Hardware & Infrastructure

Hands-on hardware and infrastructure guides covering servers, storage, virtualisation, and enterprise equipment for IT professionals.

Patch Management: Why Keeping Software Updated is Your First Line of Defence

Devices & Peripherals, Hardware & Infrastructure, Security /

A significant proportion of successful cyberattacks exploit vulnerabilities that had patches available at the time of the attack. The attacker didn’t find a zero-day vulnerability or use sophisticated techniques; they used a known weakness that the victim hadn’t gotten around to fixing. Patch management is the discipline of keeping software updated systematically. It’s not glamorous, […]

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Synology DSM Walkthrough (Part 1): Getting Started

Devices & Peripherals, Hardware & Infrastructure, Networking, Security, Software & Systems /

Synology makes some of the most popular NAS devices for small businesses, and their operating system, DSM (DiskStation Manager), is a large part of why. It’s a full-featured, browser-based platform that makes complex storage tasks approachable without sacrificing capability. This is the first in a series of posts covering DSM in practical depth. At the

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iSCSI vs SMB vs NFS: Choosing the Right Storage Protocol

Hardware & Infrastructure, Networking, Security /

When you connect a NAS or storage server to your network, you need a protocol to make that storage accessible to other devices. The three you’ll encounter most often are SMB, NFS, and iSCSI. They solve different problems and suit different environments. Choosing the right one depends on what you’re connecting and what you need

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Windows XP Mode: Running Legacy Software on Modern Hardware

Hardware & Infrastructure, Security, Software & Systems /

Every business has one. A piece of software that’s critical to operations, hasn’t been updated in years, and absolutely will not run on anything newer than Windows 7. Maybe it controls a piece of manufacturing equipment. Maybe it’s a custom database built for a client that no longer exists. Maybe it’s an accounting package that

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Network Printer Setup: Getting Everyone Printing Without the Chaos

Devices & Peripherals, Hardware & Infrastructure, Networking, Security /

Getting a printer working for one computer is straightforward. Getting it working reliably for an entire office, across Windows and Mac devices, with sensible defaults and minimal IT involvement, is a different task. Here’s how to approach it properly. Step 1: Connect the Printer to the Network For an office printer, a wired ethernet connection

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pfSense and OPNsense: Open Source Firewalls for Serious Users

Hardware & Infrastructure, Networking, Security /

Most small businesses use whatever firewall came built into their router: a consumer-grade device with limited configurability and basic security features. pfSense and OPNsense are a different category of product entirely: fully featured, enterprise-grade firewall platforms that run on commodity hardware and cost nothing in software licensing. What They Are Both pfSense and OPNsense are

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VirtualBox vs Hyper-V vs Parallels vs vSphere: Which Should You Use?

Devices & Peripherals, Hardware & Infrastructure, Software & Systems /

Virtualisation platforms all do the same fundamental thing: run virtual machines. But they’re designed for quite different environments and use cases. Choosing the wrong one means either paying for capability you don’t need or working around limitations that shouldn’t apply to your situation. The Four Platforms VirtualBox Type: Type 2 hypervisor (runs as an application on

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DNS: What It Is and Why It Matters for Your Business

Cloud Computing, Hardware & Infrastructure, Networking, Software & Systems /

Every time you type a website address into your browser, something happens behind the scenes that most people never think about. That something is DNS, and while it’s invisible when working correctly, it has a significant impact on your network’s speed, reliability, and security. What is DNS? DNS stands for Domain Name System. It’s a

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VLANs Explained: Segmenting Your Business Network

Hardware & Infrastructure, Networking, Security /

If everyone on your network (staff laptops, guest devices, smart TVs, security cameras, and the office thermostat) shares the same connection with no separation between them, you have a flat network. It works, but it creates unnecessary risk and performance problems that are easy to avoid. VLANs are the solution. What is a VLAN? A

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RAID is Not a Backup: What People Get Wrong About Data Protection

Devices & Peripherals, Hardware & Infrastructure, Security /

It’s one of the most common misconceptions in small business IT: “We’re fine, we have RAID.” RAID is a valuable technology, but it doesn’t do what most people think it does. Treating it as a substitute for backup is a mistake that has caused real data loss for real businesses. What RAID Actually Does RAID

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