www.bowers-wilkins.com
$299
By: William Van Winkle
From across the pond, we bring you a welcome alternative for your ears to replace those winter ear muffs: B&W’s P5 headphones. B&W is gunning to unseat the Bose QuietComfort from your wish list. Whereas Bose claims its crown in the active noise cancellation department, B&W foregoes active NC for passive NC derived from superior materials construction, eliminating that occasionally detectable NC background hiss in the process. The P5s are crafted from leather, aluminum, and stainless steel. You won’t find any plastic here. The set exudes quality and sounds divine--if you enjoy unmodified, natural audio. Some headphones will artificially inflate bass and treble; B&W does not. The set only aims to faithfully output whatever was put in.

Now, about that noise canceling. If you’ve ever listened to a set of active NC cans, you know that they generally excel in cutting out low-frequency noise, such as engine rumble, while letting through voices, traffic sounds, and so forth. This is heavenly on long plane rides, and it’s good to still be able to hear some of the world around you in case somebody has something important to say, like "the wing is on fire!" However, most people really don’t say anything important (Ed.: cynical much?), especially directly to you, and all you really want is to drown out most of the world, leaving just enough to let you hear something worth hearing. This is the problem with in-canal headphones, which simply block out everything because they plug your ears.
Circumaural (surrounding the ears) headphone designs, including many Bose QuietComfort models, headphones also have a tendency to block a lot of ambient sound and be bulky in the process. On-ear headphones, which rest on top of the ear rather than surrounding them, tend to let in too much of the outside world. Finding the right compromise is tricky at best and depends a lot on your personal preferences. The P5 is circumaural, but just barely. When you look at the pads, they seem flat, as if they would merely sit on your ears. However, the cushioning is made to form around the ear (it helps if your ears lean toward the small side), and the metal construction of the cans serves to block out most noise. The overall effect is that the P5s feel light like an on-ear design but do as much passive noise blocking as a circumaural set.
Additionally, the cans are made such that the pads are held in place with magnets. They snap off fairly easily and reveal where the removable audio cabling plugs into the drivers. If you ever damage your cable, you simply replace it, not your whole headphone set. This is without question our favorite product feature.
The P5s are made with iPhone users in mind. The audio cable sports an inline playback controller and microphone, allowing you to receive and conduct calls without having to deal with your phone’s screen. Inline mics tend to sound hollow and distant. The P5 mic is no Plantronics boom mic, but it’s better than most and does a fair job at cutting ambient noise.
For $300, you definitely want to hear the P5s before committing your new year to using them. But with great fidelity, build construction, comfort, and headset capability to boot, our guess is you’ll find a lot to love here.
www.kingston.com
$280
By: Tony Celeste
The Kingston HyperX 128 GB flash drive enters the market this holiday season with a set of very impressive credentials. After all, it's a 128 GB SSD with a Toshiba HG2 controller in a durable aluminum shell, armed with 5 Gb/s USB 3.0 connectivity. Don't have a USB 3.0-enabled machine? No worries, the drive is compatible with USB 2.0 as well. But trust us on this one; you'll get much more of a kick from Kingston's creation if you're capitalizing on its USB 3.0 interface.
Kingston’s HyperX flash drive has been tested with a sequential read speed of up to 195MB per second, and a sequential write speed of up to 160MB per second. Of course, benchmarking total read/write speeds isn’t always the best measurement of a drive’s capabilities, so Kingston also ran tests using real life file transfer scenarios. These results were equally impressive.

Care for an idea of how fast USB 3.0 can really go? A 10 GB video file, moved from a PC to the drive, transferred in just 1:12. Compare that to to 5:52 using USB 2.0. A set of 475 MP3 files transferred in 20 seconds on the USB 3.0 port, versus 1:16 over USB 2.0. And 4 GB of TIFF and JPG images transferred in 55 seconds using USB 3.0 compared to 2:37 seconds using USB 2.0.
