mattpayne

Hi Stephen, Im not going to add much useful, but The Unifi kit is a lot more user friendly than the HP/Aruba stuff ( I have both) but the Dream machine really doesn't live upto its name in a enterprise environment... I use Cloud key Gen2 controllers, which are great, but run really hot and dont fit my rack, so bought a Dream Machine Pro... Ive used one in a remote office and other than being a sod to upgrade to the latest firmware (going from v1.something to 3.something doesn't work, you have to upgrade incrementally about 4 times) it was a breeze. problem is with existing networks, you cant directly configure its IP address, it needs to have WAN access and act as a router, even if all you want to do is use it as a controller. I cant replace my router and I dont want to double NAT and reconfigure my whole network just to add a controller, so mine is sitting in a corner while i find a way to get round this... Apparently one bodge is to create a separate VLAN just for the WAN port of the DMP nothing will use it, but it will stop the DMP from having a wet... but then, as you cant directly configure the host IP, it will assign a X.X.X.1 address to its LAN port which, in my case is the same IP as my current gateway so that doesnt work! there is probably some SSH stuff one can do to get round this, but I dont have time or inclination to tackle this just yet, Im only pleased its just a few hundred quid, so not a colossal loss...

As pointed out by @DynabookDawn, there isnt a problem with these laptops... which means this is the quality of their product!!! like you, ive NEVER encountered a brand where you must so very carefully manage the storage and usage of a laptop or else the batteries swell up and could potentially explode... It is a massive shame as so much money was wasted by the DFE in buying these laptops... so, so fragile, ive never seen anything like it, even in cheap chinese crap that ive bought from alibaba over the years!

Alm ours were DOA too, much like Dr Cheese, we had better things to worry about, especially after we warranty replaced 2 (when dfe were managing the repairs) and had two replacement units with the same issues...

Hi Dawn, thanks for turning up and being a voice for dynabook. Not being charged is one thing, but I've had scores of laptops with lipo batteries that haven't been used for a long period of time, this week I have switched on a core2duo that hadn't seen the light of day for years, a surface pro that i can't remember seeing on since lockdown and an old xps that was last on in June... before the dfe allowance I pulled about a dozen old tosh laptops from the wee pile to reuse, other than the odd cost battery problem not one of these laptops had an issue with deep discharge, Dynabook laptops have a 100% failure rate if left lor a few months which means that I will avoid any products like the plague! I may have been lucky in that of my fleet of around 2000 laptops over the past 20 years, excluding dynabook products I've only had swollen batteries in probably 5 instances... the two actually remember being 2011 Macbook pros... I have at another school got a pile of dynabooks with exactly the same issue... is there a direct contact we can use at dynabook to get these batteries replaced, it wasn't hard work, but as the devices are all out of warranty, it also wasn't plain sailing. Would be interesting to see other people's experiences- are the batteries used by dynabook more fragile than those used by other manufacturers?? Can people with the issue share what percentage of devices were doa?

Well, if you dont test, you have more tests available, people dont have to isolate and the stats show less positives... its win, win, win!! (If your a prime minister trying to show control over spiralling numbers and hide a shortage of tests... )

We tried using harsh words - didnt work We tried using Encrypted sticks, but at a glance a stick is a stick and its impossible to tell if the staff are using the correct one. Finally used Netsupport DNA to disable USB access. this blocks all USB devices, but has the ability to allow specific sticks for specific people/machines, its a bit clunky and expensive, but ticked all the boxes for keeping our DPO relatively happy!

Im not sure a firmware update will make much of a difference, they need to be swapped out for new battery packs as they are a potential fire/explosion risk. the number of these machines must be quite high and with them residing in the possession of vulnerable kids someone needs to think of the children!!!

A little late to the party here, but Ive just been inside my 3 faulty A30s and in all of them the batteries had blown... ive seen in another school about 5 that were doa too. Like you lot, they were like that from the box. surely there are enough failures for this to be classed as a faulty batch and for a recall? how do we manage that? the laptops are far from amazing, but too good to just bin.

The standard Dell USB network adapters are only £20 and once UEFI network stack is selected PXE is fine from MDT

Hi, ive tried on 4 occasions to call tucasi support over the past week, each time ive become bored and hung up after between 15-30 minutes on hold - Im new to this provider - should I expect a wait time as long as this to hit first line support or am i just unlucky!

physical or virtual, there should be no question on this one! always virtual... makes backups and migrations and DR so much simpler...not much complexity in it and the server 2012 licence allows for 2 servers plus host so you win a free server! allows room to migrate MIS, run Direct Access, and just play with extra servers, workstations and stuff. again, DR is my main reason for never going physical again - with a site without any failover, like a primary, using Veeam I can repurpose any available hardware and have the network back in 30 minutes. my last new midsize primary (400) was last year so guideline spec... Dell T630 2 12core Xeon 64GB RAM the faster RAID card with more cache to make up for RAID5 HDD is flexible, but I've been going 4x600GB sas RDX Veeam for about £4k my bigger schools get less RAID6 and NLSAS for data storage

as above Id be tempted to use a scsii hba and a byte for byte image of the disk before plugging it into anything that may want to write a config to the drive... I used r-studio to recover data from a software parity storage pool which had lost 2 disks! it has the ability to guess RAID setups without the right controller, its cheap and the support I had was excellent, find it at r-studio.com I am not affiliated in any way with them, but I am a happy camper after using them!

Just to confirm, looks like its working here too - Microsoft Surface 3 tablets, upgraded from OEM win8.1 to win10 pro retail x64. all worked fine on the wired LAN, but wifi refused to install gpo software assignments. created a new GPO with the slow link detection and enabled the UNC hardening win10 ADMX template with requiteauthentication and integrity for sysvol & netlogon =0 all is now good in the world! Thanks guys! have a great Christmas!

Surface 2 or Dell Venue 11 (not the atom) will both have the grunt to run that, but also have the advantage of a real desktop dock for stationary work

I spoke too soon! Any idea on pricing/availability on the 600GB models?