gone from 5.5 to 7.7.

After installing the Crucial M4 the hard disk performance index increased from 5.5 to 7.7

The performance of the Acer 1810T is now incredible. The Acer 1810T also appears to run longer than before on it’s battery – it definitely doesn’t get as hot as it used to.

This improved performance is with the 1810T’s SATA II port – the M4 is SATA III port capable so if the 1810T had a SATA III the performance would be even that much better.

If you find a deal on SSD’s, I would suggest seriously considering upgrading a spindle laptop drive to a SSD using a cloning program like Acronis Plus.

I listened live to “The Home Server Show 180” and one item in particular caught my attention. It was their discussion of a new App called SplashTop and how it could be loaded onto an iPad and linked into Windows 8 – enabling the user to experience Windows 8 touch capabilities on the iPad and even use SplashTop as a testbed for Metro Apps development.

On their website SplashTop stated:

I found this possibility of experiencing Windows 8 Metro touch on my first generation iPad very intriguing.

That night I went to the page for “The Home Server Show 180” and in the show notes I found the link to SplashTop.

At SplashTop’s website they outlined three easy steps to get SplashTop up and running Windows 8 onto my iPad. Actually, Windows 8 will be running in a VM on my MicroServer and SplashTop will in essence do a remote desktop into Windows 8.

I went into the ITunes Apps Store. SplashTop is pricey at $24.99 but my wife and I had credit from gifts that had been sitting in iTunes for over 2 years — I went ahead and purchased SplashTop.

Anyone who uses iTunes knows that loading a App onto an iPad is a easy and straight forward process.

Downloading the Splashtop streamer and moving it to my Windows 8 VM running on my MicroServer was easy and straight forward also. I did observer that the minimum CPU requirement that Windows 8 be running on recommended for the Streamer was at the edge of performance of my N40L so I had a few concerns on how good this would look and work on my iPad.

The SplashTop Icon on the iPad

If you click the arrow on the right you can enter your SplashTop password for your Windows 8 machine you wish to select as well as set up your preferred screen resolutions on the iPad. Clicking the Computer icon on the Left of the screen takes you into Windows 8 Metro!

When you go into Windows 8 Metro SplashTop provides you with a menu of hints on various ways to navigate around the Windows 8 screen

The next screen of more hints available from SplashTop

The windows 8 Metro screen on the iPad via SplashTop

More of the Metro tiles -- just a finger swipe away!

A finger swipe on the right edge of the tablet exposes our "charms"

Another look at the Apps on the Metro Screen

Jumping to the Desktop by just hitting the tile.

The charms actually make sense now – they are easily exposed by swiping the finger right to left on the right edge of the screen.

IE-10 at our favorite site in Windows 8 via SplashTop on a iPad

While testing SplashTop with Windows 8 I began to wonder – would SplashTop work with Server 8 Beta?

I copied the Streamer to one of my Server 8 Beta’s running in VM’s on my MicroServer and installed it as the Administrator. As the next screen shows — It worked!

SplashTop screen on iPad showing icons to link to Windows 8 (named Aurora on my System) and Server 8 Beta (named Triad on my System)

Here we are at my Server 8 – Server Manager Dashboard displayed and controlled from my iPad

The Charms can be finger swept just like in Windows 8

A simple swipe of the finger and I have metro/Apps in Server 8 – displayed and controlled on a iPad

Finger swiping to the Settings menu on Server 8

Computer Management in Server 8 via my iPad

In the short time I’ve used SplashTop on my iPad I’m really liking it and it has given me a much better appreciation for Windows 8 than I had previously. I believe I have a lot more testing/playing ahead of me. What I see as icing on the cake is the ability to also remote into my Server 8 beta from my iPad!

Who would have thought I could be running MicroServer VM’s of Windows 8 and Server 8 on my first generation iPad! This is just plain Cool!

I’m always looking at hard drives and ways that I can expand my storage capacity to better organize my systems and backups of those systems. The following is not strictly a review of the FreeAgent GoFlex 4TB or the WD USB 3.0 PCIe Card but more of a chronology of how well they work in my systems and a few basic performance ratings.

