Tag Archives: computer hardware

Tech Flashback: Fast Ethernet Network Interface Card Collection (Part 1)

Posted on October 31, 2015 by lui_gough

The era of Fast Ethernet was a highly important and memorable (at least, to me) period in computing history. Introduced in 1995 (i.e. 20 years ago), after most competing networking technologies were starting to fall by the wayside, it added … Continue reading →

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Review: Western Digital WD60EZRX 6Tb Green Hard Drive

Posted on October 27, 2015 by lui_gough

One thing I can’t do without is oodles of storage. Some of my experiments have very peculiar storage demands – from high volume storage, to high speed streaming storage, I have to carefully consider my needs and how to best … Continue reading →

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Review: Western Digital My Book 6Tb USB 3.0 External Hard Drive

Posted on October 25, 2015 by lui_gough

One thing power users know is that their appetite for storage is pretty much insatiable. In order to try satisfying this craving, I’ve decided to go on an all-out spending spree and grab myself some more storage. Instead of buying … Continue reading →

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Quick Review: Samsung 850 Pro 1TB (MZ-7KE1T0) Solid State Drive

Posted on October 2, 2015 by lui_gough

One night, staying up late after doing some work, I caught the fact that eBay was having a 15% off “everything” sale. A few minutes later, a bright idea popped in my head, and almost equally as quickly, over AU$500 … Continue reading →

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Review, Teardown: Lexar Professional Workflow DD512 (512Gb) USB 3.0 Storage Drive

Posted on September 25, 2015 by lui_gough

One thing I really dislike is slow portable storage. While many manufacturers continue to pump out smaller and smaller USB flash drives at ever diminishing price points, one thing that never seems to satisfy is their performance. Even with advertised … Continue reading →

Posted in Computing, Flash Memory | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Tech Flashback: Fellowes Neato 2000 CD Labeler Kit

Posted on August 16, 2015 by lui_gough

It’s the year 2000 and CD recording at home is a new development. Discs are expensive, and individually wrapped in retail packaging. These discs will have branding all over their faces and inserts. Printable discs didn’t really exist yet in … Continue reading →

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Tech Flashback: iomega ZIP 100 Parallel Port Drive (Mint in Package!)

Posted on August 16, 2015 by lui_gough

My fellow readers who have been following for a while would know that I’m literally swimming in Zip disk gear. Amongst the things I’ve done include taking one apart, looking at the performance of the drive compared to its contemporary … Continue reading →

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Teardown: Vonets VAP11G Ethernet to 802.11g Wireless Bridge

Posted on August 16, 2015 by lui_gough

What do you do when you have some device that only supports wired-Ethernet, but it’s going to be deployed in a place where it isn’t practical to install cabling? Well, the easy solution is to use Wi-Fi, through a device … Continue reading →

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Project: Physically Damaged USB Drive Repair & Data Recovery

Posted on July 31, 2015 by lui_gough

A while back, on 16th July, I was contacted by a fellow Sydneysider, and a fan of my blog with a request for help. While, ordinarily, I don’t respond to these, there was a rather long story behind this particular … Continue reading →

Posted in Computing, DIY, Electronics | Tagged , , , , , , | 15 Comments

Teardown: element14 Wi-Pi USB Wireless 802.11n 150Mbit/s 2.4Ghz Dongle

Posted on July 19, 2015 by lui_gough

The end of financial year almost always means discounts and sales, and this year was no different. My favourite shop, element14, had run some promotions in their Connect magazine, which included a further discount of 10% on the already-discounted prices … Continue reading →

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Review, Teardown: Astone ISO DOC-130 2.5″ & 3.5″ SATA II to USB 3.0 Dock

Posted on July 5, 2015 by lui_gough

When you have a pile of small bare hard drives to use, giving them all a SATA port to use or an individual enclosure is prohibitively expensive. Maybe you have a hard drive to quickly test, or an occasional back-up … Continue reading →

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Salvage: HTS541680J9SA00 80Gb HDD, Duracell AAA, Optus Cable Card & Alcatel-Lucent Home Cell

Posted on July 4, 2015 by lui_gough

I’ve been occasionally accused of being a hoarder, which I suppose is true. The result of this is that I do end up collecting interesting tidbits, mostly broken things, which I can take apart and explore … or just admire … Continue reading →

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Salvage, Teardown: ST3250310AS 250Gb & WD1600AAJS 160Gb Hard Drives

Posted on July 4, 2015 by lui_gough

This post is a bit of a follow-on from last salvage posting. The undisclosed location provided many bits and pieces, including a large number of hard drives from (mostly) HP branded computers. Well, I suppose provided might not be the … Continue reading →

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Salvage, Teardown: Seagate Cheetah 10K6 & 10K7 SCSI Ultra320 Hard Drives

Posted on June 29, 2015 by lui_gough

A few weeks back, an undisclosed location had a technology waste “clean-up” which was definitely a golden opportunity for any tech-salvagist and word-inventor like myself. Interestingly, this salvage opportunity netted a few desktop computers, a sizable number of sticks of … Continue reading →

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Slow Hard Drive? Things to Check

Posted on June 7, 2015 by lui_gough

Since I posted my review article on the Seagate 8Tb Archive HDD, which uses SMR technology, I have had several readers complain that I was getting much better results in benchmarks than they were, and their numbers were much worse … Continue reading →

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Review: Seagate Archive 8Tb 3.5″ Internal Hard Drive

