Add a JBOD or buy another server? A decision framework for storage growth (UK 2026)
You are out of disk. The instinct is to buy another server, but that is often the expensive answer to the wrong question. If the existing host still has spare CPU, memory and controller headroom, bolting on a JBOD expans…
Spec'ing a VDI host in 2026: GPU, RAM density and users-per-host (UK)
A VDI host is not a general virtualisation host with desktops bolted on. The economics live and die on users-per-host, and that number is set by three things working together: how much frame buffer each session needs, ho…
JBOF and NVMe flash enclosures: when all-flash disaggregation makes sense (UK 2026)
A JBOF, a just-a-bunch-of-flash enclosure, is the all-NVMe answer to a question that storage architects have asked for years: why should fast drives be trapped inside the server that happens to own them? Instead of scatt…
Building a file and NAS server: capacity, ZFS or Storage Spaces and 10/25GbE (UK 2026)
A file server looks like the simplest box in the rack until you have to build one that stays fast for fifty people, never loses a byte and still has room to grow in three years. Capacity is the easy part; the decisions t…
Building a file and NAS server: capacity, ZFS or Storage Spaces, and 10/25GbE (UK 2026)
A file server is one of the easiest builds to get wrong, because it looks simple and is not. Buy too few spindles and rebuilds take days; pick the wrong filesystem and you inherit a snapshot and integrity story you did n…
DIMM population rules: how to fill memory slots for full bandwidth (UK 2026)
Two servers with identical CPUs and the same total RAM can differ by a third in memory bandwidth, purely because of how the DIMMs were placed in the slots. Memory population is not cosmetic - it decides whether you get t…
Supermicro GPU SuperServer buyer's guide: cost-effective AI inference and training nodes (UK 2026)
When a team needs more accelerators per pound than an integrated appliance will give them, the open-hardware route usually points at Supermicro. Its GPU SuperServer families cover everything from a single workstation-cla…
HPE ProLiant DL320 Gen12 buyer's guide: single-socket 1U for edge, VDI and dense hosting (UK 2026)
The reflex when buying a 1U HPE server is to reach for the dual-socket DL360. For a large share of real workloads that is a socket too many. The ProLiant DL320 Gen12 is a single-socket 1U built for exactly the jobs where…
NVMe-oF in the data centre: disaggregating flash from compute (UK 2026)
For years the fastest storage in a server lived inside that server, bolted to its PCIe bus, stranded the moment the box was busy or idle. NVMe over Fabrics breaks that link. It lets a pool of flash sit in its own enclosu…
Scale-out vs scale-up storage: choosing an architecture before you buy hardware (UK 2026)
Before you compare arrays or price drives, there is a more fundamental fork in the road: do you grow storage by making one system bigger, or by adding more systems that act as one? Scale-up and scale-out are not just two…
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