Here today's reviews and articles: Top 5 Broadband Troubleshooting Tips, Intel 525 Series 120GB & 180GB mSATA SSD Review, Seagate SSHD Thin 500GB Review, Cougar Spike Mini Tower Review, and Toshiba MK3001GRRB 300GB SAS 6Gb/s HDD



Top 5 Broadband Troubleshooting Tips @ ThinkComputers.org

There’s nothing more frustrating that loading your browser only to see an “Address Not Found” message staring back at you. Time out errors or that dreaded red X on network connection icon all signal that something’s wrong with your Internet connection. There are many reasons why your connection could be disabled so it might take some time to find and fix the problem. The following five super simple steps will help to restore your connection 95% percent of the time. If you happen to fall within that 5%, well it could be time to call your service provider. But try these tips before you do.

Read more: Top 5 Broadband Troubleshooting Tips @ ThinkComputers.org

Intel 525 Series 120GB & 180GB mSATA SSD Review @ Hardware Canucks

With the mSATA standard gaining popularity at a quick pace, many SSD manufacturers are jumping on the bandwagon. Intel’s latest 525-series is looking to capitalize on this upsurge of interest by offering a high performance alternative to competing solutions. With that in mind, the 525 not only represents a rather significant upgrade over previous Intel mSATA drives but it also provides Ultrabook manufacturers with a viable high end yet compact storage device.

Historically, mSATA SSDs have had one primary focus: meeting the rather tiny mSATA form factor specifications. Capacity, performance and even price typically took a back seat to miniaturization and efficiency. While there have been aberrations to this rule, the marketplace is filled with rather lackluster options at ridiculously high prices. With Intel’s focus on the Ultrabook market, it comes as no surprise that increasing throughput would be at the top of their “to do” list. Intel needed a serious mSATA lineup which combined good performance, relatively high capacity and a reasonable asking price while still meeting the rather strict mSATA form factor specifications.

Read more: Intel 525 Series 120GB & 180GB mSATA SSD Review @ Hardware Canucks

Seagate SSHD Thin 500GB Review @ Hardware Canucks

Seagate's so-called "hybrid" solutions have been around for a while, successfully combining the capacity of a hard drive with the speed of an SSD. This technology had been previously carried over into the desktop Barracuda XT and notebook-focused Momentus XT lines. Now on its third generation, Seagate’s hybrid lineup is being switched up a bit with the advent of the Laptop Thin SSHD series, supplanting the Momentus nomenclature.

As with all of Seagate’s other Hybrid storage solutions, the SSHD includes a small amount of ultra fast, ultra low latency NAND to optimize performance and speed up those all-important boot times. While this design won’t speed up every single application, your most-used programs will load quicker and overall system responsiveness will be noticeably improved. Naturally, going this route will be extremely beneficial for anyone with an upgradeable notebook. Desktop users meanwhile aren’t being targeted by the Laptop Thin SSHDs but expect this technology to once again trickle down into other markets as well.

Read more: Seagate SSHD Thin 500GB Review @ Hardware Canucks

Cougar Spike Mini Tower Review @ Hardware Canucks

Have you heard of the Cougar Spike? If not, you’ll be forgiven because neither did we until an intrepid reader contacted us about it, requesting a review and claiming it was setting a new benchmark for budget friendly gaming cases. The term “budget friendly” is certainly the right mindset here since the Spike costs a mere $35, less than a third of what other self-respecting enclosures currently go for.

Normally 35 bucks would have would-be gamers running for the hills, thinking this is no more than a low rent chassis which compromises everything in order to attain such a ridiculously low price. In some ways this assumption is correct since there’s an abundance of plastic and some thin metal in some areas. However, against all odds, what we found was a surprisingly capable mini tower case that may not win any awards for bulletproof build quality but it checks all the right boxes in most other respects.

Read more: Cougar Spike Mini Tower Review @ Hardware Canucks

Toshiba MK3001GRRB 300GB SAS 6Gb/s HDD @ NikKTech

If you are reading these lines then you should be well aware that the two main reasons behind the increasing demands in storage capacity all of us have are the continuous speed upgrades we have been enjoying in internet bandwidth during the past 10 years in most places around the globe combined of course with the wide availability in Full HD/HD media content. Because of that most people (namely casual users, gamers and even some overclockers) naturally put the usual capacity/price ratio above performance and especially nowadays with the current state of the economy i can't really blame them for doing that (besides mostly for backup purposes you don't really need the best possible performance factor). However there are many enterprise users, professionals and enthusiasts out there who always place performance and data integrity above the usual capacity/price ratio and this is where 2.5" SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) drives like the latest Toshiba MK3001GRRB come in.

Read more: Toshiba MK3001GRRB 300GB SAS 6Gb/s HDD @ NikKTech