Posted on May 24, 2015 by lui_gough

Hard drive storage space is one thing which always seems to run out regardless of how much you have. Hard drive manufacturers have been working to push the capacity of perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) drives constantly, but have lately hit … Continue reading →

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Review: Prof Revolution S2 8000 PCI-E Satellite Tuner Card

Posted on May 9, 2015 by lui_gough

Very recently, I was thinking of expanding my satellite system with a third and fourth receiver, only to be shocked to discover that my favourite tuner (the pricey, but otherwise rock solid TBS 6925) has been discontinued. The replacement, the … Continue reading →

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Review, Teardown: AverMedia C875 Live Gamer Portable HDMI Capture Box (GL710)

Posted on April 10, 2015 by lui_gough

When HDMI was conceived, it was to be the one style of connection you would need around your home media centre to carry video, audio, remote control signals and even Ethernet. While it was digital, and hence loss-free under normal … Continue reading →

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Review, Teardown: Corsair Flash Voyager LS 32Gb USB 3.0 Flash Drive

Posted on February 28, 2015 by lui_gough

Corsair has been a trusted name in DRAM memory for a long time, which resulted in a brand expansion into peripherals, accessories, power supplies and more. It seems like whatever Corsair puts their brand on is a product you can … Continue reading →

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Review, Teardown: Apotop Wi-Copy (DW21) 5200mAh Power Bank

Posted on January 29, 2015 by lui_gough

Towards the end of 2014, I entered a competition held by Scorptec for a chance to win an Apotop Wi-Copy power bank. Guess what? I won! Thanks Scorptec! As a bit of a hobbyist photographer, backing up photos and keeping … Continue reading →

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Quick Review: Sandisk Ultra 128Gb UHS-I microSDXC Card

Posted on December 19, 2014 by lui_gough

I was pretty disappointed to have been dudded in my first attempt to get a hold of a 128Gb microSDXC card, but I won’t let an eBay fake stop me. After all, Sandisk products are supposed to be high quality. … Continue reading →

Posted in Computing, Flash Memory, Photography | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

An SSD in a USB 3.0 Enclosure: Part 3 – Sandisk Extreme II & Transcend SSD340 (again)

Posted on August 31, 2014 by lui_gough

For those who are interested in the topic, they might also want to see Part 1 and Part 2 to better understand the caveats and limitations, as it will put this article in a better context. So far, I’ve been … Continue reading →

Posted in Computing, Flash Memory | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Review, Teardown: Sandisk Extreme II 480Gb Solid-State Drive (SDSSDXP-480G)

Posted on August 31, 2014 by lui_gough

I think there’s no doubt that I love solid state drives. Can’t have enough of them. While on a “per gigabyte” basis, they look expensive compared to hard drives, their true economy is in saving time and improving performance. To … Continue reading →

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An SSD in a USB 3.0 Enclosure: Part 2 – Transcend SSD340 256Gb + StoreJet 25S3

Posted on August 26, 2014 by lui_gough

Having just done a review and teardown of the Transcend SSD340 256Gb SSD, astute readers will note that the product was purchased in a bundle with a Transcend branded USB 3.0 2.5″ enclosure. While the inclusion of the enclosure is … Continue reading →

Posted in Computing, Flash Memory | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments

Review, Teardown: Transcend SSD340 256Gb 2.5″ Solid-State Drive (TS256GSSD340)

Posted on August 26, 2014 by lui_gough

Solid state drives are now a vital part of every computer I build and use. Most of my commonly used machines in my fleet have already been outfitted with SSDs, and it has paid dividends in terms of faster response … Continue reading →

Posted in Computing, Flash Memory | Tagged , , , , , | 7 Comments

Quick Review: Samsung Evo 32Gb (MB-MP32D) microSDHC Card

Posted on August 15, 2014 by lui_gough

It seems that Samsung has done some shuffling with their memory cards, and the Samsung Plus is no longer available. Instead, they have instead drawn on their SSD branding scheme and bought the Evo moniker to their microSD and SD … Continue reading →

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Marketing Confusion: Wireless 802.11ac Data Rates Explained

Posted on August 11, 2014 by lui_gough

For people who have looked at upgrading their network to 802.11ac, no doubt you have been perplexed by the wide range of physical layer rates advertised. Before, in the 802.11b and g era, all cards operated at just one rate … Continue reading →

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Tech Flashback: Fujitsu M2266SA – Part 4 – A Time Capsule Unleashed

Posted on August 10, 2014 by lui_gough

While most people will see computer hardware as physical objects, often they have a story which is greater than what appears on the surface. For most devices, the story lives and dies with the owner, but in the case of … Continue reading →

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Review: Pioneer BDR-209DBK 16x SATA Internal Blu-ray Writer

Posted on August 2, 2014 by lui_gough

A while back, I decided to build myself a new rig on the account of many random failures. Being one of the few that insist on retaining an optical media drive, I couldn’t resist picking myself up a new Blu-ray burner. … Continue reading →

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Laptop Wireless Card Whitelists: An upgrade nightmare

Posted on August 2, 2014 by lui_gough

What if I told you that an Intel 7260 dual-band dual-stream (marketing value 1200Mbit/s) 802.11ac mPCIe card with Bluetooth 4.0 costs just $26.50 including shipping and with just 5 to 15 minutes of your own work, you should be able … Continue reading →

Posted in Computing, Telecommunications | Tagged , , , , , | 32 Comments