JamesThresher

Reliability depends on the usage scenario. If you constantly write to the disk then a HDD will likely be much more reliable than an SSD. However if the data is only being read from the disk and hardly ever written to, then an SSD "should" be more reliable as the HDD is a mechanical device and will eventually break, SSD's shouldn't wear out if they are only read from. As you say though, when an SSD does break, it really breaks. Data recovery is much more difficult

WPA2 is pretty hard to crack, but in all likelihood it's not WPA2 that's been cracked. Make sure that WPS is disabled and the make sure the router is on the latest firmware (WPS has a known vulnerability that makes it trivial to bypass the security) Make sure that the access point name is not the default name, the AP name is often used in the hashing mechanism for the WPA2 security and there are lookup tables to allow people to quickly figure out the password (rainbow tables), changing the AP name to something non-default will likely prevent their use. Make sure you are using WPA2-PSK AES only not one of the combined WPA & WPA2 or TKIP encryption methods. Change the AP password to something long (more than 12 characters should do it). Make sure you use a combination of character sets, upper case, lower case, numbers and some special characters. Disable UPNP too. If someone is still getting on the network after that, then they are probably getting in through something other than the wifi.

As someone who runs a hosting business, free normally comes with quite a lot of downsides. If you have to go with a free provider, I'd recommend checking them out carefully first.

They're both quite cheap, so perhaps I'll order both and see which one suits best.

Not sure the EK ones will fit, the Aquacomputer one will though. Thanks

Does anyone know of a fitting i can get that will attach to a standard G1/4 fitting to provide a tube within a reservoir for the return feed from the loop so the coolant doesn't just splash into the res? I know the bitspower reservoirs seem to have these as standard, but i'm using another res (Aqualis XT) and i want the Reservoir to be part of the flow of the loop.

Wake on LAN uses Broadcasts to tell the device to turn on, Routers will not pass broadcasts (except in some very special cases). If you run something like DD-WRT on your router then that supports WoL, so you could tell DD-WRT to send out the WoL Packets for you.

It's 4 without any accessories, I'm pretty sure you can get at least another two with a couple of accessories.

OpenVPN would probably be the best way to go then, i'm pretty sure that you can change the port it uses to anything you like

I'm assuming that your friend is running windows, if so then this guide should help http://blog.ashurex.com/2012/03/15/creating-ssh-proxy-tunnel-putty/ You would need to allow SSH access to your linux box

Signal Quality has nothing to do with signal strength and everything to do with Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR). To use the music analogy that skulbringer mentioned, If you turn up the volume on a piece of music, you may be able to hear it better, but not if there were 20 other songs playing all at the same at the same volume. However you would be able to hear the music just fine even on a very low volume if everything else around you was completely silent. the Greater the SNR, the greater the quality and therefore the performance that you (should) get. Although there are other factors that can affect this.

If your router supports it, take a look into QoS (Quality of Service). It isn't a cap or limit on the bandwidth but it will allow you to prioritize the traffic that's more important. pfSense and DD-WRT (probably Tomato too) support QoS, pfSense will also support actual bandwidth limits, so you could throttle the connection to the other machines, although If you have to ask about bandwidth prioritization then I wouldn't recommend pfSense to you.

If you have a Linux box lying around you could Tunnel over SSH instead.

I'm not too worried, the the block has a coating on the inside, so there shouldn't be any bare aluminium in contact with the coolant.

UPDATE: Fan Modding Just a quick update, I don't like the way that the multi coloured wires look on the fans So I'm replacing all of the wiring with black wires, I think it looks much better. I'm not bothering with the PWM wire as all the fans will be voltage controlled. Only a few more to go This might take a while!