EmeraldFlame

Get an audiophile set of cans. A good set of audiophile headphones, especially open designs, already have amazing soundstage and you can often locate sounds even without software. 7.1 headsets just have some software that throws some effects in, and you can get that same thing through software like Razr's surround, and many games have a special 'headphones' sound mode that does something similar through the game engine itself. For about $150 you can pick up a pair of Sennheiser 558's with a modmic 4.0 and that is an awesome setup.

So I am looking for an affordable software backup solution for all the computers in my house, that runs backup to a network location. I currently have a small server, running Windows Server 2012R2, with a RAID 5 of 9TB usable space (12TB total), and I would like to be able to run automatic backups of all my computers in the house to this server. Currently to run a backup I have to initiate it manually, and why thats not a huge deal, I would much rather have an automatic system for it. In a perfect world, I would like the software to be able to do these rules: 1st monday of the month: Run a full system backup, after backup is complete delete old backup Daily: Run an incremental backup Weekly: Run a differential backup, after differential backup is completed, delete any previous incremental and differential backups Ideally, I would also want these backups to be run in a way where Windows itself would be restore-able, not just file sync but an actual system image. It would also be great if I could manage the rules for all the computers from the server itself after installing the software on all the other computers, but not necessarily required. Currently the only thing I have found has been Acronis Backup, but after I bought a copy for my server, and a copy for the computers I would want to run it on, I would be looking at well over $1500. Does anyone know of any other software that may suit my needs but be a little more affordable?

Yes, they were running into an issue where performance was degrading over time. A performance restoration tool was released, and that seems to have fixed the issues everyone was having, so at this point it's no longer really an issue. As hojnikb said too, the mx100's are also a great price/performance SSD.

They really didn't change the standard, they are just using a different standard. Professional video equipment has used the term 4k for years, and has refereed to things by horizontal resolution for a long time. Resolutions that were approximately 1080p was typically referred to as 1080p in the professional world. The only reason that 1080p was used instead of 2k in marketing is because there were also 1080i tv's, which had the same pixel count, but were only able to refresh half the screen per frame. The 2k-4k nomenclature has no way of differentiating this, so they made new nomenclature up that did. Now that interlaced tv's have pretty much disappeared we no longer need it, so they are returning to the 2k-4k terminology. So in reality it was 720p/1080p that changed and went against the standards. 4k is merely the return to the older standards from the professional environment in a lot of ways.

You clearly don't understand how 2-dimensional space works. 4k IS 4x the amout of pixels as 1080p 1080p is defined as being 1920 pixels by 1080 pixels for a total pixel count of 2,073,600 pixels. 4k is defined as being 3840 pixels by 2160 pixels for a total pixel count of 8,294,400 pixels. 8,294,400 / 2,073,600 = 4 In a 2 dimensional space when you double the amount of both axes you effectively quadruple the surface area, which is what is going on here. You are doubling twice, once by height and once by width. And 2x2=4. Don't believe me, go grab a piece of paper and cut out a 4 inch square. Then cut out a couple 2 inch squares and see how many you can fit in there (hint, it will be 4). This is basic middle school geometry, nothing fancy going on here. As far as why it is being called 4k, its a hold over from the video editing industry, 4k cameras have been around for a long time, and somewhere along the line it just got that name adopted and its stuck with it.

Now, I am sure there is some motherboard somewhere that doesn't work like this, but in my general experience in the F12 boot menus of the boards I have seen, the drives are listed by model number, in the order of the SATA ports they are plugged into. So, if you have two identical model drives, they would most likely read as the same name in this menu, but whichever one was in SATA port 1 would show up first, and whichever was in SATA port 2 would show up second. Like I said I am sure this probably varies by board, and I haven't used the exact board you are going to be, but generally thats how most seem to handle the boot menu.

It wouldn't conflict but it wouldn't do anything for you either. EasyBCD would load from whatever SSD was first in your boot priority list, and it would only show the boot options of that disk, not on the other disk. The only way you would be able to do what you want is to either enter the BIOS and switch the boot order, or most MoBo's have a 'Boot Selection' menu, where if you hit F12 during startup, it gives you a list of drives and you can pick which one to boot up from.

They released a tool that updates the firmware and fixes this issue, or at least seems to. I would highly recommend downloading it, backing up your SSD, and then to run the fix.

They are through the roof because Rapid mode uses your RAM as a cache, since RAM is much quicker, typically in the GBps speeds. However, rapid mode has a downside too. If your computer were to loose power, from say a blackout, before everything that was cached in RAM was actually able to be moved onto the drive, you would loose it. As far as your slow write speeds go, I would double check and make sure you didn't have something else running in the background, like say a torrent program, or a backup utility, or windows update, or another software update utility. Those could all effect your readings. Also you might want to try a different SATA port if you have more than 1 6GB/s port, and see what that does. Might not hurt to run DSKCHK on it too, just to make sure you don't have sectors going out.

I would also highly recommend checking out the Sennheiser g4me one's. They are essentially a pair of 558's with an integrated mic. They have absolutely amazing sound quality and soundstage. They have a relatively flat response rate so you don't get thumpy bass, but the bass comes across as well balanced and clear.

Ok... so you put acronis, or one of the many other disk cloning software, onto a USB drive... Might want to take a read through this: http://www.pendrivelinux.com/install-and-boot-ultimate-boot-cd-ubcd-from-a-usb-device/

I would just use an acronis CD or one of the many other disk cloning tools and clone one drive to the other instead of dealing with a full OS.

