Installing a SSD in the PS4 is easy!

They've made it nice simple. It doesn't even look like you'd void the warranty if you simply put the original HDD back in when sending it back.

You'll get a noticeable different but I wouldn't recommend anything smaller than a 500Gb disk..

SSD overclocking - Say whaaat?

Probably not a good idea to push the boundaries on this one... (corrupt data is bad!)

http://hexus.net/tech/news/storage/59597-ssd-overclocking-demonstrated-intel-pax-prime/

HP ProLiant G7 N54L 2.2GHz MicroServer deal on @ eBuyer

eBuyer has their next HP micro server promotion up. Its a slight upgrade over what I think was the N40L (Could be N45L).  The price is currently £209 with a £100 cashback (you'll be waiting a month or so for this).

The specs are pretty basic, but this is ideal for my intended purpose of it being a NAS box to share all my videos and music across multiple devices. I haven't bought any upgrades for it as of yet. I want to experiment with it first as it'll be my first NAS box. The 250GB hard disk should suffice for the mean time until I am ready to use it properly. Its interesting to see what people have done in terms of running the OS off a flash drive on the internal USB port or their set-ups with RAID arrays.

I'll also need some sort of Dynamic DNS service as I'm on a residential Sky broadband line with a dynamic IP. Free ones can be had from www.no-ip.biz, but there is also dyndns.com which is $25 a year. Then again with the O2 purchase, Sky has been hinting at rolling out a static IP address to some customers. My guess is probably at an extra cost which is fair enough as it isn't a business service I guess.

Other concerns are noise. I want it to be dead quiet as its going to sit in the living room. I recently upgraded my Shuttles graphics card (a whole different beast) and it's noticeably louder these days.

http://www.freenas.org/ is looking like the OS of choice from what my colleague suggested.
From what the site says it looks pretty versatile which is what I need running a variety of OS's in my household.

I've not used a Windows server in a long while now, but it might be worth a download of the trail version to have a look. I've heard some good things about Windows Server 2012.

Link to the product is here:
http://www.ebuyer.com/430446-proliant-microserver-turion-2-2-2gb-250gb-nhpl-sata-lff-in-704941-421

Mac Pro News

The Mac Pro is well over due a complete overhaul.

Media & VFX houses demand computational power and Apple has been losing market share for a while now. Yes they have a nice unix based OS vs but Microsoft has come a long way with Windows Server 2012 and software companies really driving their software to do more on PC!

It's good to see some rumours and developments on the Mac Pro front.

The Mac Pro is off the market in the EU at the moment and from the articles below it's going to be a while before we see a new one as Apple wait on Intel's new chips (a good call in my opinion).

I would love to see Apple experiment with some own brand Thunderbolt graphics solutions.

Nvidia with CUDA, SLI and some Thunderbolt arrays would be an interesting mix. Same goes for AMD and crossfire... You could turn a little Mac mini a rather dent little gaming machine and revive an ageing MacBook Pro.

http://www.macrumors.com/2013/03/04/apple-building-2tb-solid-state-drives-for-next-mac-pro-release/

http://translate.google.de/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=de&ie=UTF-8&eotf=1&u=http://www.pcgameshardware.de/AMD-Radeon-Hardware-255597/News/Sapphire-zeigt-Radeon-HD-7950-Mac-Edition-auf-der-Cebit-1058864/&authuser=0

Want smaller than mSATA? M.2 (formerly NGFF) is coming..

See the details over at Anandtech.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6293/ngff-ssds-putting-an-end-to-proprietary-ultrabook-ssd-form-factors

Now if only other desktop components could start to shrink while increasing performance

Crucial firmware upgrade for SSD

From the email I got today:

"New firmware available for your Crucial® SSD!
Crucial SSDs are designed to support periodic firmware upgrades that provide enhancements to optimize how our drives perform. We're happy to announce that the latest firmware upgrade (040H/04MH) is now available for your Crucial m4, Adrenaline, or mSATA SSD on our SSD support page. This is an optional firmware update, but by upgrading you can benefit from the following improvements:
Faster boot up – we improved the time between when you press the power button on your computer and when the drive is ready to accept commands
Faster TRIM – we improved how our drives clean up files to make them more efficient
Better power management – we improved some power consumption elements so that our drives can draw less power

At Crucial.com, we're proud to deliver first-rate support to our SSD customers and that includes firsthand upgrade news. While you're on Crucial.com downloading the latest firmware, why not see if you can further improve your system's performance with a DRAM upgrade? Our innovative Crucial System Scanner accurately identifies the memory in your system and provides a list of guaranteed-compatible upgrades. Just another great service we can offer – thank you for being a valued customer!

-The team at Crucial.com"

At least its not a bug fix this time. Nice to see they are continually improving the product to keep it competitive. 

Intel Brings TRIM to RAID-0 SSD Arrays on 7-Series Motherboards, We Test It

The CPU and the motherboard might cost a bomb at the moment but you can get some impressive results for the SSD's with Intel's TRIM for RAID-0!! (latest gen only )

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6161/intel-brings-trim-to-raid0-ssd-arrays-on-7series-motherboards-we-test-it

Intel working on Next Generation Form Factor SSDs

Intel working on Next Generation Form Factor SSDs

The future of flash memory: tiny (and extremely tough to build)

Ars Technica: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/07/the-future-of-ssds/

Crucial M4 important firmware update

So there is appartly a critical update for Crucial M4 SSD's

For more info see:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5424/crucial-provides-a-firmware-update-for-m4-to-fix-the-bsod-issue

To get the update and for instructions on how to apply it, see here:

http://www.crucial.com/uk/support/firmware.aspx