TechTalk

Building Purpose-Built Development and Testing Servers to Accelerate Software Delivery

By Mike March 20, 2025

Building a high-performance development and testing environment is more than just installing high-end components. It’s about crafting custom infrastructure that reflects the specific needs of your workflows, whether that’s streamlining CI/CD pipelines, supporting legacy frameworks, or embedding compliance into every commit. After configuring countless Development and Testing Servers for teams ...

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Transforming Raw Data into Business Intelligence: Why You Need a Data Science Workbench Server

By Mike March 13, 2025

At TechMikeNY, we've seen firsthand how the right hardware transforms a company's relationship with its data. After configuring thousands of Data Science Workbench servers for organizations ranging from financial institutions to healthcare providers, we've learned that the difference between generating reports and driving decisions often comes down to the dedicated infrastructure powering yo...

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Beyond the Lag: How We Configure Gaming Servers That Create Communities

By Mike March 05, 2025

At TechMikeNY, we understand that gaming servers are about more than just hardware specs - they're about building experiences and communities. After helping thousands of gamers move from frustrating commercial hosting to dedicated servers they control for popular titles like Minecraft Java Edition, Palworld, Rust, Ark: Survival Evolved, Valheim, Terraria, Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike 2, S...

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From Cloud Control to Owner Control: How We Benchmark Application Hosting Servers

By Mike February 26, 2025

At TechMikeNY, we've seen a growing trend among forward-thinking IT leaders: strategic repatriation of critical business applications from the cloud back to on-premises infrastructure. After helping thousands of businesses migrate their ERP systems, CRM platforms, and custom applications to dedicated hardware, we've learned that this shift isn't just about cost savings—though those are signi...

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Tired of Cloud Storage Bills? How We Configure Surveillance Servers That Pay For Themselves

By Mike February 18, 2025

At TechMikeNY, we've seen the shock on customers' faces when they review their cloud storage bills for surveillance footage. Between per-camera licensing fees, bandwidth charges, and storage costs that grow every month, cloud-based security solutions can quickly spiral out of control. After helping thousands of businesses move their surveillance systems back on-premises, we've learned exac...

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From Lab to Live: How We Configure Servers To Match Your Virtualization Goals

By Mike February 10, 2025

At TechMikeNY, every virtualization server we configure starts with understanding the endgame: Are you building a home lab for VMware certification? Scaling a DevOps environment? Running production workloads? This shapes how we prioritize four critical performance areas: VM Density Performance: We test how many VMs can run simultaneously while maintaining responsiveness. Unlike basic cor...

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How We Put Media Servers to the Test: The 4 Key Benchmarks

By Mike February 03, 2025

At TechMikeNY, we've learned that creative work demands hardware that can keep up. After equipping countless post-production houses, design firms, and creative departments with media servers, we know that the difference between smooth workflows and frustrating bottlenecks often comes down to how the hardware performs under real-world conditions. That's why we put every media server through a r...

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How We Put Network Attached Storage (NAS) Servers to the Test: The 3 Key Benchmarks

By Mike January 28, 2025

Look, storage is personal. Every customer we talk to has their own take: video production teams need fast streaming of 4K footage, backup administrators require ironclad data protection, and small businesses want simple file sharing that just works. We've shipped thousands of storage servers running everything from TrueNAS, Unraid, OpenMediaVault, and Windows Storage Server. And after decades ...

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How We Put Database Servers to the Test: The 4 Key Benchmarks

By Mike January 21, 2025

At TechMikeNY, we don't just sell refurbished servers - we obsess over finding the optimal configurations for even the most demanding enterprise workloads. Over the past 20 years, we've shipped thousands of database servers running everything from MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL, SAP, and HANA.

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Another Use for a Raspberry Pi: Pimoroni Enviro + Air Quality Setup Guide

By Mike June 19, 2024

Here at TechMikeNY, we love Raspberry Pis. And as you know, we’re pretty big on watching out for the environment. So when we found the Pimoroni Enviro + Air Quality sensor kit for Raspberry Pi, we realized we had to try it out. The Enviro+’s sensors can monitor environmental conditions like temperature, humidity, and air quality - and they’re all on one teeny board! And as it turns out, there...

flagData Visualization flagDIY Project flagDocker flagHomelab flagIOTStack flagNode-RED flagRaspberry Pi flagVirtualization

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Setting Up a RAID 1 Virtual Disk in UEFI

By Mike May 22, 2024

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's... another RAID tutorial from TechMikeNY? (Yes, yes it is.) This time, we'll walk you through how to set up a RAID 1 Virtual Disk in UEFI Mode.For the following process, it is best if the server is in UEFI boot mode. TechMikeNY configures servers in UEFI before shipping so you should be good to go, but if you need help setting it up on your own, you can see our i...

flagDell 14th Generation flagDell 15th Generation flagHow To flagRAID flagRAID 1 flagRAID Controller flagTutorial flagUEFI flagVideo

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How to Configure a BOSS Card: Setting Up RAID

