SSD or HDD? Find it Out

SSD and HDD are the two storage components for the computers. When you're building or upgrading your PC, and you get to the business of storage, what should you go for? Building a PC can be hard enough before you get as far as thinking about what storage you're going to have inside it. But when you do get there, it's one of the most important parts of the build and a crucial thing to get right.

You can go for a Solid State Drive (SSD) or a more traditional Hard Disk Drive (HDD). There are merits to both, but what's going to be best for your build, and your budget?

What's the difference between the two?

In its simplest form, an SSD is flash storage and has no moving parts whatsoever. As a result, they're smaller and take up less space in a PC case, in some cases even mounting directly to the motherboard. SSD storage is much faster than its HDD equivalent.

HDD storage is made up of magnetic tape and has mechanical parts inside. They're larger than SSDs and much slower to read and write.

Why use an SSD?

If you're building a PC for any purpose, you're going to want speed. If you only have HDD storage in your machine, then speed isn't something coming your way. Windows will take longer to boot up, applications will take longer to load, files will take longer to open and save.

The beauty of an SSD is that this waiting time is dramatically reduced, even on cheaper drives, when compared to HDD. Anything you load on it will perform actions much quicker.

One of the best uses for an SSD in a PC is as a boot drive. This means installing a small-ish capacity drive on which your Windows 10 operating system will live and boot up from every day. By doing this, your PC will boot up and be ready to go in a flash. You can also put your most frequently used software on there for a similar effect.

The lifespan of an SSD isn't as lengthy as that of a HDD, but you can certainly use an SSD as your only drive in a PC. Many laptops only have SSD storage, for example. You're not looking at a short-term life, but compared to HDD storage it is reduced. SSDs don't handle being written to as well over time, but a boot drive wouldn't suffer this.

SSD prices have come down a lot in recent times, too, with the price per gigabyte much lower than it once was. Large capacity drives are still expensive, as are the highest performing ones, but generally speaking, they're more affordable than ever.

Why use a HDD?

The best case for HDD is mass storage. This type of drive is cheaper than SSD and available in some quite massive sizes. Have a lot of games or media to keep on your PC? No problem, you can get one or more drives over 1TB in size for a fraction of the cost of their SSD equivalents.

PC cases usually have space for more than one drive, meaning you can stack up as much mass storage as you can stash and your budget will allow.

Price per gigabyte is still much less than SSDs, and large capacity drives won't take all your money. 

An efficient system would have an SSD to boot Windows from and one or more HDDs for mass storage.

Our ultimate recommendation is to opt for a mixed system with HDD mass storage and an SSD boot drive for your Windows 10 install. This way you'll get a balance of price, performance, and space, and you'll have a well-rounded machine for all occasions.

Info from https://www.windowscentral.com/ssd-vs-hdd-which-should-i-have-my-pc    

More Related

SSD vs. HDD. 5 Comparisons Measuring SSD and HDD Performance

SSD vs. HDD for Dedicated Server

SSD vs. HDD: Performance and Reliability

More Info from

https://www.masterdc.com/blog/ssd-or-hdd-what-is-better-for-servers-choose-server-storage-part-one/

http://www.storagereview.com/ssd_vs_hdd

Top 10 features to Consider While Purchasing a Switch for Your Small Business

A reliable network is the foundation for any successful business. The network switch, a key cornerstone of any network, connects all the computers, printers, servers, and storage devices in your office, giving your employees access to shared resources.

A reliable network switch keeps data traffic moving efficiently, keeps unauthorized users from accessing sensitive data and allows you to add new users as your business grows.

Yes, the ideal switch will protect your small business network and give your company room to grow. 

Here’s a list of the Top 10 features to consider when purchasing a switch:

1. Easy to configure: Look for a switch that provides common configurations for all the devices you might connect it to, including PCs, printers, and IP phones. For example, Cisco Smartports technology lets you click on a port and assign a configuration for a device, such as for an IP Phone. The switch then automatically configures that port to support the phone.
   