Since the Kingston HyperX has no moving parts, it's also completely silent. Although the flash memory and Toshiba controller inside still heat up, Kingston's attractive aluminum housing helps dissipate the heat effectively. You have to appreciate the lack of moving parts. That's part of what makes solid state storage so robust in a mobile application, and one of the attributes you give up in making the switching an external drive based on mechanical storage. In fact, before writing this gift guide entry, we played a quick game of Hot Potato with the HyperX drive, just to prove that it'd live to see another day. A lamp in the office was lost, but Kingston's offering transfers on. We also have to like the fact that this drive gets all of its power from the USB 3.0 connector. After owning enough products that require two separate cords (requiring extra babysitting when you take them anywhere) or daisy-chained USB 2.0 plugs just to get enough juice, we certainly appreciate the simplicity here.
The Kingston HyperX is compatible with Windows XP (SP3), Windows Vista (SP1 and SP2), Windows 7, and Mac OS X (note that at the moment, Macs only support USB 2.0). Of course, the drive operates using native Windows or Mac drivers, so there’s nothing to install, providing true plug and play functionality.
A drive like Kingston's HyperX 128 GB flash drive isn't just a good give for power users. After all, almost everyone has some form of storage on them nowadays. Your mom or dad might not be able to fully comprehend what an SSD is, how fast USB 3.0 might be, or that you just dropped nearly $300 on 128 GB of storage. However, they do know what is means to fill up a dinky thumb drive, they know what it means to sit there waiting forever to transfer movies and music, and they'll know that this little drive solves all of that.
The Kingston HyperX may not yet be available at your preferred etailer or retailer, but Kingston tells us that the drive should be available starting December 20th.
www.logitech.com
$79.99
By: Sam Finch
What were you expecting, a gaming keyboard with more macros than actual keys? A glorified $200 QWERTY remote? Nah. This year, go with the keyboard that will satisfy the idealists and pragmatists alike—one that will save the planet and save you a little spare change. What is this miracle peripheral? Why, it’s none other than a sleek, thin, unassuming, solar-powered wireless keyboard from Logitech.
The Logitech Wireless Solar Keyboard K750’s name itself betrays its marquee feature, an array of photovoltaic cells that draw power from the sun or, realistically, whatever bulb is currently lighting the room. This renewable source of energy is sure to please the Prius demographic; we’re just jazzed that the K750 will save us from pouring countless Duracells down the black hole that was our old wireless keyboard. Fully charged, the keyboard should last for three months before needing to go sunbathing again. We received one of the very first units off the line, though, so we weren't able to validate this claim by publishing time.

Included with the K750 is Logitech’s Solar App. The novel little program measures the current charge of your K750, as well as the intensity of any light source that’s charging the keyboard. It’s valuable, we suppose, if you’re stuck in a basement during an Alaska winter with nothing more than a lantern to recharge the batteries. Otherwise, it’s good for a rough idea of how long you can use the K750 in an unlit environment…
…like an HTPC-driven home theater, where we think this keyboard makes great sense. At 1/3-inch thin, the K750 is actually more slender than Logitech’s diNovo Edge, yet the keys don’t at all feel crowded together or uncomfortable. Of course, the K750 lacks the diNovo’s aesthetic and navigational prowess, and, truthfully, we’d be willing to cough up another $10 for backlit keys. Still, the media keys are there, and maintenance begins and ends with plugging in the wireless mini USB receiver. No wires, no batteries, no charging base—just pick it up and use it. A media keyboard shouldn’t feel like a 104-key anchor on your desktop, and the low-profile K750 doesn’t.
In today’s age of Chevrolet Volts and enormous wind farms, it almost feels dishonest calling the Logitech K750 a forward-thinking peripheral, but that’s exactly what it is. The keyboard will hopefully be the first of many generations of future solar-powered keyboards.
You’ll want to stow the K750 in favor of last year’s pick, Logitech’s G19, for any type of serious gaming. But for all other uses, pick up the K750 and never look back.
accessories.us.dell.com
$1,499
By: William Van Winkle
If you’re going to dream during the holidays, dream big. Really big. Dell’s 30-inch U3011 is one of the most impressive pieces of glass to ever hit the desktop PC monitor market. For starters, you’ve got a 2560 x 1600 (16:10) native resolution backed by a three-year guarantee against even a single bright pixel defect. That same three-year period is also covered by Dell’s Advanced Exchange Service, which ought to be mandatory when you’re dropping 15 C-notes on a screen.
