Two Guys Tech

eSATA is a External Serial ATA interface. Serial ATA (SATA) is a commonly used interface for internal Hard Drives, and eSATA is an extension of that specification to be used with external devices.

If you're using a USB or Firewire external drive, what you're really using is a ATA or Serial ATA hard drive, and an external enclosure. The enclosure has a controller in it which translates the ATA or SATA protocol to USB or Firewire.

This translation causes some delay and there is also some overhead involved in the translations.

eSATA is already in the format that the drive is transmitting. No translation necessary means no lag.

Why Would I want to use eSATA?

Reason #1 - The transfer rate is fast. I mean really fast. Currently there is a 1.5 Gbps and a 3 Gbps Standard. This blows FireWire (IEEE 1394) and USB 2.0 out of the water.

Reason #2 - Less Lag. Since the data is already in a native format, there is no translation involved. This means data gets to the interface faster.

Reason #3 - It isn't terribly expensive. Maybe this isn't a reason to use it, but it isn't much of a road block either. If your motherboard has SATA connectors laying around, you can extend them with a $3 bracket. SATA expansion cards can be found right now for under $30.

Should I replace all of my External Drives?

Sure, and I can give you an address to ship them to. Seriously though, I wouldn't replace what you already have if it works. When you decide to buy a new drive, eSATA is worth some thought.

There are currently many drives shipping with USB and eSATA interfaces. So even if you don't currently have eSATA capability, I would take a good long look at the drives with both interfaces, since they would allow you to upgrade later.

Read More:

Serial ATA - Serial ATA International Organization

Yes, I’m going to stop posting about left 4 dead today. Well, eventually. :-)

Since the game is released today, I figured it’s only fitting to use one of their wallpapers for my desktop.

If you go to the Left 4 Dead Media page, you’ll see 4 wallpapers on the bottom right. The one I chose is titled “Survivors”.

Hope you guys enjoy it, and make sure to watch your back.

Well, it looks like I was right about the demo, mine says “pre-load complete” now, and when I double click on it, I receive the message that “a locked copy for Left 4 Dead has already been installed on your computer. Purchase it now and start playing immediately”. Oh well.

On another note, I guess Valve has been running TV commercials for left 4 dead, I haven’t seen any, but you can see the second commercial here on their site. It was interesting how no one actually gets hurt in the commercial, not even the zombies.

So, am I going to buy it? The answer to that is that although I loved the game, I’m going to wait to buy it. After all, Christmas is coming up, and I’ve got to leave something for my wife to get me. Actually, it gives me something to get here too. :-)

It was funny, because I can see already that the friendly fire is going to be a little troublesome when I play with her. I told her that if there ever is a real Zombie apocalypse, she doesn’t get a gun.

Good documentation is really nice to have. I did a Server Migration, or transition this last Friday (the 14th). We went from Server 2003 to Server 2008, and now I'm realizing that my documentation was a little out of date.

I would like to use my methods as material for this blog and the podcast. This way other's can learn from my experience and mistakes, or relate how they do things. After all, the challenges that I face are the same challenges that thousands, if not millions, or IT guys in my shoes are facing every day.

Well, just to clear up any misconceptions, I'm not perfect. One of the areas that I find "challenging" is documentation.

It isn't until now that I realize how many times something gets changed or added in order to fix something, or because it's needed right away. Then, in the rush for the next fire, it never gets documented. In this case, I'm pretty lucky, because this wasn't a system failure, where I didn't have anything but the documentation to refer to, but rather a planned transition where I can still look back at the old server and get the stuff I missed.

Now, I can't complain too much, since I do have some documentation in the first place, and to be honest, nothing big is missing, it's just a whole bunch of tiny stuff that I was missing. I'm sure we've all heard the old saying that "the devil is in the details". It's true. With all of the changes that I made, including migrating server roles, DNS, DHCP, WINS, and close to 2 terabytes of data, all without any impact to the user, now I have all of this petty stuff, that I should have planned for, bothering my users and eating up my day.

Of course, we live and we learn. The truth is that none of my users were too inconvenienced, and it only took an hour or two to get everything straightened out. So in my mind, this was a pretty successful migration.

