Pros: Was quick and quiet

Cons: Failed

Pros: Got this one for an HTPC. It's quiet and reliable.

Cons: None to speak of. Although it's not a 7200RPM drive, it still outperforms older, smaller 7200RPM drives due to its high data density.

Other Thoughts: I was fortunate to buy this one before the floods in Thailand; I paid half what it's going for now.

Pros: I have 5 of these drives in a UnRaid server for 10 months. They work great. Very quiet, low operating temperature, reliable what more can you ask for from a hard drive. I use a 1TB 7200 RPM Samsung as a caching drive and the system works very well. I had 1 that died and Samsung sent me a replacement right away. I would like to buy more but not at the current prices.

Cons: I bought all my drives for under $80 with free shipping. I'll buy 7 more when the price gets back there.

Other Thoughts: I simply do not believe there is a shortage that is driving up the costs. I can see where one or two vendors may have a shortage but industry wide makes me believe that there has been some price fixing going on. The Feds should investigate this.

Pros: Large size

Cons: Died after a few months. Drive no longer detected.

Pros: Pristine right out of the bubble wrapped plastic container in it's own box!

Cons: Samsung failed to post proper instructions to update this drives firmware to stave off data loss - a very serious issue. NewEgg is totally unaware. Outdated NewEgg policy concerning stamping their shipment boxes with 'NEWEGG' all over them to thwart thievery - universal principle - 'out of sight, out of mind'. Shipping label does not get noticed but 'NEWEGG' in large print does! Carrier also stole 4 weeks of my time! That's a fact!

Other Thoughts: F4EG HD204UI/Z4 requires a firmware patch/update [223451] that is posted on Samsung's website that addresses the issue of 'an action of writing data in NCQ, ... and can lead to DATA LOSS.'. an Am_zon reviewer 'Zoltano' posts the proper method to update the firmware where Samsung grossly neglects to do so. One important point to realize that 'Zoltano' fails to mention is that you must disable IDE mode in the BIOS and enable AHCI in the BIOS instead before you can properly update the Samsung HDD's firmware because the firmware requires 'AHCI ... exposes SATA's advanced capabilities ... Native Command Queuing' see Wikipedia

Pros: Unbeatable compared to Western Digital & Seagate.
It runs exceptionally cool!

Cons: Prices went up to the roof!!
Will not buy until prices drop... back to where they were previously..

Other Thoughts: Needs to get back to 80 bucks.. So i can buy more..
Far too expensive now.. Wish I would have stocked up..

Pros: Quiet, Fast, installed in my NAS, no worries.

Cons: None so Far, hope it lasts

Pros: Back when I bought three of these before the Thailand floods, they were dirt cheap (like other drives) but offered a surprisingly good show in performance. They are just as fast or faster than my two smaller WD drives currently in use (a 640GB black and a 500GB blue). They are quiet, partially due to their slower rotational speed, no read/write errors, no heat warnings, and sustains its read/write speeds very well.

Cons: Absolutely none, I love these things and would buy more if not for their current price due to the "drive shortage."

Other Thoughts: It's too bad that Samsung sold their hard drive business to Segate, I'll have to buy some more (as well as some spares for my RAID5 using Samsung F3 1TB drives), before Segate starts calling the shots on them, rebranding them, and doing other "heinous" things to an otherwise strong hard drive lineup.

Pros: they work great until they don't.

Cons: out of 11 drives purchased, 4 have failed. i am about to rma them.

Other Thoughts: they were not purchased from newegg.

Pros: I have 4 of these in a Synology NAS and they are excellent. So I picked one up for my external drive bay (OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro) connected to Lion OS X on a Macbook pro.

Cons: The drive never spins down. It never goes to sleep. It's a bit frustrating because the drives in the Synology Nas always spin down when not in use. The only time I can get the drive to sleep on the Macbook is when I put the Macbook to Sleep. But if I power off the MB complete (Shut Down), the HD204UI stays powered and never sleeps.

I contacted OWC, they're "hands i nthe air" about it, says they are not at fault. Perhaps it's Lion? I've looked for software by Samsung to change the power management settings (APM - Advanced Power Management) but ever since Seagate purchased Samsung's hardware business, support has gone down the tubes. I can't find anything on Seagate's website for "HD204UI".

Other Thoughts: It's *super quiet*. But I can still hear it. And it's practically at ear level so it's always got the distant "hum" going. I wish it would be the eco drive I purchased it for and spun down when not in use...