2. Easy to manage: A managed switch gives you more control over the traffic traveling in and out of your network. Make sure it offers a Web-based user interface so you can easily handle setup, security, and traffic prioritization. The switch should also include an easy-to-use device discovery tool to help connect it to other devices on your network. Also look for advanced features such as remote management and online software upgrades.
3. Energy efficiency: Switches consume a surprising amount of energy because they’re always on. Make sure you find one with features that optimize power use, such as a fanless chassis. A “green” switch can help you save money by cutting back on utility bills, so it’s good for your business as well as the environment.
4. Power-over-Ethernet ports: A switch with power-over-Ethernet (PoE) ports instantly becomes another source of power in your office. PoE, also called “in-line power,” lets the switch provide electricity to networked-attached devices, such as video cameras, IP phones, wireless access points, point-of-sale devices, or security card readers. Using PoE switches gives you more placement options for devices and eliminates the need for separate power supplies, as well as the costs of running additional cable and circuits.
5. Quality-of-Service (QoS) support: QoS gives priority to certain types of network traffic, such as real-time voice data. For example, QoS gives priority to telephone traffic over e-mail traffic, ensuring that the quality of a phone call isn’t degraded when someone downloads a large file.
6. Security features: I can’t stress enough the importance of network security, and a switch with built-in security features is a must-have in order to protect a business’s vital data. A Look for a switch that includes the following:
• embedded security for encrypting network communications
• access control lists (ACLs) for restricting areas of the network from unauthorized users and guarding against network attacks
• virtual LANS (VLANs) for segmenting the network to separte work groups or grant visitors access to the Internet without giving them access toall areas of your network.
7. Support for IPv6: This is the newest version of the Internet Protocol (IP), which is the technology computers use to send data to each other over the Internet. Purchasing a switch that supports IPv6 now ensures that it will continue to work with next-generation networking applications, operating systems, and other devices as they become available.
8. Expandability: Choose a switch that can grow with your business. As your business grows and you’ll need to support more users and devices, your network needs to be able to support that growth and maintain a high level of performance.  
9. Interoperability: Getting locked into one vendor for all your technology needs is a concern for many small businesses. Choose switches that are built to work with other devices and are part of proven designs.  This will protect your investment long into the future.
10. Support for multiple native languages: Your switch should be able to be used in any location by any employee, regardless of the local language. For a switch to offer true multiple language support, the user interfaces and documentation should be translated in several languages, including English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, and simplified Chinese.

Of course, your criteria for purchasing a switch will vary, but these Top 10 features will serve as a solid baseline when researching your options.

Have you purchased or researched a switch lately? How do these features stack up against your criteria?

The info from

https://blogs.cisco.com/smallbusiness/need_a_switch_heres_our_top_10_list_of_features

More Switch Topics you can read here: http://blog.router-switch.com/category/technology/switch/

How to Recover the Catalyst 9300 Password?

The common question: “How to recover the password on Cisco Catalyst switches, such as Catalyst 2960, 3750-X, 3650 switches, Catalyst 3850 series and the new Catalyst 9000 switches?”

Here we’d like to share an example of recovering the password on Catalyst 9300 switches. This example has been posted in Cisco’s communities

It is the same as Catalyst 3850.

Power cycle the switch. Immediately press and hold the Mode button. Hold the button till the Status LED will go amber. Then on the console you should be in Boot Loader.

Switch:

Add the following variables.

Switch: SWITCH_IGNORE_STARTUP_CFG=1

Then boot the switch.

Switch: boot

Once the switch has booted you can copy the saved config back into the running config.

Switch# copy start runn

Next set your password(s). Finally we want to remove the variables we set while in Boot Loader.

Switch# no system ignore startupconfig switch all

Save your new config.

Switch# copy runn start

Info from https://communities.cisco.com/thread/85760

Learn more:

How to Recover the Password on Cisco Catalyst 3850?

Cisco Catalyst 3850 Password Recovery

UTM vs. NGFW in the Enterprise

UTM (unified threat management) products or a next-generation firewall (NGFW)? That’s a question. You may not distinguish between UTM and NGFW. Here we’d like to share the article “UTM vs. NGFW in the enterprise” written by Kevin Beaver from techtarget.com. What’s your opinion about this topic?

UTM vs. NGFW in the enterprise

When it comes to unified threat management systems, there are three main considerations I have seen during my work in the field. First, given the form factor, the feature list of a UTM system is impressive: firewalling, intrusion prevention, VPN, email content filtering, network activity monitoring, malware protection and even data loss prevention (DLP).

In many situations, getting these important security capabilities in one package is the only way to justify implementation; purchasing standalone products for each area is just too costly. That said, enterprises are probably not going to get the absolute best technology for each of the security areas. Many vendors like to the think they're the best at everything they offer, but experience has proven otherwise.

Second, each unique security system, application and console an organization has to monitor takes away from other work. Having to learn the interfaces, reporting, etc. for each of the vendor's products can be just as much of a distraction. A single interface can be one of the greatest selling points of unified threat management systems.