Not long ago I noticed that Amazon had a price of $229 on Seagate’s FreeAgent GoFlex 4TB External Desk Drive STAC4000100. More recently, I’ve seen prices for the GoFlex 4TB hover just above $200. Always before I considered myself a Western Digital fan boy but after testing the Seagate ST3000DM01 in my MicroServer I’ve been substantially more open minded about exploring off the Western Digital reservation.

What I found very intriguing about the 4TB GoFlex was that at its core was the 4TB Seagate Barracuda XT ST4000X000 SATA 6Gb/s Hard Drive that was, and still is, selling at a substantially higher price than the 4TB GoFlex when it is sold as a bare drive outside the external case. There is a video out that gives step by step instructions on how to remove the enclosure/casing from around the ST4000X000 so that it can be used inside a desktop – which obviously violated the warranty on the GoFlex. Removing the ST4000X000 from the GoFlex housing is beyond the scope of this paper.

I ordered the GoFlex 4TB intending to try it out on several of my machines. I also ordered Western Digital’s USB 3.0 PCIe Card which would fit perfectly inside my MicroServer.

The Seagate GoFlex 4TB USB 3.0

The GoFlex 4TB Unpacked

After the GoFlex 4TB arrived I unpacked it and set it up. I first attached it to the USB 3.0 port on the back of my X58.

The GoFlex 4TB USB 3.0 attached to the GA-X58A-UD3R USB 3.0 ports on back and powered up

I powered up the GoFlex 4TB. My X58 saw it right away. I opened up Windows Explorer and check out the directory.

While I didn’t try it in this exercise — the GoFlex 4TB comes supplied with software to set up automatic backups to the GoFlex 4TB. I’m sure their software is good – it just wasn’t the reason I bought the GoFlex 4TB to try out and I already have a backup solution that I am using.

Directory of what is on the GoFlex 4TB as seen in Windows Explorer

A detailed directory view of what came on the GoFlex 4TB in Windows Explorer

Checking out the Properties of the GoFlex 4TB it showed the available capacity on the 4TB drive as 4TB (less some space being used by the included Seagate software mentioned above).

Properties of the GoFlex 4TB

As shown below the performance of the GoFlex 4TB (and the underlying ST4000X000) on the USB 3.0 with reads and writes around 170 MB/sec.

ATTO performance of GoFlex 4TB on X58 USB 3.0 rear Port

I next moved the GoFlex 4TB to one of the USB 3.0 ports on the back of my Z68 and got similar results that I had achieved with the X58’s 3.0 ports, i.e. reads and writes between 160 & 180 MB/sec.

While the GoFlex 4TB was attached to the Z68’s USB 3.0 port I copied about 400GB of files to the GoFlex 4TB over about a 70 minute time period.

Atto performance of GoFlex 4TB on Z68 USB 3.0 rear Port

Western Digital’s USB 3.0 PCIe Card in a MicroServer

I mentioned earlier that I also picked up a WD USB 3.0 PCIe Card to try out in my MicroServer. The WD USB 3.0 PCIe Card arrived in a plain box. The Card comes with a drivers disk that you install before you install the PCIe Card. I installed the drivers onto the host operating system on my MicroServer which is Windows Server 2008-R2.

The WD USB 3.0 PCIe Card and Driver Install Disk

Installing WD Driver onto the MicroServer using an external USB drive

The MicroServer powered down and placed on grounding mat -- preparing to remove the motherboard/system-board

After installing the Western Digital drivers for the WD USB 3.0 PCIe Card I powered down the MicroServer, unplugged it, and moved it to my workbench and set it onto a grounding mat. I then attached a ground strap to myself and began taking the MicroServer apart. You’ll observer in the first picture below (left) that the dual Intel NIC that I had installed earlier has been replaced by a single NIC Intel card. In the second picture below (right) we see the WD USB 3.0 PCIe Card installed in the Mother Board, or System Board, of the MicroServer.

