Case Study : Setting up a Home Server
Storing and sharing media or backing up important data is often best done by means of a dedicated server accessible by your home network – this is commonly called a NAS or Network Attached Storage device.
Many people believe that networks only apply to businesses, but if you have more than 2 computing devices, which can be a computer, notebook, tablet or smartphone, then you already have the beginnings of a network at home. Advantages of setting up a home network server are sharing data among users, backing up important files like photos and documents and also making your music collection playable on any connected device. Continue reading
External hard drives. Be aware!
I’ve been telling customers for years about external USB hard drives and what great things they are to keep your essential files backed up. I still have the same opinion, but I thought I’d pass on my experiences of one of my own drives as a bit of a warning.
I bought this particular drive from OfficeWorks, but I would have had the same experience with the vast majority of retailers with the possible exception of specialist computer stores. I had bought a Western Digital 640Gb external drive at a good price (they were on special at the time) and all went fine for the first nine months until one morning I noticed that the drives weren’t appearing in My Computer and a quick check revealed that the ‘power brick’ had died completely. It was running from a surge-protected power strip so I knew it wasn’t a power spike issue. A quick Google search revealed that the model I had was very prone to this problem. The newer ones aren’t of course… Continue reading
Why do hard drives die?
by Andy Turner
Coastal Computers & Design
Any computer component with moving parts inside has, by comparison with parts that don’t, an expected shorter lifespan and sometimes they fail sooner than expected.
I’ve already covered the typical reasons that power supplies fail early in this article, but here’s some information on another computer part that you might find interesting. Continue reading
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