Other basic specs, such as a 1000:1 contrast ratio and a 370 cd/m2 brightness are less relevant, given the fluid nature of contrast measurement and the fact that few people will want a calibrated brightness beyond even 140 cd/m2. We asked our elves to calibrate and measure the U3011, but they declined, perhaps fearing to get too close to anything that overpowering and awesome. As it turns out, though, this request was largely unnecessary, since Dell ships the U3011 with a factory calibration report.

However, a 7 ms gray-to-gray refresh rate means no ghosting on fast-moving images. More important for color-sensitive professionals is the U3011’s 100% coverage of the sRGB gamut standard, 99% coverage of AdobeRGB, and 117% coverage of CIE 1976. Interestingly, Dell kept CCFL backlighting on this model rather than taking to the more energy-efficient LED path. Being an in-plane switching (IPS) design, you get exceptionally crisp detail, best-of-breed color reproduction, and 178-degree viewing with very little discoloration at the extreme angles. Dell’s anti-glare coating also doesn’t have a bad case of the sparkles as on some other panels.
Dell’s stand is excellent, providing smooth vertical movement and sharp lines without seeming too bulky or unattractive. You do sacrifice the ability to pivot 90 degrees into portrait mode because the screen is just that big. On the other hand, the U3011 is a veritable cornucopia (not to mix holiday metaphors) of connectivity, featuring two HDMI, two DVI-D, one DisplayPort, one VGA, and component video ports. You’ll also find four USB 2.0 ports and a 7-in-1 flash card reader.
We’d also like to give credit to Dell’s on-screen display controls, now found across many of its newer monitor models. This is a pet peeve of ours. Why its so hard to make decent OSD controls is anyone’s guess, but Dell’s touch-sensitive implementation, complete with legible fonts and downright intuitive icons, is among the best we’ve ever seen. That’s really good news if you’re a display perfectionist prone to changing settings based on content and environmental conditions.
Bottom line: The U3011 may cost enough to buy half of a tree farm, but it’s guaranteed to be the gift that keeps on giving for years.
www.digitalstormonline.com
$3287
By: Devin Connors
While Tom’s Hardware is all about building, maintaining, and improving our own PCs, we can still appreciate the fact that PC building is not for everyone. That’s where companies like Digital Storm come in, offering fantastic hand-built machines with the latest hardware coupled with fantastic customer service and competitive pricing.
When we decided to include a Digital Storm rig, we knew we needed a kick-ass machine with all the bells and whistles, and that’s where the Black Ops Assassin line comes in. Starting at under $1800 (our configuration goes for under $3300), the Assassin series will slay whatever games you throw at it.

So let’s get to the hardware. The case is the same SilverStone Fortress FT02 we featured in our gift guide last week, complete with three 180 mm fans and the thermodynamics-friendly 90 degree motherboard mounting. The internals are nothing short of brilliant, including an Intel Core i7-950 overclocked to 4 GHz, an EVGA X58 FTW3 Edition motherboard, 6 GB of DDR3-1600 memory, 80 GB Intel X25-M SSD (boot drive), 1 TB Western Digital Caviar Black hard drive, dual optical drives (a Blu-ray reader and a DVD burner), and a 1000 W power supply.
What really tops this machine off are the dual Nvidia GeForce GTX 480s, which will keep you, or whoever is lucky enough to get this fantastic machine, gaming for the next couple of years at least. Frankly, Digital Storm shipped us this machine prior to the GeForce GTX 580 launched so that we could get it photographed. If you were to order it today, you'd want to stick with Nvidia's more recent flagship, the GTX 580, bringing thermals and acoustic down to more attractive levels.
