When it comes to memory manufacturers, we’ve been around the block…a few times. We’ve learned a lot in the process — too much to keep to ourselves! For each memory manufacturer we’ve used in the past, we have thousands of sticks of memory out in the field, and that gives us some good objective experience. I wanted to take a minute to comment on the various memory manufacturers we have experience with, share our stories, and to explain why we are standardizing on Kingston memory going forward.
It’s an exciting time at Puget! Due to increased sales and growth, we have outgrown our current facility. To meet the new demand for space, we purchased a new building in Auburn, WA.
To show off the new space and the progress that is being made during the build process, I will be taking my camera and shooting some video updates. The first one is found here. Be sure to keep checking back for new updates. Enjoy!
A few months ago, I wrote about why Puget Systems had decided to move towards Corsair power supplies (see post). I promised that I would write an update after some time had passed, with an update. I am happy to say that the power supplies have been everything we thought they would be!
We now have just under 400 computers out in the field being powered by Corsair power supplies. How many failures have we seen? One! We had one unit that would not power on, and that’s it. While I’m not sure we have a big enough sample for a definitive statement, that’s a 0.25% failure rate. That is ten times more reliable than any other power supply we’ve used! Of course, we’ll continue to closely watch them as time goes on.
Network Attached Storage (NAS) has been on my mind quite a bit in the last year. With the birth of my son last May, my wife and I are going crazy with our digital camera, and what used to be a nice and spacious hard drive is no longer adequate. What’s worse, we’ve found that video is a much better way to capture all the little things we want to remember, which probably increases our storage needs by a factor of 100!
On the business side, we’re encountering the same thing. As our company grows, the 200GB network share we all use for shared storage has become both too small, and dangerously difficult to back up. As we expand our website with more and more multimedia content, the need for “scratch space” has grown exponentially.
Both at home and at the office, we need more space, and we need a good level of protection from data loss. A NAS is a natural choice.
The last few days have seen a lot of negative press surrounding the largest sound card manufacturer on the block, Creative Labs. Here’s a little background on what’s happened:
Creative Labs has had a near-monopoly on the sound card market for a long time. Barring onboard sound controllers (like those integrated into almost all Nvidia and Intel based chipsets), Creative cards make up an overwhelming majority of audio cards currently in use. Creative has not done a very good job of getting Windows Vista sound drivers working which offer the same amount of features that their XP drivers have had. A lot of people have been really frustrated by this, since their expensive audio cards weren’t working or were giving reduced functionality.
My name is Daniel Brown, I am a PC technician. I’m writing this article because I feel like, based on my experience, I may have some wisdom to impart regarding PCs. I’ve been working with PCs for most of the last 13 years. Even when not employed in the computer industry, I’ve consistently dedicated a significant portion of my own time to staying up to date with PC hardware trends and learning more about personal computers. During my time in the IT industry, I’ve encountered more than my share of problems and done countless hours of troubleshooting. In my current role as ‘Lead Support Technician’ here at Puget, I add to those hours of troubleshooting daily, dealing with modern PC systems.
You may have noticed Corsair power supplies popping up in our product line. I wanted to take a minute to tell you about why we’re doing this, and why I’m excited about it!
When I was at CES a few months ago, I was not shopping for a new power supply vendor. We have been using Seasonic for years, and have been very happy with their units. And yet there are times when we find a company speaking our language. Hype doesn’t get our attention. Show us the product! We want to see real, measurable quality. At CES, in their suite at the Wynn hotel, Corsair spoke our language. We weren’t looking to replace Seasonic, but Corsair was too good a fit to not get our attention.
Puget Systems builds custom workstations, servers and storage solutions tailored for your work.
We provide:
Extensive performance testing
making you more productive and giving better value for your money
Reliable computers
with fewer crashes means more time working & less time waiting
Support that understands
your complex workflows and can get you back up & running ASAP
A proven track record
as shown by our case studies and customer testimonials
