Okay I was thinking that you were comparing with other RAID implementation (most fake RAID cards can't even *grow* the raid, once you've cycled the drives and that the "smallest disk in pool" is now bigger).

Yup, they would handle whatever you throw at them, as long as they can manage to fit the constrains you've asked.

Linux' software RAID support this without any problem. As you finished a cycle of yearly swap over the whole pool, you can increase the RAID to the new maximum (= shared minimum accross the drives). The resize is done on-line and is gracefully restartable (in fact, you can even migrate to bigger RAIDs with more drives gracefully).
(e.g.: After 6 years, once you've upgraded a RAID6 from 6x 1TB to 6x4TB, you can easily grow the system from 4TB to 16TB).

In addition to that, modern filesystems like BTRFS and ZFS can entirely handle the random mixture of disk. Just specify the level of redundancy (i want to be able to lose 2 drives and still suffer no data loss), plug in drives, add them to the pool, and let BTRFS or ZFS handle the actual details.
(e.g.: throw watever mix you want, total size would be always sum of drives minus what's needed for the level of redundancy you asked for).

So the solution would be to use as much Wifi as possible.
(Though the problem would be that not all wifi routers are multi-cast compatible)

Here around (european country) I see an ever lower trend:
Things move to the cloud.

"Set-top box" are nothing more than a glorified network stream viewer.
channels are simply DVB-IPTV over a multicast connection.
(You can actually watch the same channels on your laptop by pointing VLC to the correct rtp:// address)
(and in fact, you can download an iOS / Android App that does exactly that)

"DVR"... are just an extra functionality on the server.
Servers keep a backup of the last 7 days worth of data streams.
Whenever you want to rewatch a previous show (a type of premium service), pause a currently watch show, etc. there's no actual recording to a HD (the boxes don't have a disk by default).
The STB simply opens a private unicast stream from the backup.
"Recording show for a longer time than a week" is either a paid option (a premium service where the server can keep a copy of some stream longer than 7 days) or a paid option (as in, you pay for some USB attached storage and get to keep your own copy)

Beside for the storage (which is paid by the various "playback" premium options) there isn't much requirement (streams are multi-cast, so no big stress on the bandwith. The unicast playbacks are an option and are paid-for)

Doing opensoure vs closedsource comparison has also being been done on a regular basis at phoronix.

To sum things up:

Current Mesa/Gallium3D stack is opengl 3.x only, proprietary drivers are 4.x (but work is being done, including by paid developers)

AMD:
except for the latest generation (where the opensource driver team is still debugging the support - but at least AMD does publish documentation and pays a few opensource developpers on their own, so I WILL EVENTUALLY end up supported), the opensource drivers have a decent performance, which has progressively went closer to the proprietary. For slightly older cards you might as well use the opensource drivers (a bit less buggy). For really old cards, even AMD is acknowledging it: they dropped the support from catalyst and are pointing toward the opensource drivers as the preferred drivers.

In short: if it's not the latest generation of hardware, give the opensource drivers a try. Unless you want to only play OpenGL 4.x games on your machine.

Nvidia:
Here, take this pair of dice, they are better performance predictors...

More seriously: performance is rather random, mainly due to the fact that the opensource drivers are entirely developed by reverse-engineering on whatever the developers hapenned to have (if you happen to have a slighly different model, there isn't much they can do). So random bugs and problems even in the middle of an otherwise supported range.

For newer cards the situation is even worse performance-wise, because they boot underclocked by default, and the driver don't know how to ramp-up clocks as demand increases.

At least, opensource drivers follow linux standards and some features aren't utterly broken.

So for know, stick to closed-source drivers - best performance ever -, unless you happen to need a feature which works differently under windows (and thus wasn't ported to linux). In that case, you might do an attempt with opensource and se on which random result you end-up.

With time, this is bound to change: Nvidia might get interested in helping a bit (they hey released a few bits of useful information regarding the Tegra line of embed GPUs).

Intel:
Has a bit lower support than their (windows proprietary) driver (opensource Linux is GL 3.x, Windows is GL 4.x), and their opensource drivers are a bit slower.

Except that massive computing power is in the form ASICs which are extremely optimized for computing SHA256^2 and nothing else.
So the largest part of the current computing power would be pretty much useless.

You have a chicken and egg problem.
- Gamers install Windows instead of Linux because most of the games are sold for Windows.
- Most of the developer make Windows games, because that's what OS the gamers have.

Valve needs an OS do be less dependent on Microsoft. So they develop a Linux version of Steam and create a Linux-based "SteamOS" distribution on which to run it.
Over time, there are going to be games. But right now there aren't much.
Just right now, its one of the best solution that Valve could come up instead of just staying here and bitching about the chicken-egg situation. (And it's better than relying on unstable solution like Wine, or relying on virtualisation which would be taxing on the hardware of a console's small form factor).

For now as a beginning, the remote streaming is the fix they manage to quickly patch the Game library problem (and also the power limitations too. You just can't fit the equivalent of a high-end gaming PC with 2x dedicated high-end graphics cards in SLI, RAID HDDs and SSDs, etc. in a small diminutive box under the TV. Either you accept having less advanced graphics [the same compromise which pushed AMD APUs in home consoles] or you do streaming. Future iteration of steambox, following Moore's law will probably have better GFX, simply because they came later)

The premice behind Dell and Co, etc. approach is to have a little inventory are possible. That also means using generic parts that they can swap arround.

