Fujitsu 80GB 2.5″ MHW2080BJ Benchmarked via Bonnie++ (Linux)
The MHW2080BJ became available in the UK about 6 weeks ago and we've sold several since, primarily in our fanless T1 PC. Though we prefer solid state drives, hard drives still hold their own in some areas (moving files across the disc) and of course are much cheaper. This goes for about £21 wholesale, versus £134 for the 80GB Intel X25-M Solid State Drive.
I ran a Bonnie++ test on it. Results are here and are all in MB/sec, except Random Seeks which is just per second.
Sequential Character Output: 8.402
Block Output: 40.053
Rewrite: 18.533
Sequential Character Input: 9.965
Block Input: 45.955
Random Seeks: 132.5
S2 30 Watt Server: 4GB RAM, Dual Core Intel, 1U, SSD or Hotswap Drive
We prepared these recently for a client taking them down to Zamia.
Lenovo L1940P Review – Excellent Build and Just 11 Watts
We recently bought some of these for testing and will shortly be selling them. Build quality is outstanding and wonderful to have a height-adjustable monitor at a low price of £130 (ex VAT) especially for someone like me who's 6 foot 3. Resolution is 1440x900 and it has both a VGA and DVI-D port (both cables included). The Aleutia T1 has a DVI port, as does our H1, H2, and Ion HTPC and these work nicely with it. The VESA mount on the back though is taken up by the height adjustable stand so you can't mount a PC there.
But what's awesome about this is the really, really low power consumption. We tested 16 Watt draw using a Watt Meter, versus about 22 Watts for a normal 17" or 19" TFT.
However the guys over at Silent PC Review have done a much more thorough review and got power consumption down to 11 Watts:
Use the Samsung U70 or Mimo as Your Primary Monitor in Windows 7
We love the Samsung U70 and Nanovision Mimo Monitors. USB powered monitors mean less cabling and are much, much cheaper than 12V DC monitors. The problem is Samsung and Nanovision really think of these as peripheral monitors and it's not obvious how to set it up as your sole and primary monitor.
If you use Windows this is easier and for Windows 7 users there's a beta driver (which was alpha last week). Download it here:
http://www.displaylink.org/forum/showthread.php?p=121#post121
Installing the driver is easy (save to desktop, double-click to open, agree to their terms and conditions, and it wil linstall).
If you have your USB monitor attached and it's on, it will come on as a screen and you can drag and drop to it.
However, to make it your primary monitor, go:
Control Panel > Appearance and Personalization > Display > Adjust Resolution
You'll see both your desktops (in my case an Lenovo L1940p at 1440x900 and a Mimo 740 Touchscreen at 800x480):
Now select your USB monitor (Display 2) with the cursor and change the Multiple Displays option from 'Extend these Displays" to "Show Desktop Only on 2" as I've shown below. Feel free to email me (michael at aleutia dot com) if you have any questions:
Aleutia H2 “Beast” is Just Ridiculously Fast
I'm blogging right now from said bad boy and it's an outstanding experience, if completely underchallenging for the H2. Power consumption is holding steady at 36 Watts and running Windows 7 32-bit even though this only lets me use 3 of my 4GB of RAM.
We've combined an Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200S processor (65W at peak) with a super quiet low profile heatsink and 1200rpm fan and managed to fit it into a case that is just 2.47 liters. Smaller footprint than a piece of A4 paper and just 6.5 mm tall.
Watched Dragon's Den in HD on BBC iPlayer and CPU utilization was around 30%.
Noise level: 33dB though that's measure with a (probably crappy) iPhone app. Soho is pretty noisy so it's effectively silent for us but if you're in a soundproofed study in the Highlands, you're still just going to hear a single, quiet fan.
No case fans needed since the chassis is so ventilated and we've gone with an Intel X25-M 80GB Solid State Drive wth an absurd 230MB/s read speed, 70MB/s write speed.
Industrial PCs for Emerging Economies
We hate moving parts here at Aleutia and we're always working to bring the cost of our rugged PCs. That's because we want to bridge the market gap between overpriced, niche industrial PCs and developing world budgets. That's because both groups value the same things: energy efficiency, no moving parts (less things to go wrong), and the general ability to last for years in the field.
SSDs have traditionally been very expensive and the market has been either overpriced laptops (MacBook Air) or well-off consumers upgrading their overpriced laptops.
We're now partnered with KingSpec, a large SSD manufacturer and will be offering their high speed 32GB and 64GB drives in our best-selling H1, as well our H2, T1, and P1 PCs.
With Read Speed of 175MB/sec and Write Speed of 100MB/sec, these offer far better performance than even desktop hard drives (at 60MB/sec typically) and much quicker access times (no moving platters to start up like in hard drives). And they only use 2W at peak.
Read more at:
http://www.kingspec.com/solid-state-disk-products/ssd-25sata-1032mj.htm
OCZ Vertex SSD Does Not Work with Ubuntu
We were very excited to read reviews of OCZ's recent Vertex solid state drives as well as their brand new Vertex Turbo SSDs.
Tragically, these do not play at all with Linux and specifically Ubuntu, which refuses to format them.
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=56342
As most of our customers run Linux (and not Windows 7) and value the ability to run XBMC or Boxee on our solid state machines, we've switched to a new drive make, KingSpec.