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 ea…
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 th…
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 p…
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 decid…
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 si…
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 ex…
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 si…
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-…
How to spec a VMware vSphere host in 2026: a UK build guide
Most virtualisation hosts are bought wrong in one of two directions: over-specified on cores you'll never licence, or under-specified on memory and RAM-bound within a year. This is the build framework…
RAID 1 vs 5 vs 6 vs 10: choosing the right level for your server (UK 2026)
RAID is the one storage decision people copy from the last server without thinking, and it is also the one most likely to lose data when a drive fails. The right level is not a matter of taste - it fa…
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