Lastly, enterprises must consider whether the specific configuration will be a single point of network (and security) failure or not. If so, how will this be addressed? Hardware and software are fairly resilient these days, but there's also the human component -- someone doing something incorrectly or at the wrong time may take the system down.

That said, there a few considerations around NGFWs I see regularly in my work. First, NGFW granular application layer features can help monitor and control the most complex of applications and malware.

Additionally, presumably more mature threat intelligence is available given the prevalence of NGFWs across large enterprises and large government agencies.

The potential expense of NGFWs--in both initial capital expenditures and ongoing operational costs--is a drawback of the technology. It has been my experience that the larger the vendor, the prouder it is of its products and service.

Lastly, if an organization has a person (or team) managing its NGFW(s), then who's managing the security controls for other security needs, such as DLP, VPN, email content filtering and the like? Enterprises will likely have dedicated resources for those, which is good, as they really need them to manage such diverse systems.

In UTM marketing circles, one of the common selling points is that UTM is good for SMBs. If a company is trying to figure out whether a UTM system can handle its network demands, don't assume that it is only for small mom and pop shops with a handful, or perhaps a couple dozen, of employees. I see plenty of businesses and government agencies that fall into the SMB category, yet have relatively large networks and overall information system complexity that rely on a UTM for much of their security controls.

Unified threat management systems are plenty scalable and feature-rich for sizeable organizations.

Making the decision: UTM vs. NGFW

In the end, the decision on purchasing a UTM or NGFW should be based on risk and what your business needs most. The following questions can help:

• Which risks are you attempting to mitigate? If you cannot fully answer this, you're not ready to buy just yet. Perform your risk assessment (technical and operational) and determine what's at risk and what can be done about it.
• What are your network throughput numbers, service-level agreement requirements and unique network visibility and control needs? Prospective vendors should be able to help you map your requirements to their offerings.
• How much time do you have to dedicate to deploying, managing and troubleshooting these systems?
• What are the independent test lab reports, product reviews and people using these systems saying? You'll learn more about what's best for your organization this way than through any other means.

The answers to these questions could very well be contrary to what a vendor's sales engineer or account manager thinks is best for you. Only your organization knows its network best; you know what's at risk and what you're capable of doing about it. Get as many people involved as you can and gather all the right information so you can decide on the solution that best helps you meet your goals.

The best choice--UTM or NGFW--will emerge and be quite obvious. Just don't get caught up in the semantics or vendor/analyst hype. Remember, it's not wrong to choose a different product (or products) altogether.

From http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/tip/Finding-clarity-Unified-threat-management-systems-vs-next-gen-firewalls

Learn more: UTM vs. NGFW

Next-Generation Video and Voice Communications-Cisco IP Phone 8800 Series

 

Nine models are available with the IP Phone 8800 Series that range in their support to address the needs of knowledge workers, managers, executives and customer care staff.

  Specialty deployments are supported for audio conference rooms and in-campus mobile workers in rigorous work environments.

  The 8800 Series includes desk phone models 8811, 8841, 8845, 8851, 8861, 8865. Specialty models include IP Conference Phone 8832 for executive offices and midsized-to-large conference rooms, and the 8821 and 8821-EX for in-campus mobile workers. The 8845 and 8865 support entry to 720p HD video.

Cisco 8800 IP Phones for a variety of needs

The 8800 Series is ideal for knowledge workers, administrative and executive staff. It works well in open workspaces, large conference rooms and executive offices and with actively mobile workers within a campus. Choice of two user experiences add flexibility.

High-quality video, voice, and mobile communications for every user

Our global, 24-hour economy calls for anytime, anywhere access by employees.

Whether you are working from a primary or shared desk in an office, are teleworking from home, are mobile within a campus, or are in a team meeting in a conference room, desktop endpoints and their capabilities remain very important business tools. With multiple investment priorities, such as migration to the cloud and adoption of collaborative team applications, businesses today need to ensure that desktop investments can not only drive cost efficiencies and faster feature delivery, but also increase user productivity with a superior experience.

That’s where the Cisco IP Phone 8800 Series comes in.

This next generation IP phone portfolio, designed for small to very large businesses, delivers advanced, cost-effective, reliable, secure, and scalable high-quality Voice over IP (VoIP) communications on all models.

It also provides on select models:

(1) affordable entry to High-Definition (HD) video communications;

(2) integration of telephony features with personal mobile devices using Cisco Intelligent Proximity technology;

(3) support for in-campus mobile workers who require more rugged and resilient communication devices due to their rigorous work roles and environments.