With that said, the focus of this machine is on 3D Vision Surround support. Digital Storm shipped our system with three Acer GD235Hz 3D Vision-compatible screens, which add quite a bit to the cost, but enable a indisputably-unique gaming experience, allowing you to get your Bad Company 2 and FarCry 2 in glorious stereo. We opted to stick with air cooling on this machine, but the NH-D14 CPU cooler from Noctua is an absolute beast, so a hot CPU (even overclocked) will be the last of your worries.
A machine like the Black Ops Assassin is only as good as the hands that build it, which is why Digital Storm includes a three-year warranty (there’s a free upgrade to four-years right now), complete with 9:00-5:00 U.S.-based tech support and an in-house 72 hour stress test before shipping.
www.samsung.com
$3649
By: Chris Angelini
Here’s the big mama of our 2010 guide. It took some arm-twisting to get this down to our Culver City office, but at the end of the day, our friends in AMD’s Markham, Ontario office made it happen with a 200+ pound custom padded box, which showed up the day of our photo shoot.
This is really the epitome of what AMD’s Eyefinity technology is all about. When we first tested the company’s Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 Edition card, we had to cobble together six Dell displays using a four-monitor stand and a separate two-display stand. I got close-to-perfect alignment several times, but the setup never looked like a cohesive unit. And the bezels on those Dell displays were just so damn big that I simply couldn’t stand to game across all six screens.

I wish I could say that Samsung’s MD230X6 changes my perception of six-screen gaming, but as long as bezels run through the center of action, it’s going to be hard to get used to missing that critical space. What this configuration does change, however, is the cleanliness of Eyefinity 6. This kit is made to go together. It sits on one relatively unobtrusive stand, the outer screens can all be swiveled to match your preferred viewing angle, and fasteners applied to each edge keep all six screens lined up in a precise way. The finished product is truly jaw-dropping. I was proud of myself after getting the Dell setup all built up. This is way better, though. Pro tip: put the kit together where you intend to use it; at 95 pounds assembled and 62” across, moving it (oh, say, across an office) isn’t an option without a team of helpers.
Right now, the only way to take advantage of this kit is with the 5870 Eyefinity 6 card, which you can find for about $350 online. Soon, though, it’ll be possible to use any of AMD’s Radeon HD 6000-series boards as well, which are in the process of being validated for DisplayPort 1.2 support. Once multi-stream transport hubs become available, you’ll be able to drive several screens from a single DP output.
We really wish the MD230X6 wasn’t priced so far north of $3000 (the current price works out to $600 per display). At the same time, this product is one-of-a-kind, and if you’re the sort of enthusiast able to appreciate and exploit the real estate made available by six 1920x1080 screens (that’s 5760x2160, for anyone counting), than Samsung’s setup sitting on your desk may or may not cause emotionally-compromised individuals visiting your workspace to cry in awe. I’m not even going to lie; shipping this array back to AMD hurt me, physically. It could have been pain of watching such a cool setup roll out the front door (to be fair, though, it was probably related to getting several hundred pounds of LCD glass to the front door for pickup).
www.netgear.com
$89.99
By Andy Patrizio
Wi-Fi has done wonders for advancing network access both in public and in our homes, but it's not infallible. Experience has taught me that with enough walls, a signal can be severely compromised, even though the access point is technically within the manufacturer's specified range.
Netgear's Universal Wi-Fi Range Extender lives up to its billing by working with all wireless b/g/n routers and gateways, not just Netgear's own products, to provide a second broadcast signal that covers areas your wireless access point can't reach. It handles 802.11b, g, and n (2.4 GHz), helping maintain performance compared to a marginal connection across the house.

Think of it as a relay station. It takes the wireless signal from a source--say, one of AT&T U-verse's 2Wire routers (which totally suck, by the way) and transmits the signal farther. So, if the weak little 2Wire router can't quite cover a room two doors down, you can place the Netgear Extender in a more open area and it'll relay the signal for you.
To keep snoopers and leechers out, the Universal Wi-Fi Range Extender works with common security standards like WPA and WPA2-PSK. This will protect the connection between the Extender and the original access point, keeping unwanted intruders off of your network. The Extender also has four 10/100 Ethernet ports, so you can attach additional devices. It would be nice to see gigabit-class connectivity on the unit, but we understand that its primary purpose isn't switching.
