Patriot Javelin S4 4-Bay NAS Enclosure Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2012-05-07
·
2,381 words · ~11 min read
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today I've got a pretty cool product from Patriot to show you guys this is
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the javelin S4 media server and what
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this does is pretty much everything that I can think of in terms of a standalone
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Nas boox and some things that I actually
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didn't even think of so why don't we start with what's on the packaging on
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the outside and then we'll go from there so Patriot figures these are the main
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talking points I have my own notes on what I think are the main talking points
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so we'll compare them later on first of all it is an iTunes server so you can
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use a single iTunes account for all computers in your network that's handy
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okay it is a Logitech Squeezebox server so you can stream to Logitech enabled
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devices that's also handy you can do Nas to NAS backup so you can actually image
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with another Javelin unit within your network or outside your network so that
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means you can do off-site backups using
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a couple of in units that's very cool
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and that's actually not something that was on my list so I'm glad they brought it up it is time machine compatible so
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this is another Apple thing please don't don't hit the dislike button time
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machine compatible is a handy feature it has a bit torrent client so you can
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download and manage all of your favorite torrent files um remotely okay remote
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media playback so you can stream your media through a web browser or
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iphone/Android mobile app that one's really cool that one in my eyes should
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be up at the top UPnP and DNA certified okay so you can
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seamlessly connect to other Home media devices and finally you can share you
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can show off your media with friends and family anywhere so you can share files
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over the inar webs all right here we go product highlights this is all pretty
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similar stuff oh no actually there's more here okay so data storage over the
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network and internet with Mobile Media Center and dashboard access photo albums
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documents and more so that's that internet sharing bit okay you've got the
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DLNA digital media server so that gives you instant access to music pictures
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videos via digital media players on the home network such as the Patriot box
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office all right um Logitech Squeeze Box
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uh OneTouch backup of an external hard drive digital camera via USB that's
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actually a really cool feature that's something that's a software thing they've enabled that a lot of nases do
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not support with their USB ports all
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right NZ to NAS replication we already covered that snapshot for instant backup
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and restoration backing up your home PCS is something that is critical for any
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Nas to do now the software Solutions are either very elegant or very terrible in
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my experience so uh that's something
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that I'm glad that Patriot has worked into the javelin because backing up your
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PC is the only real solution running something like a raid one in a home
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computer is not a real solution because if you get a virus you still get wiped
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out so doing nightly backups is something that I would definitely
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recommend to everybody smart sync backup
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for automatic client backup okay good good good jumbo frame support so this is
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a 1 GB Nas so you do have fast transfer
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support and it supports Network print server via USB connected printers you
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can access an attach and access USB and
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ESAT external hard drives as a folder share on the javelin S4 so you can
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actually expand the storage beyond the four Drive Bays that are included with
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the javelin S4 it has a 2-year warranty and here is a little Network map which
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I'll show you more of in a minute which has a bunch of different ways that you
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can use the Java so flexible raid configurations I
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mentioned it supports four drives we it supports a raid zero and a stripe I mean
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okay please please never set up four
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drives in a raid zero in a backup device that completely defeats the purpose
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don't do it wrong raid one mirror this
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is a good way to set it up so you can actually take two drives or four drives
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and you can set them up to mirror each other so even if any one drive fails
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you're going to have all of your data replicated somewhere else on a
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completely um data identical Drive RAID 10 is mirror
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and stripe performance and backup I still don't really recommend it because
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you're going to be limited by gigabit Ethernet anyway you might as well just
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stick with your raid ones or your raid fives so raid five is three drives or
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more and it allows you to have any one
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drive fail and then you can put in another drive and rebuild the array as
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if it was never gone so it supports the capacity of two drives with with three
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drives so it's quite a bit more efficient than raid one where you need
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two drives to support the capacity of one drive but you have the disadvantage
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of rebuild time if a drive does go down in the array now raid five is cool be or
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with a spare dis is cool because you can throw four drives in your Javelin S4 if
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and one of them is sitting there idling doing nothing if any one drive fails
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that idling doing nothing Drive will automatically build itself into the
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array to replace it and then you can at your leisure take out the dead drive and
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put in a new one the javelin S4 does
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support 3 terb drives so you can throw
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up to 12 terabytes of
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storage okay good it's okay into this tiny little
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box comes very well packed as you guys just saw it's got a big old thick layer
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of foam on all sides of it this is up to about an inch thick on all sides so I
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really wouldn't worry about being any damage to your drives or your javelin in
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transit all right let's put that box back together I wanted to show you guys
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that Network map later so we'll show that and here I'm just going to move
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back a little bit so you don't see my notes all right in terms of accessories
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we don't have too much we've got what feels like a very solid very heavy duty
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Ethernet cable with goldplated connectors looks like a 6t cable and
