Thank you so much! This is perfect.

So, I have to look for new graphics cards.

Analyze budgets for 27″ monitors.

and figure out my back up plan.

You guys are awesome!
Heather Villa, CMA, MBA, MSM´s last blog ..New Home Office Coming Soon!

2) Best if your backups aren’t plugged in (or at least turned on) most of the time for security, and even better if they’re offsite. A second Drobo is fine as a backup but I’d look at using CrashPlan Pro to do the actual backup, hitting the second Drobo. It compresses, deduplicates, and you can use another CrashPlan system (on-site or over the internet) or CrashPlan’s own “cloud backup” service as a secondary target for the same files…so you’d have a local (fast to make and restore) backup and an offsite (over the internet, slower, but more secure) backup. If you have the offsite backup, keeping the second Drobo unplugged (to protect from lightening) is less of an issue but both could still be destroyed in a fire, hence offsite as a good option. CrashPlan also keeps multiple versions of history so you can go “back in time” to deleted or modified documents. You can also pre-backup all your stuff to an exernal drive (a Drobo even) and then give it to someone else, they attach to their computer running CrashPlan as well and you can then just update your backup over the internet to their system while avoiding transferring the whole huge initial backup over the internet (which would take weeks or more for 4TB). It’s all encrypted so only you have access though.

3) Erson’s points here are valid, and yes that’s what it means. You want the largest size monitor that’s sold that that resolution…22″ maxes out at 1680×1050, while 24″ starts at 1920×1200 while the 27″ is the same resolution over a larger area…thus more “stretched out.” We were talking about this in the Church IT chat earlier (I linked to your post and it sparked a discussion…that’s why Erson posted
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Super! Lots of great advice here.

So: #1) I have 24″ monitors and I use Windows Vista and I know I have 2 different manufacturers Graphic Cards, best bet would probably be to purchase 2 completely new graphic cards, each supporting 2 monitors from the same manufacturer, right?

#2: Ooooh, good point. What are the chances? And alternatively – what can I back up a 4TB Drobo with besides a Drobo? I guess a cloud back up rather than in-office back up?

#3! Yes that is my problem, the 1920×1200 is my resolution on my 24″ and everything looks so tiny. Are you saying a 27″ with the same resolution as my 24″ would look better as the icons and text would appear larger?
Heather Villa, CMA, MBA, MSM´s last blog ..New Home Office Coming Soon!

#2 Backup is good. There is no reason why a drobo couldn’t backup a drobo just fine. Some obscure reasons could for example be made that what if Data Robotics Inc. released a faulty firmware for their drobos which made the data inaccessible or corrupt and if you have two drobo units and update the firmware on both you could loose both the original and the backup data.

#3 For best results you should _always_ use the native resolution on LCD displays. The native resolution on a LCD is based on the number of vertical and horizontal pixels on the LCD panel. If you use another resolution (that isn’t a quarter of the native resolution) you will get poor display results. The thing you can do instead of changing things in software is to buy monitors with a large dot pitch. Dot pitch is the size of the pixels I talked about earlier. For example a 20″ and a 22″ LCD monitor usually have the same 1680×1050 resolution. Since the 22″ is larger the pixels are also larger and things doesn’t look so small. Another monitor with a large dot pitch is 27″ LCDs which have a resolution of 1920×1200. The same resolution is used on most 24″ displays and those three extra diagonal inches of the 27″ really helps in making 1920×1200 usable for those that think everything looks small on a 24″.

Good luck with the office!

Erson from Sweden

#1: How do I know what graphic cards have 2 monitor connections (i.e. do I have one?)

#2: You can’t know everything (your head will explode)

#3: That is EXACTLY what I did, and that is why pages started to look warped, I put it back to 96dpi (vs 120) and everything is tiny again, but websites look normal and I just zoom when I need to. Would like something ‘more permanent’. I tried playing with the resolution. Got some good ones for size, but text and things were blurred.

#2 – no idea . Me no know drobo. However you do need to back it up somehow, I suspect.

#3 – might play with the DPI settings in Windows. http://ask-leo.com/how_can_i_make_the_text_on_my_screen_larger.html there are occasional side effects, but the intent is exactly what it sounds you’re looking for.

Leo