WeaponsGradeCode

My wife’s always had good computers, but always got the short end of the stick compared to what I had. If I had a dual 500MHz, she had a single CPU. If I had a 21″ monitor, she had the 19″. After one of my MythTV projects went south I had a spare 2.4 GHz Celeron system that was better than that 500MHz mentioned above so I traded it out. But with only 512MBs RAM and a REALLY memory leaky FireFox installation it was really slow. Then she got a nice 20″ panel display that the Intel chipset couldn’t drive properly. Finally the thing was noisier than a bat out of hell in her tiny office. She uses the computer heavily and for real work so I thought it was the time to get her a new, top of the line machine that’ll last some time.

We were going to buy a laptop and I’ve bought two through Dell recently and have been very happy. She’s a petit gal so I wanted a small machine like the XPS 1330 so it could be moved around but it was way out of my price range. Other requirements were and nVidia graphics card, Core 2 Duo > 2GHz, 2GB RAM, and a 7200 RPM drive. Anything short of that was a deal breaker.

This is the part I hate about Dell. You can’t build a good machine at a good price. It’s all about haggling. You spec the perfect machine and it comes in at $1800, then you see a slightly different machine on sale for $600 off, but it’s missing the nVidia card. Deal breaker. The XPS 1330 was always way out of reach. After going around in circles for a couple days I finally called. With little haggling I speced the perfect XPS 1330 for only a couple hundred more than I wanted to spend, but close enough due to it being an exclusive machine with the ever important Midnight Blue finish.

I ordered on Wednesday and it arrived Tuesday the next week. Not bad at all.

Here’s the box it came in:

Here’s the case it came with, remote control, and restore disks:

The Midnight Blue XPS 1330:

Sitting in Scrap Book Central:

The only thing I don’t like about the machine is that it only has two USB ports and the standard LCD display is unevenly lit from top to bottom, but not so bad that it’s unusable.

Otherwise it’s a great little machine. Very fast, light, looks good. All the extra that came in the case, the premium XPS three year warranty (US based support,) and knowing you have a premium product made the purchase worth it.

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In a day and age when you go to Frys and all the cases look like this:

…us old timers (mid thirties) yearn for a decent server case that doesn’t have neon lights and can hold a substantial number of hard drives. Sure, neon fans were cool when we were 18 and looking for a mate, but when you’ve got a couple terrabytes of “Baby Einstein” and “Wiggles” videos to serve on demand to a 15 month old, you need good case design and capactity.

When selecting the new server case for my MythTV/home server solution, my primary requirements were low cost and lots of hard drive space. This server would not have a CDROM or floppy, just hard drives as it would sit in the shed, spinning away, recording TV shows and serving content.

Several strategic newegg.com queries later I found the Antec Titan650 and purchased it.

It’s a reasonable size. A bit smaller than a mid-tower case, but longer (deeper.) If you’re like me, occasionally you come across some Extended ATX (EATX) motherboards and this case can handle them. Most cases can’t.

Here’s the back. It’s got the one big fan in back that I like.

I really liked the rubber grommits they placed on the drive rails. If you have a bunch of drives they should quiet things down a bit. They also shipped special screws for the rails.

The front door assembly was nice too. Here you can see the drive cage with the two fan mounts below. The front door cleanly swings away from the chassis.

The front drive access door had a cool hinge that allowed it to swing completely out of the way.

The inside, as shipped.

All the great stuff you get including different drive rails for all the 5 1/4 and 3 1/2 drive bays.

Here’s the drive cage with two 750GB drives mounted in it. Note the fan mount swings away and off to allow access to the drives. This case now has four 750GB drives and four 400 GB drives. Six drives in the cage, two more in the 5 1/4 bays.

This is a fantastic case for the money. If you need a server case, buy this without hesitation.

Antec TITAN650 Black Server CaseAntec TITAN650 Black 1.0mm SECC Server Case 650W 4 x 5.25″ (one with 5.25″ to 3.5″ adapter) External 5.25″ Drive Bays

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