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then we have a power adapter looks like it has a built-in power supply so no uh
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no external power brick very nice nice okay we've got drivers and manuals the
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fan contains hazardous moving Parts don't you know put your fingers or other
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objects in it you've got a quick start guide which is like in a lot of
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different languages and stuff so you're covered pretty much no matter
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how things go and this looks like some kind of a key my guess is that it's to
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keep other people from just walking up to your jabin and pulling all of your
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drives out of it I mean it's so small I'm guessing they could just grab the
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javelin unless it has a Kensington lock
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which I can't tell yet if it does this is actually kind of a slick looking
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little unit that's another thing that a lot of nazes don't really have going for
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them is they they tend to look kind of dumb and since it's something that you
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have to have either on or near your desk it's it's it is nice when it looks
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good all right so there is the javelin
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itself and you know what give me a second to get things organized
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here all right so we finally got the unit itself out all I have to do is push
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there the door opens at the front and I can see all four SATA interfaces at the
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back of the unit it comes with four of these Drive sledges which
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uh you use to put the drive on and slide it into the unit itself this did end up
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being a key so you can actually lock this front door no problem but as I
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mentioned before if I was going to steal something from a javelin I would probably just take the whole Javelin
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itself it's fairly small fairly light although once you load it up with drives
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it could be a little bit on the heavy side side and you don't want to move it around to avoid any damage to the drives
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you've got uh compatible with Windows 7 sticker as well as a DNA certified
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sticker Patriot logo and then you've got your power button with a built-in LED at
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the front and that pretty much does it for the front you've got activity LEDs
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for the hard drives as well as a network LED
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here on the back we have a gigabit
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Ethernet port we have a hard reset switch I love seeing hard reset switches
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because even the best software crashes
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sometimes I actually had a tablet crash on me a little while back and it was
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very difficult to figure out how to reset it because it had no hard reset
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switch um okay sorry sorry I on a tangent here gigabit Ethernet port e
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SATA interface two USB interfaces so that means you can have one of them
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permanently attached to a printer for example and you can have the other one
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uh available for USB storage whatever the case may be and I'm sorry this one
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on the back is is actually the power button and the one on the front is not a
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power button so what is the one on the
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front I don't know okay well I'll figure
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that out later all right finally we've got an 80 mm cooling fan we have our
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power in here and then I just want to take a look at the overall construction
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of the unit so you can see here we've got access via the bottom panel to
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nothing that's screwed shut but we do have four rubber feet here on the bottom
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so that's going to keep the javelin S4 from moving around when you've put it
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down on the table it's also raised a little bit so I don't know here yeah
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there's a good way to see it so you can see that it's going to get some
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convection cooling coming up through the bottom and that's where the fan is going
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to take in some of its air that's at least based on my observation and then
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the rest is going to come through these vents in the front which have uh a fine
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mesh over them so it should be just a matter of going like this to clean the
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dust off them once in a while and then there's also ventilation around the
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outside edge where air should be able to pass quite freely into the inside around
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the outsides of the door so that's uh that pretty much takes care of
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ventilation and it appears that this is not ventilation at all because you can
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see that once I open it up there's actually no access to the bottom
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compartment from the top so it looks like that's purely
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a power supply component
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RTM folks RTM means read the manual this
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is the OneTouch backup button so you'll use that every time you want to do a
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OneTouch backup which basically just means it's triggering a software event
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to run a prescheduled backup that you have configured already so yeah that's
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pretty much it all right next a couple more things so Patriot recommends using
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Enterprise or Raid Edition class hard drives for maximum reliability when
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using raid zero or Raid five configurations good reason for that raid
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zero as I mentioned before like not it's for Speed it's not for reliability you
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lose one drive out of a four Drive rate zero all the data is gone so just don't
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use that at all and then for raid five the array is quite vulnerable if a drive
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fails during that period where you haven't put in a new drive and let it
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rebuild itself while it's rebuilding if another Drive fails it will all be gone
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so it is best to use Enterprise class drives now finally let's have a look at
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Patriots Network map here where you have the javelin as the center of the house
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right there and then you have uh you
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know a UPS being managed by it you have external hard drives a printer you can
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back up the javelin itself to another Javelin over the Internet that's a
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really cool feature I love that okay you've got portable devices like phones
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that you can stream media to you've got a network media player like a box office
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hooked up to your TV Xbox 360 you've got
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it connected via wire to a wireless router switch which you can stream media
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to your laptop or to your computers including Windows and Macintosh
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computers and finally any UPnP and DLNA
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devices and even Linux computers
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themselves so there's going to be a full Tech tips episode coming on the javelin
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where we show some of these features but for now that is my unboxing thank you
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for checking it out and I'll turn this around the right way don't forget to subscribe to Linus Tech tips