The breadth of the 8800 Series portfolio, their sleek and ergonomically friendly design, enhanced user experience, and superb audio performance distinguish these IP phones from any other offerings on the market today.

Feature highlights

• Superb audio: Enjoy the best audio performance of any IP phone Cisco has ever produced, with ETSI² compliance for echo cancellation and vibration isolation technology for both microphone and speaker.

• Intuitive, ergonomic design: Rounded keys increase tactile feel to reduce misdials, and wide-screen high-resolution backlit displays make for easier viewing and navigation. The phone software provides menus and notifications that are more visually appealing. End users have their choice of two experience modes for interacting with their phone.³ Context-sensitive soft-label keys and a five-way navigation cluster enhance employee efficiency.

• Mobile device integration with Cisco Intelligent Proximity: Four of the 8800 Series models support Cisco Intelligent Proximity for Mobile Voice. This feature enables employees to import contacts and call history from their personal mobile devices to these select models over Bluetooth. Users can even move the audio portion of an active voice or video call from their personal mobile device to these phones for better-quality sound when at their desks. And they can keep their personal mobile devices charged, to stay connected when on the go; through a USB port on select 8800 Series models.

• Key expansion modules for scalability: Unique to the 8800 Series, the new Cisco IP Phone 8800 Key Expansion Modules (also referred to as “sidecars”) for the 8851, 8861, and 8865 phones offer 28 additional programmable line or feature keys beyond the 5 to 10 keys that come standard with these phones.⁵ These new modules support both Session Line Mode (SLM) and Enhanced Line Mode (ELM) user experiences for greater deployment flexibility and user comfort. Up to three expansion modules are supported, for a total of up to 84 additional line or feature keys.⁶

• Flexible deployment options: Support your Cisco deployment model(s) of choice, whether on-premises, in the cloud with Cisco Spark, or in a hybrid configuration. Select 8800 Series models also support third-party on-premises and hosted UC-as-a-Service (UCaaS) from Cisco approved and certified providers.⁷

Cisco IP Phone 8800 Series: An overview

The Cisco IP Phone 8800 Series offers six advanced models of desk phones in your choice of charcoal or white, an audio conferencing endpoint for small to large conference rooms up to 1140 sq. ft. (106 sq. m.), and two ruggedized exterior 802.11 wireless handsets, in charcoal and yellow that are designed for in-campus mobile workers who work in more rigorous and/or hazardous settings.

The desk endpoints all provide between 5 and 10 lines⁴ and support both on-premises and cloud deployments – regardless of whether workers are at a campus or work from home. All of the desk models feature 5-in. (127-mm) wide-screen, graphical displays, and most models support color display presentation. Gigabit Ethernet is standard on most phones for reduced administration. Select models deliver 720p HD video, USB and Bluetooth for support of third-party compatible headsets, telephony feature integration with personal mobile devices, and support for optional key expansion modules that provide additional programmable lines and feature keys.

The new 8832 audio conferencing endpoint combines superior HD audio performance and 360-degree coverage for small to large conference rooms and executive offices. Initial support will be up to 26 participants in a conference room, expanding up to 42 participants.⁸

It features full-duplex two-way wideband audio, an integrated dialpad, a large mute key for access from all sides of the endpoint and rounded edges for ease of handling.

The 8821 and 8821-EX wireless LAN handsets are sleek and lightweight and come with a 2.4-in. (6.1-cm) high-resolution graphical display.

They are sealed against dust and water.⁹ Both handsets comply with military standard 810G for added resilience when deployed in more industrial environments. Extensible Authentication Protocol – Transport Layer Security (EAP-TLS) 1.2 and Secure Hash Algorithm 2 (SHA-2) support more secure communications and authentication, while roaming is enhanced with Fast Transition (802.11r). The EX model is also compliant with nonsparking standards, even when temporarily exposed to hazardous atmospheric environments.¹⁰

² European Telecommunications Standards Institute.

³ Session Line Mode (SLM) and Enhanced Line Mode (ELM) are available on most models. Support excludes the 8831 and 8832 conference phones and ELM on the 8821 and 8821-EX WLAN handsets.

⁴ Number of lines on desk endpoints depends on whether SLM or ELM user experience is selected.

⁵ The number of keys (5 or 10) depends on the choice of SLM or ELM mode. The new key expansion modules for 8851/8861 phones and the module for the 8865 video phone support both modes.

⁶ The number of key modules and total number of line or feature keys depends on the phone model and user experience mode selected.

⁷ Contact your authorized Cisco representative for further details.

