[Android Stick & Console Intel based Computers] rlanza1054:
Hi all,

I just ordered one after reading your review.

I lost my big desktop about a year ago and have relied on my new Dell XPS 12 2 in 1. Its a nice laptop (or notebook, whatever they call these things today).

I had everything on my desktop, I really used it as a file server.

I was trying to save up money to get another large desktop with a lot of bays to hold all my hard drives and I wanted a PC that had at least 8 SATA version 3.0 ports built into the motherboard. My dead PC had 6 SATA version 1.0.

As of today, I still had the internal hard drives installed in the cage, that was inside the case.

It ran on 2 128GB SSD's setup as RAID 0 and 2 2TB HDD setup as RAID 1.

The SSD drives were setup as the System Drive, this thing booted in seconds, very fast.

The HDD drives were setup as my Data Drive, not as fast but well protected since they were mirrored using RAID 1.

The only thing that broke was the motherboard.

Oh, it had 8 or 16 GB of RAM (probably 8GB, my memory is shaky), running 64bit Windows 8.1 on a Quad Core CPU.

It wasn't the fast gaming machine, but it was good enough for me.

I had attached 2 24 inch monitors that had both HDMI and WVGA ports. The monitors were from HP and are able to be positioned in either Landscape (typical setting) and Portrait mode.

I don't know why I just didn't buy a new motherboard, maybe because it was about 6 years old.

Anyway, in the meantime, I found a backup of my DATA drives and purchased a 3TB HDD which I connected to my Asus RT-AC68U router that comes with 2 USB 3.0 ports, So the 3TB HDD is connected to one of the ports and the other port has my Dymo label printer. My other printers are wireless.

So that is my current setup and its OK the way its working but I niss having my desktop and miss using the large monitors. (I know I could hookup one monitor to the laptop, but I keep the laptop in another room.

But I do want access to the real DATA drives, that backup I used was old and some stuff is missing.

So tonight I purchased 2 different kinds of NAS devices. One cheapo ($60) which has 4 USB ports and one Ethernet port. Its supposed to allow the drives to be seen on the network.

The other NAS device is 4 drive capable housing by Buffalo, also pretty cheap ($189).

I guess I have to wait to see if either of these two work for me.

Then i came across your mention of this AINOL mini PC.

When searching for the NAS stuff, I thought I could just get a PC on a stick and attach some of the drives to it and make then shareable. A poor man's NAS system.

But when I saw this AINOL is was the only thing I found that came with USB 3.0 ports, all the others only had USB 2.0 ports (very old out of the gate).

The last thing I noticed is that this sucker is portable and battery operated! Wow, the possibilities! And able to recharge my smartphone!

It has the right amount of ports to be very useful.

Now to end this, how fast is this thing anyway.

Is it an Intel Atom chip? If it is those are deadly slow for real work, but using it as a file server maybe not so bad?

How is it to really use?

Will I be totally disappointed? I do recognize it will never be as fast as what I had, but if its as good as my laptop (this Dell XPS 12 2 in 1, which comes with an Intel i7 chip 64bit).

I am going to come back here when it arrives to follow your instructions on how to make an emergency recover image and an of the other suggestions you listed here.

And yes, I have plenty of Bluetooth keyboards with mouse combos.

I'm not sure what else I should plan on having or doing before it arrives.

Thank you!

Rob

P.S. I ordered it before I noticed your 10 percent coupon, oh well!