That is damn ugly.

Is this really that strange to everyone? They're not regulating the blender, they're regulating the engine. I think most people agree that, in general, polluting less is better than polluting more, right? So there are standards set for engines that can be sold in CA, and this one doesn't meet them. End of story.

As for CARB, sure there's a bureaucracy there, but name me a large organization, and I'm not just talking government, that doesn't have one. Anyone who thinks that private industry is devoid of red tape, bureaucracy, and politics hasn't worked at a company with more than 10 people in it.

This would be great.

I'd love this thing.

It all depends on the price of gas. The ICE has had a century of development time for companies to make it more efficient and pull cost out of it. Battery technology is just now hitting its stride, so it's more expensive, as you point out. But if gas prices rise to that $4+/gallon level, these vehicles start to make a lot more sense.

There are reasons for paying the extra $, though. (I've recently replaced a homebuilt server-based NAS with a QNAP TS-409.) For one, if something goes wrong with your homebrew setup, you have multiple warranties to deal with rather than just one. Secondly, power consumption and noise levels are usually lower on dedicated hardware than with a parts-built server. For me though, the reason I switched when replacing my old NAS was that I wanted it to just work. On the old box, I had to build the server, install an OS, install all the software I needed for functionality, and then troubleshoot it when it didn't all play nicely together. There's real value in that.

That being said, the cheapest solution will always be a home built system. If you have lots of time and a tight budget, that's the way to go.

I've got the qnap TS-409. It's got 4 drive bays, less ram, a slower CPU and doesn't support iSCSI. It totally kicks ass. I went the homebuilt-media-server route for several years (because it was cheaper) and I must say, it's great to have a dedicated box for this stuff. You can nickel and dime your way to a device that performs the same functions, but there are plenty of reasons to get a real solution. With the homebuilt server, if anything breaks you have like 12 different warranties to deal with. Also, as another poster mentioned, these boxes do hardware RAID, not software, and they consume far less power than a homebuilt server does.

It backs up my data, has an auto-downloader (http, ftp, bittorrent), and streams media to my 360. Perfect.

The only complaint I have about the qnap is the low-rent UI. It gets the job done, but don't expect Apple-like levels of refinement.

comment'd

Or a Qnap. (They're less expensive than the Drobos, since you don't have to buy a bunch of add-ons to make them network accessible, etc.)

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