If you are already doing daily backups, run the RAID 0. You should see significantly higher performance, as most SSD RAID 0's I have seen seem to scare pretty well. But those daily backups are key. If one SSD dies, you will have to remove it, order a new one, format both drives, and then restore your backup. It can be a pain in the butt, however if you have the backups already, it's not a huge deal. Also since you gave us no other information about the computer, research your chipset and raid controller thats on your board and make sure it is capable of sending TRIM commands through to the RAID. Most older chipsets can't do this. Also realize that if a firmware update were to come out for your SSD, you would have to break your raid to update your drives. There are tradeoffs to both sides, and I don't really know if you need the performance, but since you are doing daily backups, you really don't have a ton to worry about.

It depends, is this your only storage computer? I personally would go with the 500GB SSD, but I also have a home server with 12TB of storage. If this is going to be your primary storage location, I would go with the 2nd option.

Fuses blow because you are pulling to much amperage through it. Check the documentation on the surge protector you are using, and see if it is adequate for the wattage and amperage that you are trying to pull through it. If the surge protector is adequate for your PC that means there is a short or defect in one of your components, or possibly in the surge protector itself.

While it is hard to say for sure, but I am betting most of the reasoning comes from compatibility and manufacturing cost. With keeping all SSD's at the 2.5" form factor, you have laptop compatibility, whereas the 3.5" form factor does not. There would also be some sort of extra cost associated with running two separate form factor assembly lines like that, without an audit team I couldn't tell you what that would be, but it would be there. There would be gains from using a 3.5" form factor though. They would be able to fite more NAND modules in it, which means bigger overall capacities. They would also be able to use larger processes in their manufacturing, which seems to extend the life of the SSD, but requires more power typically. I am sure they have had analysts look at this and decided that the tradeoffs weren't worth the cost and the small market that would be interested in it and just stick with 2.5".

It should be noted though if you are trying to go to a new chipset/different generation like z77 to a z97, things are probably not gonna go great. It might work, but it'd be iffy.

You would have to check the wattages and the amperages of the fans to know exactly, but most likely yes. Fans normally don't pull a ton, unless you get extremely high performance ones. Also instead of using a bunch of splitters for that many fans, I would look into modmytoys PCB splitters like this: http://www.frozencpu.com/products/14665/ele-991/4-Pin_Power_Distribution_PCB_8xWay_Block_MMT-PCB-4-83.html#blank

So not sure whether this really fits here or not, put 'power supplies' was the closest category to 'Uninterruptable Power Supplies' so I went with it. But anyway, I am looking for a UPS for my home server, and I don't have much experience with them other than swapping out batteries so I figured I would get your guys opinion on them. My main requirements are that it needs to be a 'smart' UPS with a USB connection so that it shuts things down gracefully, and be able to support my server which can pull a peek of around 250W but typically stays closer to around 150ish. And I would like it to have an Ethernet surge protector. I don't really expect any runtime from these batteries, as long as it's long enough to let the computer shutdown, thats enough for me. I would also like to stick with APC or Tripp Lite simply because I trust those brands. Additional functionality that isn't a 'must-have' but a 'would be nice', is the ability to support my workstation too, which could pull up to an additional 600ish watts, and be able to also gracefully shut it down. I am looking currently at: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16842111461 And it seems to meet what I need except as far as I can tell it only supports shutting down 1 system, not 2. But as I said, I don't know a ton about these things. Is this a good unit, or is there better out there for the price? Budget is right around $200 give or take.

Probably not. You might be able to, it depends on what your coming from and what your going to. If they are roughly the same platform, it might work, but I wouldn't get your hopes up.

Corsair's mounting is normally pretty solid and normally absorbs vibration pretty well, although I must admit I have never worked with the exact mounting system they use in that case. But based off the other corsair systems I have used, I would almost doubt that vibrations the problem then. All Hard drives do make some noise, after all, there is a motor with a bunch of silicon attached to it spinning somewhere between 5000-10000rpm. It's gonna make some noise, plus you can typically faintly hear the read/write head moving back and forth on a lot of drives too. That is normal, if you feel the drive is making excessive noise, you might want to try and contact the manufacturer and get their thoughts. A lot of times excessive or odd noises are a signal that a drive is getting ready to die. But like I said some noise is to be expected and some models are noisier than others.

If you don't have it on rubber grommets, of some sort try that. If your case has tool-less brackets you may want to see if you can use real screws instead of the tool-less pegs. I have seen a number of tool-less mounts that have quite a bit of wiggle room that allows vibrations.

After the tool runs you can uninstall it yes, in fact it shouldn't even let you run it again.

150 euro for a 1TB 850 pro is a freaking steal, as in seriously, I think it is probably stolen. Heck those run like 450 euro I think, typically $500-600 here in the US.

If it shows 'deactivate' then it is currently activated. Also the sequential read and write speeds that samsung magician show won't tell you the whole story. This tests speeds by writing chunks of new data to the drive, and then reading that data to test speeds, so it always has freshly written data to test. The issue with the EVO's only affects old data, in most cases its seems to start really becoming noticeable after 3-4 weeks. For this you need a whole other kind of benchmark software to tell your true speeds. HD Tach is a benchmark that will give you a true view of your performance. This benchmark works by reading all data currently on the drive, so you can see the slow downs from you older data. However, from everything I have seen this effects ALL 840 evos. If you have a proper backup, which you do now, there really isn't any risk. Let it run, if you have problems, which seems to be relatively unlikely, you throw in your windows 8 install disk (or usb drive), then follow the directions for restoring that you can find HERE. Once that is done all files will be identical to how they were, and you won't have performance issues anymore. Like I said, I highly doubt you will even need to use the backup, most are running fine, I know of about 30 or so separate drives that have ran this, and the only one I have heard a reported problem about was the PCPER drive. But all firmware updates are this risky, even when the firmware just comes through the samsung magician software, there is a chance that it can corrupt files on the SSD.