The Range Extender has LED signal strength status indicators, so you can move around the house, looking for the optimal position for the Extender while making sure you keep a strong connection to the source of the signal at the same time. No setup CD is needed, you just plug, tune for position, and go.
www.seagate.com
$229
By: Tony Celeste
As hard drive prices continue to fall and capacities go up, you might be starting to think that we simply cannot use disks that are any larger. Clearly you don't make backups of your Blu-ray movies. To the hardcore technology enthusiast on your holiday shopping list, that’s kind of like suggesting that CPUs don't need to get any faster.
As application installations grow, broadband pipes enlarge (giving us more ready access to massive downloads), and we record more of our lives as zeros and ones using high-def cameras, our thirst for capacity continues to intensify. Leaning on increasingly large repositories means worrying about the ways data gets moved around, too. That's one of the reasons drives like this one are shifting away from the ubiquitous USB 2.0 interface, which maxed out far below a 2.5" hard drive's peak transfer rate. USB 3.0 is a savior when it comes to getting data moved quickly.

Our selection for the holiday season’s best way to add high-capacity storage space is Seagate’s GoFlex 1.5 TB USB 3.0 external hard drive. Seagate gives this particular version of its GoFlex series the “Ultra-portable” designator--a description that fits it well. The drive ships with USB 3.0 connectivity, which is fully backward compatible with your computer’s USB 2.0 ports. Also, Seagate makes a number of different accessories available, extending the ways you can use the GoFlex at home.
An eSATA adapter is available for connecting to your computer’s eSATA/USB combo ports. The adapter not only enables external SATA connectivity, but it also uses the port’s power to eliminate the need for another cord. Mac users will be happy to know that a FireWire 800 adapter is also available. Since Macs do not yet ship with either USB 3.0 or eSATA ports, the FireWire 800 adapter is really the only way to get suitable performance from the GoFlex for those of you using a Mac.
Beyond simple connectivity, Seagate also sells accessories that expands the GoFlex's general capabilities. For example, its GoFlex TV HD media player enables streaming content from your home network. The GoFlex Net Media Sharing Device facilitates using the GoFlex hard drive as an Internet-connected storage device.
The Seagate GoFlex 1.5 TB External Hard Drive ships with pre-installed backup software for both PC and Mac, 192-bit Triple DES encryption software, and the Seagate Dashboard hard drive management tool. We feel that the built-in features and expandability offered by the Seagate GoFlex sets it apart from the many other high capacity external hard drives available this holiday season.
a1100.viatech.com
$243
By: William Van Winkle
How about a full-blown PC you could actually fit in a stocking? We’ve seen a lot of Atom- and Optimus-based nettops arrive over 2010, and all have been pretty decent if you have your expectations adjusted accordingly. These aren’t gaming machines. Some aren’t even video machines. Today’s nettops are meant to be secondary or tertiary systems that probably fill a certain need. Plenty get used as home theater PCs (HTPCs), and why not? Throw Windows or Linux on one, plug in via Ethernet, and you’ve got a system that will probably trounce the likes of a Logitech Revue (Google TV) or Boxee Box in terms of flexibility and performance.
Many years ago, VIA created the various ITX form factors, and while Intel may have tried to borrow some of VIA’s brilliance in its post-BTX SFF designs, VIA deserves credit for pioneering the low-power, ultra-compact PC movement. The Artigo carries VIA’s efforts to a new Lilliputian extreme, packing a complete PC into a 5.7" x 3.9" x 2" package. That’s less than a one-liter volume. As a point of reference, Intel defines “ultra SFF” as a system in the four- to eight-liter range. In a one-liter design, you’d normally expect the system to be integrated and made proprietary to the nth degree, but VIA has crafted the Artigo A1100 into a respectable DIY affair.

