The SX48P2 E is the latest model to wow with a long list of specifications befitting a full-sized desktop. At its heart, the barebones features an Intel X48 chipset with official support for 1600 MHz front side bus settings. That means you can drop in a Core 2 Extreme QX9770 and still run within the SFF’s thermal envelope. The trend toward affordable DDR2 persists as Shuttle equips the SX48P2 E with two slots, each able to take a 4GB module of 800 MHz memory.

Understandably, there’s not much room inside the XPC, but Shuttle packs what space there is with functionality. A pair of PCI Express 2.0 slots offers 16 lanes each. Adding a couple of Radeon HD cards lets your customer take advantage of CrossFireX. Marvell contributes the Gigabit Ethernet, TI adds FireWire support, and a Realtek 7.1-channel codec delivers Dolby Digital Live encoding.

Space for internal storage is naturally hard to come by. Nevertheless, you can cram up to three drives into the chassis—enough to take advantage of RAID 0, 1, or 5 through Intel’s ICH9-R controller. A pair of eSATA ports on the back of the box hooks into the same piece of silicon. Add storage through those, and you can upsell a RAID 10 setup.

There’s definitely a premium tied to a high-end small form factor enclosure like Shuttle’s SX48P2 E. However, the combination of performance and scalability in a compact space is simply unrivaled.

Did you know that Microsoft Small Business Server 2008’s built-in backup utility is shedding its support for tape drives? That’s scary news if you have a lot of customers using tape technology today. At the same time, disk-based storage is cheaper than ever, easy to use, and oh-so-fast. Proponents of tape will argue that the compact cartridges are easier to move around and much more durable sitting on a shelf for decade after decade. But disk is undoubtedly more popular nowadays, especially in light of how easy it is to duplicate backups to a network target or off-site service.

If you now find yourself searching for a dependable, external, disk-based storage platform, check out Sans Digital’s MobileSTOR MS2UTN+ chassis. The two-bay solution is remarkably scalable. You can buy the enclosure completely empty for less than $150 or get it configured by Sans Digital with up to two 1TB drives. Many motherboards include eSATA connectivity, but if a customer’s older server or workstation doesn’t, the MS2UTN+ can also be had with a PCIe or PCI-X controller card.

Inside the enclosure you’ll find a pair of hot-swappable 3.5” SATA drive trays, which attach to a Silicon Image 5744 chipset. The chassis supports RAID 0, 1, and JBOD modes, plus SAFE33 and SAFE50—special RAID setups that use 33% or 50% of total drive capacity for a RAID 1 mirror, with the rest striped in RAID 0.

Configuring the MS2UTN+ is a piece of cake. The box connects through either USB 2.0 or eSATA. Either way, you’d see attached storage as local, making backups an easy affair. A simple dial on the back of the device selects your RAID mode of choice. We recommend using the SAFE setting for preserving SMB data.

Intel’s line of desktop chipsets includes something for everyone, whether you’re looking to build affordable boxes with integrated graphics, high-end PCs with multiple cards in a CrossFireX configuration, or something in between. Until now, that middle ground was serviced by the P35 chipset—a veritable jack of all trades that served up a solid platform, weather you dropped in a budget Core 2 Duo or flagship Core 2 Extreme.

The P35 is on its way out, though, replaced by a new mainstream juggernaut in Intel’s P45 chipset. It isn’t a huge departure from P35, but the latest core logic does include a number of notable additions that bring it up to speed technologically. For example, 16 lanes of PCI Express 2.0 connectivity effectively double bandwidth to and from the graphics slots. Those lanes are configurable, too, allowing motherboard vendors to build mainstream boards with multiple x16 slots and CrossFireX support.

That’s exactly the route Gigabyte took in designing its new EP45-DS4P. In fact, the DS4P has three x16 slots—the third branching off of the board’s ICH10 controller with four lanes of PCIe connectivity. Although the P45 chipset only officially supports front side bus speeds up to 1333 MHz, Gigabyte goes so far as to guarantee 1600 MHz compatibility as well, covering everything up to Intel’s Core 2 Extreme QX9770.

In a move sure to shore up the EP45-DS4P’s popularity as a cost-conscious contender, the board includes four slots that can handle 8GB of up to DDR2-1200 memory. Yes, DDR3 is the future, but DDR2 is significantly more affordable, and it still delivers great performance.

Because the ICH10-R I/O controller nixes parallel ATA support completely, Gigabyte integrates an ITE chip to support two IDE devices. The EP45-DS4P also comes with a FireWire controller, two Realtek Gigabit Ethernet chips, and a 7.1-channel audio codec that supports the Dolby Home Theater spec.

You’d be amazed—or maybe not—at how many business customers cut corners when it comes to their peripherals: monitors, keyboards, and mice. While it might make sense to save a few bucks on a smaller screen or basic two-button mouse for faster hardware, the folks who use those machines all day are going to be less comfortable for it.

Let your customer wrap his hands around Logitech’s MX Revolution and you can bet he’s not going to want to use his old mouse with rollers that always seems to pick up desk gunk and hop around the screen. In fact, because the Revolution uses a laser-based engine, he’ll see the same smooth tracking performance on just about any surface.

You can tell the mouse is designed for ergonomics just by looking at it. The shape is a natural fit, and all of the controls sit within easy reach. Perhaps the most innovative feature is the thumb wheel, which makes it easy to switch between open apps. You’ll notice that the customers who pick up dual-monitor setups will quickly take advantage of the extra real estate by running more software at the same time. Logitech’s MX Revolution is a great tool for navigating a larger desktop. A rechargeable Lithium-Ion battery and 2.4 GHz wireless enable a long battery life and easy RF communication.