They are probably not sitting on 10'000 of unused "Steam Box" cases. Very likely, they have a contact with a chinese manufacturer who can quickly supply them small-form factor cases, that they will use for any small-form-factor machine (HTPC, Consoles, etc.) It's probably a variation of the same small-form-factor box that Dell is using as a "enterprise light desktop", with only a different front plastic piece to look a bit more console-y or more HTPC-y depending on needs.
If they have anything less re-usable than that, it is completely suicidal (specially given that it's Valve we're speaking about) and Alienware deserve any problem that they have (the main problem being that they are going to otherwise get beaten by no-name asian manufacturer who are able to use custom part at a higher turnover, simply because they are the building right next to the plastic plant)

Please research this "Just-in-Time manufacturing" that the AC mentionned.
Dell has *almost invented* the concept.

Their ARE NOT sitting on a bunch of thousands of useless premanufactured SteamBoxen that they need to get rid of. These box don't exist yet.
They don't even have a huge inventory of parts waiting to be assembled.
At most, what they have is a couple of prototype that they built in-house and that are ready to be replicated, once the orders start pouring in.

The problem isn't the stock.
The problem, as you mentionned yourself, is the money. Dell has some difficulties (current Asian no-name manufacturer are better than them at the JIT game [being closer to the manufacturing plants producing the part] and are outselling them).
They need to *SELL* something and they need to get diverse (selling as much new original and different products as possible. Selling only desktops won't cut it anymore).
They would have hoped to sell home consoles. Valve would have neen a nice way to have a piece of Sony's and Microsoft's pie. But Valve being Valve, there's no guarantee when they could sell official Steam machines.

So for now they settle in selling whatever else they can think of (a Windows-based living room machine), just to be able to sell something.

By the way:
- SteamOS *DOES* work
- XBox controller *DO* work under Linux.

What the hell where they expecting? It's freaking Valve, with a track record to have completely random concept of "schedule".

Either Alienware should have considered this as a "prototype" (and SteamOS + XBox controler or Logitech or whatever would have been perfectly acceptable. With a paying option to get a Windows License).
Or Alienware should have waited until SteamOS is actually ready.

Namecalling is the best way to explain a point.

Common, it's *Valve* we're speaking about.
They WILL deliver. Except that they will deliver on "Valve Time".
It will be as usual: wonderful, better than expectation, and *horribly* late.

What were they expecting? Given Valve's track record, they shouldn't have jumped on thing before knowing with certainty that Valve is ready.
They should either.
- start producing steam machine as soon as they can (as they did) but clearly state that these are *prototypes* and probably part of the functionality will be missing.
- or NOT jump on the bandwagon so quickly, and wait until Valve get their shit together (which could be anywhere between now and 2017) and then release a machine with all the features and the specs.

What Alienware did was as stupid as announcing a "special offer with 'Half-Life Episode 3' packaged in for free together with the machine!", and then not knowing what to do as Valve is delayed, packaging some random "Medal of Duty" instead.

Also, SteamOS actually, does work. The problem isn't Linux, the problem are:
- controller (are still tweaked)
- linux games (currently, steam OS works better as a light box to play your game on the living room's big screen/projector by *streaming them* out of a Windows war machine somewhere else in the appartment, rather than playing them directly there. Porting takes time).

When you travel as a group of several skier/snowboarder in the same car, the equippement don't necessarily all fit in the back's ski trap.
You either have to pushdown one of the back seats (and lose one place for one gang member), or you put all the skis and snowboards on the roof (at a small mileage cost but you still have enough room for the whole team).

Well after reading a bit on-line, it seems that they have a business model running a bit differently:
- they "almost give-out" the charging station to terrain owner (owner of highway shop/gaz-station, etc.)
- the owner only has to supply electricity (and as said electricity is cheap)
- in exchange, the owner gets an increased traffic in the shop/restraurant
(people, who have 10 to 30 minute to kill until full charge and buy food/drinks).

In that context, it's in the land owner's best interest to have a open technology in the charging stations:
- the more open the standard, the more different drivers can stop to charge, and thus the more customers.

And Tesla in turn has a small advantage too:
- the more shop/restaurant along the highway are likely to rent such stations, the more charging spots there are going to be overall, and the less potential customer will be afraid by range problems.
- thus market for eletrical vehicle increase (of which Tesla has a substantial mind-share, and produce the longest-range vehicle)
- thus market for car lithium batteries increase (a field where Tesla is leading, to the point that some people want to persuade them to drop the Model S and concentrate entirely on batteries for other companies).

Or to put it differently: all this charger will need batteries to charge, and Tesla is apparently the best game in town for batteries.
(It would be as if Sanyo started to provide "free charging station" around in a country where Enloop have the strongest market penetrance)

Also, I don't see any reason for Russia to have any interests in Snowden's intelligence.

On the contrary, I see 2 reasons NOT to:

- Russia probably knows most of this already. That's the country with FSB/KGB/etc.: They've been at this spying game for a long time and have a lot of experience. If a lone guy like Edward can pull such an operation without much help, imagin what Russia could do with way more ressources. (Ditto for China).

- Because he's known, it would be a diplomatic problem to openly use snowden as an intelligence source. better not touch him even with a 10-foot-pole and rely on their own (better funded, better trained) spy force.

Electricity is dead cheap.
A full charge cost a lot less than the equivalent range in gaz.
Tesla will probably center around a different model to attract customers.

One very possible model would be for Telsa to keep the charging either free or with only a small monthly/yearly fee, and earn most of the money through the services next to the station. (The charging is going to last up to 30 minutes any way. The driver and passenger are very likely going to take some time eating or drinking something).