Bill O'Brien

Lenovo originally designed its compact ThinkStation C20 workstation for financial markets where both the number-crunching power of the system and the amount of space it saves is important. However, the ThinkStation C20, released in June, can also be considered a graphic artist's tool for running sophisticated software that manipulates 3D graphics and renders video, or as a software development platform.

The ThinkStation C20 was designed to have a substantially small footprint without sacrificing performance. Having the ability to attach up to eight monitors also makes it ideal for tracking several trading boards at the same time - as well as making its transition into a 3D graphics computer a natural.

I tend to resist interim technology tweaks. For example, I'm still using a Linksys WRT600N wireless router from the dawn of the 802.11n age. (Can it be three years already?) There are a few hard-to-reach spots in the house, but it's been running 24/7 and it still works.

However, I've recently added a Samsung Galaxy Tab tablet to my array of Net-connected devices. Usually used in a room on the south side of the house, it routinely requires 3G to access the Internet because my Wi-Fi simply doesn't reach that far. Likewise, a computer in another room needs a 5GHz access point to connect reliably with the Linksys router. It's time to upgrade.

As we replace and/or upgrade older computers, many of us tend to save the hard drives, until we've amassed quite a collection. For example, I've collected quite a few 2.5-in. and 3.5-in. SATA hard drives as I've upgraded my desktop and laptop equipment over the years.

This can present a problem. I don't want to throw the hard drives away or sell them because I really don't remember what's on them, and even a thorough reformatting won't necessarily erase their contents in today's tech-spy vs. tech-spy world. Besides, why waste good hard drive space? But I don't want to just install them internally into today's computers because they're slower than current technology.

The big buzz in hard drives right now is Western Digital's 3TB WD Caviar Green (Model WD30EZRS) internal drive. Along with its cavernous capacity, the drive, which is available for about $230, boasts a 64MB cache and is SATA 3Gbit/sec.-compatible. But what makes it special -- it's the largest capacity internal hard drive currently available -- is also what makes it awkward.

To begin with, operating systems such as Microsoft Windows -- including Windows 7 -- tend to use a Master Boot Record (MBR) partition table arrangement as their standard. MBR can only address 232 logical blocks on the hard drive with a common sector size of 512 bytes -- in other words, a maximum of 2.19TB of data.

Most people purchase their PCs from popular vendors such as Dell or Lenovo. However, power users who want something more -- or who have very specific ideas of what they want without the time to actually build it themselves -- may turn to smaller, independent vendors who can accommodate high-performance, individually designed systems. These vendors are popularly known as boutique builders.

A decade ago, boutique PC builders weren't much of a bargain. They offered good-looking boxes with clear panels and case lights, along with some performance gains -- a modicum of overclocking, better speakers and higher video resolutions -- all at prices that were well above what their mainstream counterparts charged.

Artwork: Chip TaylorThose of us in the business of keeping an eye on new technologies wonder why the buzz about SATA 6Gbit/sec. (a.k.a. Serial ATA Revision 3) hasn't been louder than it is.

SATA 6Gbit/sec. is the next-generation SATA specification and will double the speed of the current SATA standard (which is 3Gbit/sec.). The technology was first demonstrated by Seagate and AMD in March 2009, and is finally coming to market. So why haven't we heard more about it?

Network-attached storage (NAS), once only available (and affordable) for enterprises, is becoming more common for small business and even home use. And necessary -- if you are looking for secure backups for your data, a single backup disk collecting data once or twice a day is no longer enough.

I looked at three NAS units that recently appeared on the market and that could suit the ambitious home or small business: Synology's DS409slim; Seagate's BlackArmor 440; and Netgear ReadyNAS NVX. None are enterprise level, but each fits a particular spot in a networking environment. They range in price from around $750 all the way up to $2,000.

Size doesn't matter, or so the old adage goes. Yet obviously it does matter -- or else we wouldn't have both towering desktop PCs and petite portable netbooks. But how about something like a network-attached storage (NAS) device, which is basically a box that sits on a shelf or a desk and never travels, never moves -- does size matter there?

Buffalo Technology thinks so. It recently introduced its tiny LinkStation Mini, which is 1.6 by 3.2 by 5.3 inches and weighs in at a hair over 1 pound, easily meeting Buffalo's boast that it can put 1TB of storage in the palm of your hand. (It can also fit nicely on an overcrowded shelf.)

While RAID 5 isn't exactly the Holy Grail of desktop NAS, it is a very attractive option that combines the speed of striped RAID 0 and sufficient data protection without a humongous loss of storage capacity (as with RAID 1) in the trade. That's what makes Western Digital's ShareSpace NAS array an attractive option. Still you'll need to dig a little deeper to ferret out all that makes up ShareSpace and whether or not it's right for you.

The box is available with either two or four of Western Digital's 1TB Caviar Green drives (WD10000CSRTL). With two drives, you get RAID 0 while four drives nets you RAID 5 (the unit is capable of supporting RAID 0, RAID 1 or RAID 5) as the standard configuration. The box measures about 7.7 inches high by 8 inches long and 6 inches wide.

How much would you pay for a portable hard drive that lets you tote around 160GB in a shirt pocket -- with no need for a power brick? Apricorn is betting you'll be willing to spring for upward of $260 for its 160GB Aegis Mini. However, it remains to be seen how many are willing to pay that price for portability.

As with other drives in the Aegis Mini line, the new model carries a 1.8-in. drive inside its 0.67-by-2.7-by-3.4-in. shell and weighs in at 3.7 ounces. Two 160GB models are available at USB or FireWire. The FireWire version runs about $10 more than its USB 2.0 counterpart.

Recently, Western Digital Corp. has come to market with three drives aimed at increasing the performance of both 2.5- and 3.5-in. drives.: the Caviar Black, the Scorpio Black and the VelociRaptor. Nothing about them speaks to "green power." Rather, the "black" lineup is aimed at enthusiasts who want performance and let their power supplies be damned if they can't handle the load.

Caviar Black

The Caviar Black (WD1001FALS) is Western Digital's new 3.5-in., 1TB drive and is an upgrade from WDC's venerable WD RE2-GP (WD1000FYPS) GreenPower drive. The new drive provides an interesting performance bump but suffers a power grab in exchange (see "Review: Western Digital's 'green' RE2-GP 1TB hard drive").

Ah, the joy of summer storms. A recent one involving a flooded basement (a torrential downpour traveled down a chipmunk burrow that led to an otherwise enclosed basement window with a broken windowpane) and several staccato blackouts sent one of my neighbor's computers, as well as one of my own, to their eternal rest.

Fortunately, I had two spare computers -- one for me and one for the neighbor. I bought a few uninterruptible power supplies and we were back in business. But now I had no spares left, and that's simply not acceptable for a card-carrying geek.