This page serves as a frequently updated list of hardware peripherals like printers and networking gear which we’re using around the house, stuff we rely on and trust, for the most part. You can also see what I’m using as far as computer systems, other hardware, software and web services as well as stuff I’m just messing with.
(Last updated March 10, 2024)
Big printer
My primary printer at home is a monochrome laser Brother HL-2380DW which I bought around 2015. It’s large and speedy (rated 32 pages/minute) with both wifi and ethernet connections and it can print on both sides of the paper to save trees. It also has a handy, built in scanner.
Big monitor
For my Mac mini and various laptops, I need a desktop monitor in my home office. The current choice is Apple’s Studio Display, which replaced a 27-inch Lenovo ThinkVision X1 4K display in March, 2022. Apple’s 27-inch display brings the bright, sharp goodness of our old iMac’s screen and also includes a bunch of USB C ports on the back, speakers, and a decent webcam. It’s also pretty pricey and not quite as mind blowing as Apple’s 24-inch LED Cinema Display was way back in 2010.
The household network got a major overhaul in October, 2007, when we switched to Verizon’s FIOS service, which has been upgrading us to speedier service every now and then. In 2021, stuck home due to the pandemic and with the Wifi routers crying and moaning trying to get signals through our chickenwire infested walls, we upgraded to a Dream Machine router and mesh access points from Ubiquiti Networks. Expensive, requiring pro installation, and kinda complicated at times, the Ubiquiti set up finally vanquished all of our transmission problems.
Network attached storage
Some years ago, I had a couple of hard drives laying around and saw a cheap Netgear ReadyNAS NV+ for sale online. So I put together a small network-attached storage server. In 2015, wanting to upgrade to larger drives, I bought Netgear’s ReadyNAS 204, which holds four spinning disks. I have configured it in some kind of RAID array where two of the disks are redundant copies of the other two. This means you can swap out one or two disks at a time for newer disks with higher capacity. It sometimes gets wonky with MacOS Sonoma, however. I blogged about setting up the original ReadyNAS on October 23, 2010.
Other stuff:
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