This video covers almost everything you need to know about HDDs and SSDs to make an educated choice before pulling the trigger on a purchase.
Well, almost everything. This video is primarily directed at the home user trying to get some additional storage, whether that be an extra drive in their workstation, a NAS, or a full file server. If you’re trying to choose between SAS drives for a large-scale datacenter installation, then you probably know this stuff already.
As I promised in the video, here’s some links to my HDD TCO worksheet from 2013 (though I may have updated it in the interim with a couple of “new” drives). Please download the Excel version and use this for any drive that you want. If you make any interesting changes or large scale updates, I’d love to see it, so please let me know!
I also added a bunch of notes so you know what I meant with all the field names.
A look at some possibly-fake random “NiMH” AA cells from AliExpress, comparing them to Panasonic Eneloop cells.
From my somewhat limited testing, these little green guys had an actual capacity of about 342mAh, which is less than 10% of their claimed specification of 3800mAh (which is probably impossible anyhow for AA-sized NiMH cells.
The part about them perhaps not being real NiMH cells? That’s not the weirdest thing. Unlike most of my AliExpress purchases, these shipped from The Netherlands, despite the seller being called Shenzhen DeKang International Trade.
I had been looking for a cheap and cheerful USB power supply for general charging of phones, tablets, and plenty of etcetera. Hence I ordered this ORICO 4-Port USB Charger with high hopes!
I never have too much optimism when it comes to crap from AliExpress, but not only did this ship from California, it also seems to be a really good buy.
Some of the testing I did on this was inspired by Clive at bigclive.com who does an absolutely obsessive number of teardowns on his YouTube channel. If you haven’t heard of him and you like that sort of this, give it a look! (Plus he has a much better accent than I do.)
And finally, as promised in the video, here are some full-size macro shots of the PCB:
This video features a review and teardown of the Intel Mini PC G2 manufactured by — uhhh — Random Chinese Company 5000.
Did it ship with tons of bloatware and malware? Is it too good to be true that it comes with a full copy of Windows 10? Are the specs worth a damn in the real world? Watch me ramble on about it to find out!
If you want to buy this cylindrical masterpiece mediocrity, a link to the original AliExpress listing is below (which may be way out of date by the time you read this). Note that this is not an endorsement and I don’t receive one penny if you do end up buying it.
Not every product from China is crap, but in the “Let’s Open” series I’m buying stuff that seems really good on paper, but has a whiff of the toilet about it.
What follows is pretty much the script for the video. I mention this in case you have a sickening hatred for the medium of video, my voice, or are at work. Perhaps like you, I bought the Outtek charging stand for my night table. I usually charge overnight, and use my phone as my alarm. A stand like this would give me a much better view of the time and snooze/cancel controls in the morning. In the Amazon listing it looks quite sleek, and in person it doesn’t disappoint… too much. In real life it looks pretty good — though it lacks the luster of the pics in the listing, of course — but it also reminded me of one … Continue reading
One thing I’d like to note for the historical record: At this time there is no “family plan” or its analogue with Project Fi. Fi is still invite-only (though Missus’ invite came through in about 2 days) and is strictly one subscriber per account.
And in case you’re interested in a cost comparison:
Cost of our Verizon plan w/2 lines: $147 / month (w/subsidized phones)
Combined cost of our Fi plans: $112 / month (includes phone payments)
Our Verizon plan had a shared 2GB/mo. cap, and each of our Fi plans is 1GB/mo. But we never used all of our Verizon data (less than half, actually) and the cost for Fi shown above does not include any refund for unused data. We should be looking at about $10/mo. refunded between us.
Of course, that doesn’t tell the full story: We had a contract with Verizon which allowed us to get subsidized phones every two years. While I’ve included the 24 months of phone financing payments into the Fi cost, the Verizon cost of $147/mo. does not include the roughly $500 spent on both of our previous phones. When you factor that in over a 24 month period the actual cost of Verizon service was $168 per month!
So here’s the complete value proposition, including an estimated unused-data-rebate and the cash portion of the Verizon phones amortized over 24 months:
Verizon: $168 / month
Project Fi: $102 / month
Of course there are probably cheaper and more efficient plans than our previous one with Verizon. In fact, Verizon has recently ditched contracts and is also offering zero percent interest loans for phone hardware just like Fi. Nonetheless, that’s how the economics worked out for me in changing providers.
I get it. At this point you’re probably thinking “What the hell is this guy’s problem? Two videos??“
It’s not like I’m obsessed with Boost Oxygen. In fact, I’ve already moved on to my next fecal-laden product. But when I was shooting the Boost video I decided to go over some of the incoherent ramblings of idiots reviews on Amazon and Sports Authority that I found while doing research on this product. (Yes, I did a modicum of actual research believe it or not.)
Hopefully you haven’t heard of Boost Oxygen. Hopefully you haven’t been tempted to plunk down your hard-earned cash on a useless tin can containing 95% pure nonsense.
Did I say “nonsense”? Sorry, I meant that’s it’s full of 95% pure oxygen. According to the manufacturer it’s the “source of life”, so you better go out and buy it now!
The manufacturer also loosely implies benefits to sports performance, general health and wellness, hangover recovery, and altitude sickness. That’s all bullsh*t, of course. Watch the video to find out why.
And Another Thing…
The video discusses two main reasons why this product is unadulterated B.S., but one thing I didn’t mention was the Food and Drug Administration.
You see, supplemental oxygen is used in medicine for all sorts of valid and useful reasons. In fact, it can save the life of someone if they’re ill. But medical oxygen requires a prescription, and Boost Oxygen, LLC is more than happy to point out that they can now sell oxygen in a convenient and practical manner — over the counter.
Yet they fail to mention that oxygen can be used to help you if you’re sick.
If they made a claim like that, then they would be selling a medical product and the FDA would be entirely up their ass about it. Instead, they can only make vague and unsubstantiated claims about the product’s benefits. The FDA exists for a good reason, and although they might be poorly funded and their enforcement powers may have been robustly castrated, they prevent companies like Boost Oxygen, LLC from promising life-saving effects that they can’t deliver. And that avoids killing the suckers that might buy it instead of their prescribed O2.
The bottom line here is this: Do your own research into any “health and wellness” product before you buy it. Hopefully that’s why you’re here, reading this post.
Don’t Forget the Links
I referenced some research papers, reviews, and websites in my video. You can find all of them here, which I’ll try to keep up to date when I get more information.