Below (left) we see the MicroServer Mother Board from the back with both PCIe Cards installed and the card NIC and USB connection ports clearly visible. Below (right) is a top view of the MicroServer Mother Board with the cards installed.

Installing a second PCIe card into the MicroServer was problematic in one respect because by filling up both slots I lost my empty slot to run my cable (see lower left picture) from my eSATA port on the back of the MicroServer into the case to plug into the WD Green drive in the ODD in the top of the MicroServer.

The solution I found was to bend the bracket, also known as the PCI holder, that anchors the top of the PCI brackets 1 & 2 to the case. Just a “slight” bend was all that was necessary and is clearly visible in the lower (right) picture. Another option I considered was to use a dermal to make a new hole in the case for the cable – bending the bracket, PCI holder, was easier and probably the better solution in my estimate.

Below, the Western Digital software successfully installed onto the MicroServer before opening up the MicroServer and installing the WD USB 3.0 PCIe Card.

WD drivers installed for USB 3.0 PCIe Card

Below, is the performance of the GoFlex 4TB using the WD USB 3.0 PCIe Card in the MicroServer. The read and write speeds are just over 140 MB/sec which is roughly 30 MB/sec worse than the performance achieved with the USB 3.0 ports that are available on the X58 and Z68 boards tested earlier.

ATTO performance of GoFlex 4TB USB 3.0 with WD USB 3.0 PCIe Card mounted in MicroServer

The performance in the MicroServer is respectable for the GoFlex 4TB with the WD USB 3.0 PCIe Card though it doesn’t measure up to the performance I saw with the Seagate 3TB ST3000DM001 when it was directly installed to a SATA II port inside the MicroServer.

Compared to a directly installed ST3000DM001 the GoFlex 4TB has the additional overhead of the WD USB 3.0 interface card as well as the interface of the Seagate external enclosure USB 3.0 to SATA base. Compared to the GoFlex 4TB’s performance in the X58 and the Z68 the WD USB 3.0 card in the MicroServer is apparently not as fast as the direct motherboard USB 3.0 connections on the X58 and Z68.

USB 2.0 Performance Comparisons

For comparison, I check the performance of the GoFlex 4TB when plugged into one of the USB 2.0 ports in the MicroServer. The ATTO performance charts below show that the GoFlex 4TB’s performance when attached to the WD USB 3.0 PCIe Card (below left) was about five times the performance when it was attached to a USB 2.0 port (below right) on the MicroServer.

Next I compared the relative performance of the WD USB 3.0 PCIe Card to the USB 2.0 ports in the MicroServer by attaching a WD 2TB Elements USB 2.0 External disk. Surprisingly to me, the WD 2TB Elements USB 2.0 External Disk performed slightly better when attached to the WD USB 3.0 PCIe Card (below right) versus the USB 2.0 port (below left) on the MicroServer.

Conclusion

In the short time that I’ve used it the GoFlex 4TB has been reliable and relatively fast low cost mass storage. The WD USB 3.0 PCIe Card provides a low cost option of attaching 2 external devices to my MicroServer – in the case of the GoFlex 4TB – I could add 2 GoFlex 4TB’s for a total of 8TB of additional storage on my MicroServer. I could do likewise with my Z68 and X58 machines.

Bottom line: I like the GoFlex 4TB. I’m impressed with its ease of use and its speed for an external drive and of course I’m impressed by its massive capacity. I also like the WD USB 3.0 PCIe Card – it expands my options with my MicroServer (the MicroServer is not built with any USB 3.0 ports) and it is an option for adding additional USB 3.0 ports to my other machines. It was interesting to observer that a regular USB 2.0 external drive performed about 16% better when attached to the WD USB 3.0 PCIe Card versus a USB 2.0 port in the MicroServer.

The big question remains: how would the Seagate ST4000X000 that makes up the core of the GoFlex 4TB perform on it’s own as a bare drive directly connected to a SATA III or SATA II port?

Answering that question will have to wait till the next installment (Part 2) of this report.

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