By Mike May 15, 2024

If you don't have fault tolerance for your OS and your drive fails...no worky. As in, the magic smoke has leaked out. As in, your device won't boot. Enter: the BOSS card. Setting up a RAID 1 array on a BOSS card can provide data redundancy and fault tolerance for the OS. So here's how you do it. Creating a RAID 1 Array in the F2 Menu 1. To begin setup, boot into the F2 Menu and head to...

flagBackup flagBOSS flagDell 14th Generation flagHow To flagRAID flagTutorial

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Upcycling Projects: Turning a Chassis Into a Planter

By Mike May 08, 2024

As you may know, TechMike’s office is practically a jungle at this point. It’s also filled to the brim with server chassis. Amid the greenery and the gear, TechMike realized that you could totally turn an R720xd into a planter… so that’s exactly what happened. We put together a quick tutorial for how you can upcycle your old equipment; whether it’s because of forced obsolescence or your rack ju...

flagBehind-the-scenes flagCreative flagDell PowerEdge flagDIY flagGardening flagHome Lab flagHow To flagPlanter flagUpcycling

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AMD or Intel Inside?

By Mike April 30, 2024

Dell PowerEdge servers come in models optimized for Intel or AMD processors. But how do you know if the PowerEdge model you’re looking at is an Intel or an AMD server? Turns out, it’s all in the title. Dell PowerEdge model names typically consist of a letter followed by either 3 or 4 digits. Here’s how to tell what’s what. Dell PowerEdge Naming Conventions Three digit naming convention If yo...

flagAcronym flagAMD flagComparison Chart flagDell 14th Generation flagDell 15th Generation flagIntel

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Timelapse ASMR: Watch Us (Re)Build Servers From Scratch

By Mike February 28, 2024

As you might have guessed, configuring enterprise-grade servers takes some serious attention and care. After sourcing the right combination of compatible processors, RAM sticks, RAID controllers, drive bays, you name it, our expert technicians put meticulous work and a whole lot of love into each and every unique server we send out. Don't just take our word for it. Take a peek behind-the-scen...

flagAuthentic TechMikeNY flagBehind-the-scenes flagConfigure-to-Order (CTO) flagCustom flagDell 12th Generation flagDell 13th Generation flagDell 14th Generation flagVlog

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GPU Compatibility: What to Consider

By Mike February 12, 2024

From rendering complex graphics to training neural networks, the specialized parallel processing capabilities of a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) are designed to substantially accelerate modern data center workloads. But of course, just finding a GPU that physically fits into your server isn't enough. The specific model and type of GPU should also be compatible with the server’s connectors, pow...

flagCables flagCompatibility flagConfigure-to-Order (CTO) flagCooling flagGPU flagGraphics flagPower Supply Unit flagRisers

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All About RAID Batteries – Preventing Data Failure with Hardware

By Mike January 17, 2024

Ever sat around and wondered about your RAID controller’s battery? Can’t say we have either. But turns out, Reddit is full of people who are curious to know what it’s for. So naturally, we had to talk about it. RAID controllers come with a dedicated battery, the RAID battery, that works to preserve the controller's cache memory in the event of sudden power loss. In this blogpost, we’re talkin...

flagBackup flagBattery flagCache flagData Loss flagNVDIMM flagPower Supply Unit flagRAID flagRAID Controller

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WATCH: Installing a Rear Flex Bay in an R740xd 24-Bay Server

By Mike December 20, 2023

This tutorial will show you, step-by-step, how to install a rear flex bay into a 24-Bay Dell PowerEdge R740xd server. The installation would also be the same for installing in an R740xd 12-bay server; however, with rear flex bays for 12-bay servers, the SAS cable placement is different on the chassis backplane, and you would need to use a different SAS cable (more on that later). NOTE: With 12t...

flagBackplanes flagCables flagDell 14th Generation flagFlex Bay flagHome Lab flagHow To flagMotherboard

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TechMike’s RAM Compatibility Checklist, Part 2: What About Speed?

By Mike November 15, 2023

Too slow... too fast... juuust right. Yep, that's right. We're talking max RAM speed. You may have already read the RAM Compatibility Checklist. (Hopefully.) But there's one crucial specification we didn't cover that determines whether your system even boots up - the max compatible RAM speed. We know, just when you thought you had this RAM compatibility thing pinned down, there's ANOTHER set of...

flagCompatibility flagDell 12th Generation flagDell 13th Generation flagDell 14th Generation flagMemory flagProcessors flagRAM flagSpeed

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Server Review: The Dell PowerEdge R640

By Mike October 25, 2023

It's been a while since TechMike's reviewed a server, but today, we're taking a look at the Dell PowerEdge R640. The R640 is a versatile 1U rack server suitable for data-driven workloads. It packs high compute density and expandability into a compact 1U chassis. In this blogpost, we'll tell you everything we think about the R640 and what makes it tick. Overview and Specifications The PowerEdge ...

flagCompatibility flagDell 14th Generation flagMemory flagR640 flagServer Review flagStorage

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