Does Starwind provide any tool for an async DR site replication? Or is it recommended to just use a different tool for that?

@Dashrender said:

@scottalanmiller said:

@Dashrender said:

I can see doing RAID 6 if you can afford the performance penalty.

Which you would assume that you can if you can wait for a distant node to write as well.

By distant, you mean local, as in the same rack?

Yes, distant meaning outside of the chassis connected over a slow Ethernet link.

OK that's just weird!

There was a contact us email address in VLSC. I wrote them, included my license key and business information. They wrote back today indicating that they would create my key and I would receive it in a separate email. Additionally it would be added to my VLSC account.

I actually received the email with the KMS key before this email, and sure enough, the KMS key is now in my VLSC account.

@scottalanmiller said:

We use Hola, which does something similar.

Wait, wasn't there a huge uproar about Hola doing something shady?
...
<elevator music>
...
Ah, here we go:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2928340/ultra-popular-hola-vpn-extension-sold-your-bandwidth-for-use-in-a-botnet-attack.html

Someone even took the time to set this up: http://adios-hola.org/
 
I don't pretend to know everything about the situation, I just remember seeing this and adding them to the list.

@Dashrender Darn.

I gave my friend the link hoping he'd post - I haven't spoken to him since last week. so I have no idea what they went with.

Outlook/OWA - maybe simply because I've used them for so long. Familiarity doesn't always breed contempt.

How to retire as an IT pro. Actually that's not a bad idea. So many IT pros work as consultants for a lot of their careers and don't have a single company or just one or two to manage these things for them. Worth considering.

@Dashrender said:

Seems to provide an out for the company regarding the company's whole primary goal is to make money.

Yes, it allows you to specific the environment, customers or employees or any combination of those, along with profits, as your primary goals as stated in your mission.

Aww... I'm not trying to use WSUS - I'm trying good ol' MS update servers here.

@nadnerB said:

Can you replace the built in WLAN card?

Yeah I guess that looks possible - assuming HP doesn't lock the BIOS to specific cards as I've heard Lenovo does (I got lucky when I upgraded mine - see Lenovo builds spyware into wifi driver).

I like refurbed in most cases. It feels nice to get new, but saving money makes up for that feeling.

@Dashrender said:

But businesses do this all the time.

Businesses have IT departments who understand the risk, the factors involved, etc. They know that holding back on Windows 7 brings risk and limitations. They know how to buy new systems to ensure how they want to install works properly. This is just normal work for them.

It is not their first change, nor likely the last.

@nadnerB said:

There are more nasties than just ads buried in sites

This is one of primary reasons for wanting to block this junk!

awww - you're stuck in the interface of the Nexus Player. Assuming you can use other Android apps once you get the Amazon app installed (there's an HBO app too, though I'm guess you're blocked from getting it?) you just launch that app and pick your movies.

This model does make sense. The only other option would be to put up pay walls on all websites out there, and you would have to pay them directly to gain access to their content.

A few places might manage to leave their stuff open, private blogs, etc, but for the most part news and other typical journalism would die a quick death as most people are unwilling to pay for it. Though, in thinking that through, what we'd probably end up with is a what we had 20 years ago, newspapers, a collection of writers, etc that all work under a single corporate umbrella. So you'd subscribe to one of these services and only see their tiny portion of probably slanted views.

@Carnival-Boy said:

I hate it, but then I bought some Lenovo gear and found that even more horrible, so I'm back to HP. Better the devil you know, I guess.

True but at least with Lenovo, they bundle the Malware & root kits with the UEFI so you don't have to go to the trouble of finding them for yourself. TAKE THAT HP!!!.... wait, what?

@Dashrender said:

Maybe I should dump this idea and get a ReadyNAS 104. Looks like a 4 drive unit can be had for around $160, as long as I do any processing elsewhere, this looks OK.

Would be a lot smaller and quieter for home use.

@johnhooks said:

@scottalanmiller said:

@johnhooks said:

What about running a UTM in a VM? At least you can vertically scale if needed.

Of course that's an option and you get "unlimited" power in that way. But having your firewall on a VM, unless it is on a one to one dedicated piece of hardware, is generally not ideal. It basically requires that an attacker already be on your network before facing the firewall. In nearly all cases, I would recommend that you stick with the physical firewall for mainline security and put the non-routing / non-firewall scanning functions onto a VM instead.

Oh OK. I did it at home playing around. The UTM was the only VM with access to the WAN nic but I guess the dom0 is still public facing then? Never thought about that.

Could be, but shouldn't be. But the physical access still exists no matter what you expose to it.