| When you need more disk, get an external Firewire/USB enclosure. Connect
to PC and Mac This will work on your next computer so it is not an investment loss. Your machine has both 6-wire and 4-wire Firewire 400 (IEEE1394a). Firewire 800 (IEEE1394b) is coming. |
 |
| Why can I only see 127 to 137 GBytes of my 160 GB drive in Windows XP? |
| The Elder Geek on Windows XP |
| Sony readies Q2 dual-layer DVD+R drive debut |
| http://www.tomshardware.com/ |
 KVM Switches
Compared  Tapping the resources of several PCs at once is a novel concept, but cluttering a workspace with additional monitors, keyboards and mice is a less-than-viable alternative for most. KVM switches allow for instant access of two or more PCs with a single keyboard, mouse and monitor. |
|
|
|
| Good unit |
|
|
|
| December
18, 2003 Mobile and Attractive: External Hard Disks from Maxtor and Seagate The latest generation models not only look good, they are also more intelligent - and they come with up-to-the-minute features such as one-touch backup. We tested the OneTouch from Maxtor and the External Hard Drive from Seagate. |
 |
| September
15, 2003 External, But How? Mobile Storage Solutions Compared The number of external storage devices on the market continues to proliferate, but not all of them are user-friendly, flexible and affordable. We compared HighPoint external serial ATA products with both common and unusual USB and FireWire devices from Fujitsu, Maxtor, Western Digital, WiebeTech and Transcend. |
|
http://www17.tomshardware.com/storage/20040402/index.html
|
|||
| FireWire - The Story So Far
FireWire was first established as the IEEE 1394 standard in 1995. With a rate of up to 400 Mbps, this port (also known as i.LINK from Sony or Lynx from TI) was far superior to any other available protocol at the time. It also offered the ability of setting up and interrupting the connection while operation was in progress ('hot plugging'). The 1394 standard is a bus protocol, which can accommodate up to 63 devices. Unlike BNC networks or SCSI, these devices do not have to be physically connected in series, but can also be arranged in branches. Moreover, a signaling cable does not have to be terminated with a resistor, and device addresses are assigned dynamically in the background. In recent years, FireWire has also become a standard feature for high-end motherboards. Texas Instruments, VIA and others all now offer corresponding, highly affordable FireWire controller chips. Moreover, despite a theoretical lower data transfer speed compared to USB 2.0, IEEE1394 consistently offers slightly faster transfer speeds in practice, and the CPU load is lower with high quality FireWire chips. Technical Basis To FireWire The interface is based on a six pin connector, which uses two twisted pairs of wires for data communication and two wires for the power supply. This setup permits between 8 V and 30 V with up to 1.5 A. The maximum cable length from device to device is max. 4.5 m at full power. At the same time, however, it only is possible to connect a maximum of 17 devices directly in series. Closed circuits are not allowed, either. In practice, however, configurations of 1 to 3 devices are normally found. A further advantage of FireWire over USB 2.0 also should not be underestimated: Compared to USB 2.0, FireWire devices will generally also run without difficulties under Linux and Mac OS'. |
| FireWire 400 (IEEE 1394a) |
|
FireWire 800, or IEEE 1394b, transfers data at up to 54 MB/s in conjunction with a external high-speed hard disk, which easily outperforms other alternatives we have tested in the past. |
|
http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/20040322/index.html
|
||
| Socket
478 (dead) - LGA 775 (new) Pentium 4 (dead) - Pentium 5 (new) 850 chipset (dead) 865 chipset (dead) - 915/925X chipsets (new) Pentium 4 560 (3.6 GHz) |
