A Dozen Specialized Hardware Products You Should Know About

If you plan to set up an office at home or in the company facility, you’ll most likely find yourself having to work within certain space parameters. And as much as you would like more equipment and resources (who wouldn’t?), the fact remains that, given the space limitations, you are rarely able to obtain all that you’d like. As well, you’ll also have to consider cost, which will have different limits for each of you.

On the other hand, technology is a valuable component of any business operation. You’ll always have a need to upgrade equipment, software and resources to make things better, easier, more secure and more effective. The following group of products can absolutely help you, depending on what products you already own. These products cover a wide range of functionality and have prices that range from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand. The bottom line is that these products can enhance your business computing resources.

1 - Chili Systems — ChiliBox Server, network creation & management — $500
The SOHO (small office, home office) world has multiple computers that have a growing need for sharing of files and resources. While it is easy to implement a peer-to-peer network or move files around, the capability of setting and maintaining a true computer network has substantial office and home office benefits. The Chili Box has the appearance of a tower computer, but the red side panels suggest something different inside. The Chili Box comes ready to be set up to manage a network of up to 15 machines. It can handle e-mail traffic and manage Internet access to employees with a high level of Internet intrusion firewalls and security. It is capable of connecting both PCs and Macs and, with 80GB of storage space, can hold common data files and backups. The Linux-based operating system can also provide the necessary resources to manage your own domain and web sites. Yes, you can host your own website.

2 - Seagate — External Hard Drive Storage/backup — $1/GB
Storage requirements are increasing for data, images, e-mails, documents, mp3 audio files, video files, and more to come. While computers (both desktops and laptops) have increased the capacities of the hard drives to over 100GB, the capacity for active files and backup facilities is expanding. Certainly backing up files requires a resource away from your computer. Seagate’s hard drives come in a range of capacities from 100GB to 500GB. These drives are compact and terrific for use as prime storage or backups or both. The drives have a one-touch button to activate immediate backup. In addition, they come bundled with BounceBack Express software from CMS to establish scheduled procedures for backing up any computer.

The drives are hot-swappable, which means that they can be connected and disconnected without turning off the computer. Cable connections can be done through USB 2.0 or FireWire. Moreover, you can daisy chain the drives so that you can connect multiple drives depending upon your storage needs.

3 - Pocket Hard Drive Portable data transfer — $99
These palm-sized drives can fit anywhere from your key chain to your pocket. The pocket drive resembles an Oreo cookie. With a 5GB or 6GB capacity, they can store large business files, music, images, videos and more. The connection is through a hot-pluggable USB 2.0 interface with a retractable cable that transfers data at speeds up to 480Mbps. In addition, the files can be password protected.