Art and I talked a little more in depth about the process for our podcast, which will hit the feed on Wednesday. I would love to hear how you have handled your transitions / migrations, as well as any horror stories you may have.

If you want to cut to the chase, it’s great. If you’re don’t avoid scary games, and don’t have any problems with the Zombie Genre, make sure you get the Demo. I have the impression that when the game is released on the 18th, the demo is going to be pulled. I’m not 100% sure about that, but that’s the feeling I get. Now for an explanation of why I think you should get it…

First off, yes, this is a first person shooter. No, it’s not one of those were one 12 year old who plays for 18 hours a day will dominate the entire game. The game is cooperative game play, and although I’ve only played it for 4 hours or so, I can see that if you don’t play nice, then you aren’t going to do well.

Now, let me go into my gaming experience with it so far. As I’ve already mentioned, I’ve only played for about 4 hours. Also, all of my experience is based on the survivor side of the game.

If you haven’t read anything about the game, it takes place after some virus turns the majority of the population into Zombies. Luckily you and some others seem to be immune to the virus.

Cooperation is critical. Friendly fire is always on, and there are some monsters that if they get you, the only way to be saved is to have a teammate kill the monster. You can always see the outlines of the other players, which makes separation much harder.

So far in the demo, you move from safe room to safe room. The zombies are very fast, like 28 days later, full on run fast. You can heal teammates, as well as help them up if they get really low on health.

So far, I love this game. I think that Fallout 3 is going to have to wait a little while.

Sorry folks, it’s been a bit since I posted a picture for Wallpaper Tuesday and today I came to a point where I was just absolutely sick of pumpkins, so I had to change my wallpaper. I’ll get back on track with Wallpaper Tuesday next week.

Today we have a picture of a city from Fallout 3. You can get the desktop background here, and see the other Fallout 3 wallpapers here.

From all the reviews I’ve read, Fallout 3 is pretty Awesome. I think I’m going to have to pick it up soon, but there’s a competition between it and Left 4 Dead. I don’t have the time or disposable income for both.

I was downloading the Left 4 Dead demo last night, so that may create a solution for me.

Until next time, enjoy!

I just wanted to let everyone know what I’ve been up to. I know I haven’t been posting to Two Guys Tech at all this week, and it’s mostly because I’ve been working on a series of posts over at my personal blog.

You see, this is the second annual “Command of the Grill Week”. One of the things I enjoy doing while I’m AFK is grilling.

Back in 2006, Weber had this series of grilling competitions on Marine Corps Bases across the country. They then took the top 3 recipes from each location, and a slew of recipes from celebrities who are also Marines, and put them all in a handy book called “Command of the Grill".

The book is just full of delicious recipes, and it’s only $10. Better yet, every penny of that goes to charities that help wounded service members, or helps the families of those who have given the ultimate sacrifice.

Besides eating delicious steaks for this event, I’m in no way profiting from the sales of the book. Being a Marine myself, I was already interested in the book, and once I found out who it’s helping, I was sold.

So, for the week leading up to the Marine Corps’ Birthday, which is November 10th, I’m posting some photos and a write up of a recipe from the book. There are a few recipes posted over at the Weber “Command of the Grill” site, and I did all 3 of them this year.

If you can, stop by my blog and take a look at the recipes, and tell as many people as you can about this book. There’s lots of ways we can support our troops, but I don’t know of any as delicious. Not to mention, Christmas is coming up, and this makes a really great present.

Semper Fi!

I put together show 30 on the evening of the presidential election. Well, watching the election returns come in was like watching an exciting ball game, for me anyway, and I got nothing done on the show.

So, after Obama won and the networks wrapped up their coverage, I started to get to work on the show. Trouble was, by that time it was going on 11:00pm. Bummer.

I put the show together and started the export about 3:00am. That was going to take about 30 minutes, so I decided to relax on the sofa, and I of course fell asleep.

Woke about 5:00am, started the upload to Mevio and went to bed while that was working.

Later, woke at 7:30am to get ready for work and posted the show to the TGT web site.

If you’ve listened to it already, you probably noticed that there is no intro again this week. There’s no other reason for that other than I was just too darned tired to do it. I just wanted to get the show wrapped up and get to bed.