Sure, some of the A1100’s design is fixed. The Pico-ITX motherboard features a hard-mounted 1.2 GHz Nano processor and VX855 chipset, both shrouded under an aluminum heatsink that covers most of the motherboard. VIA’s Chome9 integrated graphics chip accelerates MPEG-2, MPEG-4, WMV9, and H.264 decoding, and it’s sufficient for 2D gaming or just about any Web work you want to throw at it. The system features analog audio and three USB 2.0 ports (one mini) up front. In back, you’ll find VGA, another two USB 2.0, HDMI, and gigabit Ethernet. All that’s missing are one DDR2 SO-DIMM module, a 2.5” storage drive, and the optional wireless ($45) and SD reader ($25) parts. If you’ve ever taken a screwdriver to a PC, you’ll find that installing these parts is pretty similar to working in a notebook. All told, you should be in and out in under ten minutes.
You’ll have to decide if the SD reader makes sense. We’d pass on the wireless adapter since it’s only 802.11b/g, which is insufficient for streaming video, and instead prefer an 11n USB dongle. If you skip the options and figure $35 for 2 GB of memory and $60 for a 320 GB laptop drive, you’re out the door for under $350.
www.dell.com
$549.99 ($299.99 with two year AT&T contract)
By: Devin Connors
Is it a tablet, or is it a smartphone? Some say the Dell Streak suffers from an identity crisis, but we think the device combines the best of both worlds. With a five inch screen, the Streak is larger than any other smartphone currently on the market (most come in with screens between 3.5 and 4.3 inches), yet significantly smaller than the slew of 7”-plus Windows- and Android-packing tablets currently on the market.

When it comes to hardware, the Streak packs a pocket-sized wallop with its 1 GHz Snapdragon CPU from Qualcomm, 512 MB of RAM, 512 MB of ROM, and 18 GB of storage, all behind a gorgeous five-inch 800x480 Gorilla Glass display.
Why the odd 18 GB? There are two SD cards, a 2 GB non-removable card (for system and application files) and a 16 GB pre-installed removable card for storing media. You also get two cameras: a 5 MP sensor on the back for snapping pics and recording video, and a front-facing VGA sensor for video chat. Other miscellaneous features include access to the Android Market for apps, an ambient light sensor, proximity sensor, accelerometer, and GPS. While the Dell site says the Streak is tied together with Android 1.6, never fear, as the device is shipping (or in other cases will auto-update to) Android 2.2, or “Froyo.”
The build quality and Gorilla Glass display on the Streak are high points for this smartphone/tablet hybrid, with the former staying slim and trim and the latter being perfectly usable in most outdoor environments. Despite its bigger size, the Streak will fit into most pants pockets (super-tight hipster jeans excluded), so the walking and sitting experience with a five-inch device won’t be all too different when compared to a Droid X or EVO 4G. Some would say the internal hardware merely tows the industry line…but that’s hardly a problem, not when the “norm” is a 1 GHz CPU and 512 MB of RAM (more than enough muscle for Android).
The Streak is currently available unlocked for $549.99, or you can buy it with a two year AT&T contract for $299.99.
www.logitech.com
$99.99
By: Sam Finch
As enthusiasts, we can readily point out and appreciate the differences between an elite, $400 motherboard and an entry-level $200 solution. Why is it, though, that we usually don’t have similarly discriminating tastes with our input devices? If we aren’t content with a motherboard that merely bears the requisite slots, ports, and connectors, why should we settle for a mouse that’s limited to point, scroll, and click? This year, go high-end: the extraordinary Logitech Performance Mouse MX is the best mouse you didn’t know you needed.
The Performance Mouse MX’s claim to fame is its Darkfield Laser Tracking. As optical/laser mice have evolved over the years, one stumbling block has remained an almost absolute constant—glass surfaces. Specifically, they suck for mice. Darkfield is appropriately named after dark field illumination. Putting complicated science lessons aside, rather than tracking a mouse’s LED or laser light as it reflects off a surface in order to pinpoint a mouse’s movement (speed and direction), the Performance Mouse MX’s Darkfield sensor instead uses dust and what Logitech calls “other residuals” as its pole stars, so to speak. The sensor treats any surface that the laser light primarily passes through as an opaque (hence, dark) surface, making the microparticles easier to track. On a glass or similarly transparent surface, and lacking a mouse pad, Darkfield is justifiably game-changing.

