Cool.
I was really waiting for 5Ghz radio support, but this will do. 2.4Ghz is so broken around here I need to have an AP within 50cm of the chromecast for it to work reliably, but if I move it there 5Ghz goes to shit in the main bedroom... go figure
The Crucial/Micron SSDs has been fixed. They are all shipping with fixed firmware nowadays and a updater is available for the rest.
Linux uses a more modern and performant variant of TRIM, namely queued TRIM, than is currently supported by Windows. Samsung just recently started enabling support for it on their drives in the form of firmware updates and on newer shipments, but something tells me they forgot to properly test it because it's not yet used in Windows.
I didn't check but I suspect Windows 10 will start using it, however.
The newest firmware updates for still supported Samsung drives enabled queued TRIM support as part of SATA 3.2 enablement, but the feature is supremely buggy. Issuing a queued TRIM at the wrong time and the SSD controller locks up, possibly eating some data in the process. And who knows what happens when it seemingly works.. Samsung support and other public channels will likely still deny this, but a fix should be in the works according to my sources.
Luckily for Samsung only Linux and possibly Windows 10 (but thats still beta) has started making use of this feature. Linux recently blacklisted the feature on Samsung 8*, but it has just started to come out in distributions update channels, and install media also need to get updated.
For the 840 EVO this was extra bad luck; the new firmware is required to get usable read performance, so everyone is updating, getting broken queued TRIM instead.
For the 850 Pro I've got 3 shipped with broken firmware from the factory from two different suppliers a month or so ago.
Until the dust has settled stay away from Samsung SSDs.
Some of the newer fancier fiber networks around here have a free 512kbs down/512kbps up tier. No caps and no starting fee. All the apts already have the fiber box and if you just connect your ethernet cable to it you get the free tier by default. Not sure what they do with support.. The "loss" of income I guess is compensated by getting the build-out deal in the first place, taken back on the higher tiers, and of course when they already have to put the box there in the first place its not like the bandwidth consumed costs them anything other than pocket change these days.
Except that the nominal cost of delivering a given amount of bits/second is dropping signficantly every year. Much faster than inflation manages to pull in the other direction. I'd be surprised if the U.S. is in some kind of paralell universe where technology does not advance.
An interesting concept has been coming live over here in Norway lately, where connectivity is split in 3 layers and they're all operated by different entities, none of which are related to government. The fiber - layer 1 - is owned by the neighbourhood itself, which in turn leases it out to the layer 2 operator. ISP's and content providers then connect through the layer 2 provider, providing IP, telephony and television. No government involved other than maybe a few permits. This model is appearantly quite popular over in Sweden. In Norway we're just getting started.
The main problem seems to be to convince your neighbourhood to throw out the incumbents, they are "unfortunately" providing a decent service most places here nowadays and the older population is more concerned with how many "free" shitty tv channels they get in the base package included with the apartment rent rather than having invidiual freedom of choice and competition.
When it comes to pricing this 3 layer model seems to provide at least vastly cheaper IP service than the incumbent operators. For the price I pay for 120/10Mbps service now, I'd get 400/100Mbps.. Hmmm. Still no caps and DPI QoS sheenanigans.
Did they lower the base price accordingly when adding caps? Didn't think so.
2000 pounds of chinese soup = 1 Won Ton
