All digital storage technologies are susceptible to data rot. Just ask the multimedia giant Pixar, who saw dozens of critical files disappear before their eyes, during production of the movie "Toy Story". Modern hard drives are remarkably reliable devices, but most have an average uncorrectable read error rate of 10^14. That means one read failure for every 12TB of data. The drive doesn't "crash"; it just gives you corrupted data every now and then. The only way around this is to continuously test the data, and scrub the errors as they occur. The storage industry deployed this technology in large data centers, and now Infortrend is making it available to consumers, with their new EonNAS series. The Sun-based OS in the EonNAS Pro 850x also has some other tricks up its sleeve, like data deduplication. Read on to find out more.

In the PC hardware market you tend to get exactly what you pay for. It's not always the case, but 9 times out of 10 you will find that if you pay less you get less. How else can we justify handing over $110 for 12kg of cleverly crafted sheet metal and vacuum formed plastic. We pay for the brand and we pay for the looks, and some of us also pay for build quality. In this article Benchmark Reviews aims to delve deep into the Fractal Design Define R4 Arctic White Case (Model: FD-CA-DEF-R4-WH), and see if it's got what it takes to satiate the appetite of today's enthusiast. The Fractal Design Define R4 features include: the use of sound reducing materials, a 3-speed fan controller supporting up to three fans, modular drive bays and support for very large hardware. Please read on to find out more.

Until recently, there were only two types of network switches, un-managed and managed. Today, there is a new class, called Smart Switches. A blend of the two previous extremes, they're targeted to both corporate users and what the industry politely calls "ProSumers". Switches aren't reviewed by the press that often, but they are a necessary part of many home and SMB networks, so we need to look at what's available now and then. NETGEAR is a major player in the networking market, and today Benchmark Reviews looks at the GS110T, one of the less expensive offerings in their ProSafe SmartSwitch line. It's got enough GbE ports to future-proof most home installations, plus two fiber optic interfaces.

Nowadays, it seems that the term "gaming" is loosely associated with cheap, low quality, general-purpose peripherals. What then separates the notorious gaming-grade products from the rest? Most modern gaming keyboards feature mechanical keys in an attempt to prevent accidental key-presses and ghosting, issues that gamers are commonly faced with. Macro keys are also desired by gamers, especially those of the MMO genre. Fortunately, many of these features are more or less standard on today's gaming keyboards; the manufacturers must now appeal to gamers' sense of look and feel instead. With the MECH5, Azio has done an amazing job incorporating many of the features required for today's gamer. They go a step further by encasing it in a durable, very good-looking body, something that you can tell was intended for gaming by looks alone. In this article, Benchmark Reviews evaluates the AZiO KB577U MECH5 keyboard's performance to determine if it deserves its gaming badge and is worth your hard earned money.

Benchmark Reviews tests a lot of computer-related hardware, so this item might seem out of place. Performance enthusiasts invest in their gear, so it makes sense to ensure it's safe and protected. The Rosewill RSL-113 Dual-Head PIR Solar Light is a (passive) pyroelectric infra-red activated lighting system that draws power from three AA solar-charged batteries located inside the unit. In this article, Benchmark Reviews investigates the Rosewill RSL-113 Solar-Charged Infrared Dual-LED Lights.

Try to imagine what the ideal external hard drive docking station might look like. It should be compact, intuitive to use, and ideally be a relatively good looking piece of hardware. And it should be fast. At first glance the I-NA321U+ seems to have all that and more. The I-NA321U+ is a USB 3.0 compatible dual hard drive docking system with a few very handy features. Perhaps the most interesting of the value-added features is a one touch drive copy function. In this article, Benchmark Reviews will take a look at this relatively new dual drive docking station from ineo Technology, Inc.

The OCZ Vector 2.5" solid state drive (VTR1-25SAT3 series) is an ultra-slim 7mm high-performance SSD storage device produced in-house by OCZ Technology with a focus on reliability. Featuring OCZ's new Indilinx Barefoot 3 storage controller, the Vector SSD series is built to produce optimized performance for enthusiasts wanting to capitalize on near-instant response times. OCZ Vector SSDs are available in 128/256/512GB capacities, and deliver up to 550MB/s read speeds with up to 95,000 Random Read IOPS. In this article Benchmark Reviews puts these specifications to test, and compares the OCZ Vector solid state drive against the leading competition.

Some of the first reviews I wrote for Benchmark Reviews were for NZXT cases. Most of these were lower-end cases priced at $75 and under. Although the cases were inexpensive, I was impressed with both the quality of construction and the thought put into their design. Since then, NZXT has moved upmarket, starting with their original Phantom case, which has now become a series of its own. Just introduced is the new Phantom 630 case, the little brother of the Phantom 820 we've seen previously. At an MSRP of $179.99, this is a not an inexpensive case, so let's see if it's worth the money.