That being said, if you’re in the midst of Call of Duty tourney with prize money on the line and fractions of a second separating you from scoring a headshot or taking a dirt nap, do you really want to be caught without a mouse pad, regardless of surface? That’s the $100 question we’ll let you answer for yourself.
But while Darkfield may be of limited importance in the above scenario, the Performance Mouse MX’s other features display a craftsmanship that nonetheless make it a premium mouse. The mouse’s ergonomic design feels great (sorry, southpaws—the MX is strictly righties-only); the four thumb buttons (scrolling, zoom, and application switching) seem to be placed well, too. The MX’s scroll wheel adapts the scroll rate based on how hard you pull the ripcord. Deliberate folks can still scroll along gradually, but if you let ‘er rip, the scroll wheel can blast through a hundred-page document or 1000-line spreadsheet in a matter of seconds.
The Performance Mouse MX’s wireless mini USB receiver is also worth mentioning. Called the Logitech Unifying receiver, the nickel-sized adapter will connect to the MX and any other compatible Logitech peripheral (which happens to be a fairly short list right now). Provided Logitech adds to list of devices that support the Unifying receiver, it could save you a few USB ports in the process (we're using it with the K750, mentioned on page three of the gift guide).
If you’ve never taken the high-end mouse plunge, we think you’ll agree that there’s no better opportunity that to do so with the Performance Mouse MX.
www.thecus.com
$799
By: Andy Patrizio
With so much of our lives on the PC now, a hard drive failure almost seems as catastrophic as a house fire when it comes to losing everything. Of course, that's only if you're guilty of thinking "that'll never happen to me," and not backing up your important data. It only takes once, though. We've all been there, believe us.
Online backup solutions like Carbonite might be good for a few gigabytes of vital content, but what about the volumes of movies, pictures, and music you store? Surely you don't want to saturate your limited uplink preserving terabytes worth of information.
For those who can afford reliable backup to rival a professional data center, there's the Thecus N4200 Pro, a four-bay NAS backup appliance that centers on a dual-core Intel Atom processor and redundant disk-on-module to prevent corruption of the unit's firmware. The N4200 also has a built-in battery backup module (BBM) that will keep the system running in the event of power loss or you accidentally dislodging the plug from the wall. Those protective features are part of what makes up Thecus' Zero-Crash claim.

As mentioned, the 4200 Pro employs a dual-core Atom D525 processor, armed with Hyper-Threading and capable of addressing four threads at a time. The appliance also boasts 1 GB of DDR3 memory and dual gigabit Ethernet interfaces, along with a PCIe x1 expansion slot. Its four SATA bays are all hot swappable, supporting both 2.5" and 3.5" drives. Additionally, RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, and 10 are all made available.
Some network appliances are terrible when it comes to system monitoring, which is too bad, since you ideally want to know immediately when there's a problem with one of your storage drives. Thecus' N4200 Pro has two separate displays for system information like hard disk and network status, system status, and CPU temperature, as well as a settings display, where you can tweak system options, such as WAN, LAN, Link Aggregation, and more.
In addition to the software backup and browser-based access features, remote file access can also be set up through FTP/FTPS or HTTP/HTTPS servers. You can set up a UPnP server for streaming media, and the appliance even has a DHCP server built-in, making the 4200 Pro more of a server than just a backup device.
Editor's note: For a couple of years now, I've been using Thecus' N5200 Pro with five 1 TB drives in RAID 5. I allocate half of the appliance to network storage, accessible from anywhere in the LAN. All of our benchmarks and chart files live there. The second half is set aside as an iSCSI target for my workstation. When the workstation craters (and it has a couple of times in the past couple of years), none of my important data is lost. I pop in a new SSD, reconnect to the target, and continue on my way a couple of hours later. I wholeheartedly recommend that sort of usage model to friends and family all of the time; it doesn't have to be a power user arrangement.