THERMALTAKE
Muse eSATA 3.5” Disk Enclosure: $59
www.thermaltakeusa.com

THERE ARE A FEW DIFFERENT WAYS TO APPROACH DAS storage. You can buy complete single-drive packages from your favorite vendor, inventorying several capacities in the hope that you have what your customer wants. Or you can carry enclosures and simply add the desktop SATA drive that best fits your customer’s application. If the value-added extras, such as backup software, that come with most ready-built packages are important, go with the branded solution. When you’re shooting for maximum value, though, offer your own eSATA box.

Thermaltake’s Muse eSATA 3.5” enclosure is an elegant clamshell designed to simplify the transition from standard SATA drive to rugged external eSATA disk. The unit is all aluminum and completely fanless. As a result, the enclosure operates silently. Installation is a piece of cake, too. No tools are required. The enclosure pops open without screws and snaps back shut. Of course, once your drive of choice is installed, the chassis connects to an eSATA back panel bracket through included cabling. There’s even a bundled power cable so that your customer can run the box straight from his PC’s power supply instead of a wall socket. Thermaltake gives you everything you need, sans hard drive, to make the Muse eSATA a compelling external storage solution.

LEVELONE
17” Modularized KVM Console: $1,371
www.level1.com

RACKS ARE MEANT TO BE POPULATED, so when you have a rack full of servers, how do you control them all? LevelOne’s Modularized KVM Console makes the job easier by sliding right into your customer’s rack, populating 1U of space in return for a 17” LCD display. The console connects up to either an 8- or 16-port KVM module, which LevelOne also sells, to control other systems in the rack. You can keep daisy chaining KVM modules to support a maximum of 64 or 128 machines, depending on the model you buy. Add the IP KVM and get remote management of the rack.

GIGABYTE
GA-MA790FX-DS5 Socket AM2+ Motherboard: $226
www.gigabyte-usa.com

AMD’S 65NM PROCESSORS ARE COMPATIBLE WITH ANY existing Socket AM2 motherboard. But if you want to enable HyperTransport 3.0 support and the energy-saving dual power planes, you’re going to want a Socket AM2+ board like Gigabyte’s GA-MA790FX-DS5. The board is based on AMD’s recently-launched 790FX northbridge and SB600 southbridge, which buck the company’s past stance on designing core logic. We think the move was a good one because it shows AMD with a much more compelling platform message.

Gigabyte does its part to deliver the 790FX in a stable package that’s loaded with features. Four DDR2 DIMM slots take a staggering 16GB of memory in dual-channel configurations. Gigabyte even claims that DDR2-1066 works if you use the right CPU, though most resellers will probably want to stick with JEDEC-sanctioned DDR2-800 modules.

Two PCI Express x16 slots, each based on the new 2.0 standard, support AMD’s CrossFireX technology. To be fair, the real buzz behind CrossFireX is the four-way configurations soon to emerge. However, a two-card setup is just the ticket for great game performance. Fewer x16 slots also mean more room for expansion elsewhere. Gigabyte further arms the GA-MA790FX-DS5 with three PCI Express x1 slots and a pair of standard PCI connectors.

AMD’s SB600 southbridge facilitates four SATA 3 Gb/s ports with RAID 0, 1, and 0+1 support. Gigabyte adds an additional storage controller with two more SATA ports and a pair of eSATA connectors that sit on the board’s back panel. You’ll also find Gigabit Ethernet, FireWire, HD Audio jacks, and six of the board’s 10 USB 2.0 ports back there. Gigabyte rounds its board out with an incredibly flexible BIOS backed by redundancy.

SAMSUNG
204BW 20” LCD: $279
www.samsung.com

IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR A SOLID go-to business monitor, look no further than Samsung’s 204BW. The 20.1” display is especially sleek with its slim bezel, large panel, and long list of impressive specs.

The widescreen LCD supports a maximum resolution of 1680x1050, viewable from 160 degrees horizontally and vertically. A 1000:1 contrast ratio indicates that the LCD can reproduce very bright whites and deep blacks. Samsung rates the display with a 5ms response time, meaning your customer can expect an absence of visual artifacts, even during the playback of fast video sequences. Although the 204BW works well in a business environment, it certainly has the chops to handle situations heavy on media and gaming.

Your customer can choose between the 204BW’s 15-pin VGA connector and DVI-D input, though you’ll want to recommend the digital hookup. Samsung does take care to equip the monitor with HDCP support. Match the monitor up to an HDCP-compliant video card and create a protected display pipeline that can play back hi-def content.

You can find the 204BW selling for well under $300. Also, because the panel only consumes 55W of power, you can use it as part of your play on energy efficiency. Online raves of Samsung’s customer service should help seal the deal.