⁸Initial support up to 800 sq. ft/74 sq. m. in CYQ3 2017 for select markets. In CYQ4 2017, extends up to 1140 sq. ft/106 sq. m and up to 42 participants for select markets. Contact your Cisco representative for details on regional availability.

⁹Both models are International Protection Standard (IP67) rated for dirt and water resistance.

¹⁰ATEX Zone 1/Class 2 and CSA Zone 1/Division II compliant.

Compare Models-Specifications at a Glance

The IP Phone 8800 Series provides high-quality, secure, full-featured video and VoIP communications. See which models offer HD video and support in-campus mobile workers over wireless LAN.

	8811	8832	8841	8845	8851	8861	8865
High-def Video (720p)	No	No	No	Yes	No	No	Yes
Integral switch	Gigabit	No	Gigabit	Gigabit	Gigabit	Gigabit	Gigabit
Programmable (line) keys	5	1	5	5	5	5	5
Bluetooth/DECT	No	DECT (mics)	No	Bluetooth	Bluetooth	Bluetooth	Bluetooth
Cisco Intelligent Proximity	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
USB (physical ports)	No	Yes (1): USB-C	No	No	Yes (1)	Yes (2)	Yes (2)
KEM	No	No	No	No	Yes (2)	Yes (3)	Yes (3)
Wi-Fi (802.11n)	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes
Wall-mountable	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

Get the Best Prices on Cisco IP Phone 8800 Models

More Related…

Cisco IP Phone 7800 and 8800 Series-Security Features for Today

What’s New on Cisco IP Phone 8800 Series

Updated: Cisco IP Phone 7800 Series

IP Phone 8861 vs. IP Phone 8851 vs. IP Phone 8841

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How to Save Power on Cisco IP Phones? 

Cisco UCS S3260 Storage Server Overview, Data, Unstored

Data, unstored, the keywords for Cisco UCS S-Series Storage Servers.

The S-Series is designed for data intensive workloads such as big data, streaming media and collaboration applications, and for deploying software-defined storage, object storage, and data protection solutions. 

The Cisco S-Series S3260, which is a follow-on from the C3260. Much of the bare-bones specification remains, such as 600TB of local data storage with enterprise-class redundancy, connectivity including NFS, iSCSI, Fibre Channel (FC), FCoE, SMB and SMB Direct, scaling to petabytes with Cisco UCS Manager, and a dual-node two-socket architecture using Intel Xeon CPUs. But much else has changed, particularly the adoption of a modular design so that different components can be refreshed at different times.

The S3260 is the first product in the S-Series line-up and the main features are:

• Dual two-socket server nodes using an Intel Xeon E5-2600 v2 or v4 CPU, with up to 36 cores per server node or 72 cores per system.
• Up to 512GB of DDR3 or DDR4 memory per server node (1TB total)
• Support for high-performance Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) and flash memory
• 600TB data storage capacity that scales to petabytes with Cisco UCS Manager
• Policy-based storage management framework
• Dual-port 40Gbit/s system I/O controllers with UCS Virtual Interface Card (VIC) 1300 platform embedded chip
• Unified I/O for Ethernet or Fibre Channel to existing NAS or SAN storage environments
• Support for Cisco bi-directional (BIDI) transceivers, with 40Gbit/s connectivity over existing 10Gbit/s cabling infrastructure

This slide from Cisco summarizes the modularity. One point is that Cisco's 40Gbit/s virtual interface card (think VNIC) provides 256 virtual adapters per node plus 16Gbit/s native Fabre Channel options.

UCS S-Series Modular Design

Modular components include disk, SSD and NVMe media (caching flash with Fusion ioMemory3 PX), disk expanders, IO expanders, flash memory and Ethernet/FC/FCoE connectivity options.

They can be cache-optimized, capacity-optimized, compute-intensive and IO-intensive configurations; the latter having 160GB/sec of aggregated VIC IO, and either 8 or 16Gbit/s FC. 

Capacity can be scaled out, by adding nodes, to 86PB in a UCS domain.

Compared to Cisco's own traditional-style servers, we're told the UCS S3260:

• Reduces CapEx by 34 per cent
• Lowers ongoing management by 80 per cent
• Reduces cabling by 70 per cent
• Takes up 60 per cent less space
• Consumes 59 per cent less power

More Related

Use Cases: Cisco UCS S3260 Storage Server with MapR Converged Data Platform and Cloudera Enterprise

Cisco’s New Storage Optimized UCS Server-UCS S3260

Cisco’s Next Generation Storage Networking Innovations

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Make the Cisco Nexus 9000 Series Your Network Switch Today