I finally got to order the enclosure, card and Pro upgrade to unRAID last night.  Roughly $420 of equipment for my unRAID server, but it is going to be sorely needed soon enough.  I just wish I had bought the Pro version when I first bought it…$60 to upgrade – yuck.  The only thing that keeps it from really bothering me is how well unRAID has done as my media server OS.

I’ve already received and installed the upgrade key, but I still need to reboot the server for it to take effect.  I’ll probably wait until everything arrives to do that – just in case there is another update between now and then.

I’m also starting to look at a new monitor option for my primary PC.  I’ve had a Dell Ultrasharp 2005FPW for nearly 3 years and, while I do love it, I want something bigger.  I’m actually considering a 26″ or 32″ 720p LCD HDTV.  The resolution isn’t going to be where the Dell is, but I don’t game and it may actually help with all the encoding I do.  If I can find something in the $450-500 range that I like, I might get one here shortly (my birthday is in a week and a half).  Buy.com has a 26″ Westinghouse that is $339.99 with free shipping.  The only problem I see is that there is no DVI and I’d rather not buy another DVI>HDMI cable.  It’s also a refurb, but this is the popular model that a firmware update was supposed to solve all issues with.  Their 32″
is only $429.99 with free shipping.  However, I think I’ll probably go with this KDS at Newegg for $399.99.  After shipping, I’m looking at about $425, which is pretty much my limit.  My son will get the Dell for his room as a TV and I can return the 21″ monster CRT to my server room KVM.  I can’t imagine a 26″ monitor.  My desktop calendar is 26″ – damn.

Well, hopefully by the end of this month I’ll have all this stuff running along.  Until then, I’ll post here as things happen about.