Best RAID for a home media server (Plex/NAS)
A home media server (Plex, Jellyfin, a NAS film/photo library) is capacity-led and read-heavy — so the best RAID maximises usable space while surviving a drive failure. Size yours in the RAID calculat…
Migrating from Backup Exec to Veeam: a 90-day UK playbook
Veritas Backup Exec served UK SMB + mid-market well for two decades but most organisations now migrate to Veeam Data Platform as Backup Exec reaches a natural refresh point or as ransomware-recovery d…
Server RAM speeds explained: why your DIMMs run slower than 6400 MT/s (UK 2026)
You bought DDR5 rated at 6400 MT/s, the configurator confirmed it, and yet the server boots and reports the memory running at 5200 or even 4400. Nothing is broken. Server memory almost never runs at t…
Financial services IT stack 2026: UK FCA-regulated firm reference architecture
UK financial services firms regulated by the FCA (asset managers, brokers, fund administrators, family offices, wealth managers, private banks, fintechs) face shared IT architecture decisions: DORA + …
Dell PowerEdge R860 buyer's guide: four-socket scale-up for in-memory databases (UK 2026)
Most workloads scale out, but a stubborn few scale up: SAP HANA, large in-memory analytics, and consolidation targets that want every VM on one fault domain with an enormous shared memory pool. The De…
Best RAID for a NAS: how to choose (2026)
The best RAID for a NAS depends on how many bays it has and how big the drives are. As a rule: mirror for two bays, RAID 6 or RAIDZ2 for four or more large drives. Size your exact NAS in the RAID calc…
Best HCI platform UK 2026: Nutanix vs VMware vSAN vs Microsoft Azure Stack HCI
The UK hyperconverged shortlist has narrowed to three: Nutanix, VMware vSAN, and Microsoft Azure Stack HCI (now Azure Local). The Broadcom acquisition of VMware in 2024 reshuffled the market — many UK…
Hardware RAID vs software RAID vs HBA passthrough: the 2026 decision (UK)
The storage controller is one of the quietest decisions in a server build and one of the easiest to get wrong, because the right answer flipped in the last few years. For decades the reflex was to buy…
DSP Toolkit 2026 submission guide for NHS organisations
The Data Security and Protection (DSP) Toolkit is the annual mandatory submission for any UK organisation accessing NHS data. The 2025-26 version refreshed multiple assertions, increased evidence expe…
New vs refurbished enterprise servers: the 2026 economics for UK buyers
New versus refurbished is usually argued on instinct - new feels safe, refurbished feels cheap - when it is really a numbers question. Over a five-year life, the gap between the two is driven by purch…
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