Pros: Did someone say fast? HD Tune test results: 125.8 MB/sec Max 103.5 MB/sec Avg 63.6 MB/sec Min 18.5 ms Avg access time 118.9 MB/sec Burst transfer rate It maintains its max read speed for at least 40% of the drive. Incredible. When transferring files to the drive, write speed was limited by the max read speed of my other drives (about 75 MB/s). However, HD Tune file benchmark tests show consistent write speeds in excess of 100 MB/s for larger block sizes. Other pros: Drive is not audible at all in a closed case. Temperature has not exceeded 43 degrees after hours of continuous use and hovered around 38 at idle. I have not measured power usage, but other reviews have put this drive in the same category as the "green" drives from other makers.

Cons: Seek times as reported on benchmarks are a bit slow, but I have not noticed any latency issues in use--it appears zippy. Burst speed could/should also be better but that could be a factor of my older (150MB/s) Nvidia SATA controller.

Overall Review: Packaging notes: Drive was packaged well in an anti-static bag securely wrapped with multiple layers of bubble wrap and boxed with generous amount of "green" packaging material. Other benchmark notes: My first benchmark tests were about 10% slower than reported above. It turned out that this was due to the Nvidia SATA driver installed as part of their Nforce package. Once I moved back to the default Microsoft driver, the numbers jumped. If you are not seeing the performance numbers you hoped for, you may want to check your driver. Also, the SMART readings reported by HD Tune and other utilities give dubious results for the following attributes: Raw Read Error Rate Seek Error Rate Airflow Temperature Hardware ECC Recovered Do not be spooked. This is a fluke of some Seagate drives unrelated to recent FW issues (I nervously googled for the problem when I saw high numbers). What you want to pay most attention to is "Reallocated Sector Count". By all accounts that number i

Pros: No branding on the surface.

Cons: Rosewill switched this media from the great CMCMAG BA3-000 to the mediocre Philip R04-000. If the Philip media works for you, great, but you can usually buy it for less than these Rosewill discs.

Overall Review: It would nice if they would change the name or model number of the discs when they switch to a different vendor. Reviews become useless when the product is not consistent.

Pros: Inexpensive. No branding on surface. No coasters--all 25 were successful.

Cons: None.

Overall Review: Media Code for these discs is: CMCMAG BA3-000 Not a single coaster while using Nero Burning ROM with a Lite-On iHBS-112 burner at 4x speed. Did not try anything faster, but faster burns speeds were available.

Pros: Inexpensive.

Cons: Could only burn at 4x speed. Four coasters out of 25. The coaster rate is not that bad considering how cheap these discs were, but still. Even a couple of the discs that successfully burned had visual imperfections on the surface that the writer worked around. I would not recommend these discs if you are doing full 25Gb backups.

Overall Review: Using Nero Burning ROM with a Lite-On iHBS-112 burner.

Pros: All the pros in my previous review still stand. The 7200.12 is one very fast and quiet drive. This is an addendum to that glowing review regarding its reliability. It sort of balances out the other one.

Cons: Drive died without warning after about 18 months. Well, not exactly without warning. The night before it died, I heard some strange musical type noises from my system. They kind of sounded like someone playing a record by putting a pin on it while it was turning. It was a sort of tinny chime--I could not determine the source at the time. The next day, however, the system froze shortly after waking up and from that point on, the only sound the drive would make was the "click of death". The system would not boot and while the drive could be seen by the BIOS, it could not be accessed by recovery tools or other methods.

Overall Review: Sadly, the drive was so messed up that even Seagate Recovery Services could not recover any data after looking at it for over a month. This was the first time I have had a drive that was completely unrecoverable. So, the lesson is: back up your data. And, if you hear some high pitched music coming from your system, BACK IT UP NOW!

Pros: Easy to install in Windows 7. Although the tuner was not automatically detected, once the driver was installed it worked in Media Center without a hitch. Picture quality is superb and the tuners provide great signal strength. Channels change fairly quickly. Unit is inexpensive, small, does not consume much power and does not give off much heat.

Cons: As others have indicated, this card appears to be flaky with AMD motherboards. I was pulling my hair out for weeks because the tuner would periodically disappear from my AMD HTPC with a Gigabyte MB. Every reboot, sleep, or hibernate cycle would be a crapshoot on whether the card would appear or not--sometimes it would stay present for days and then suddenly be gone. Nothing changed after trying the various workarounds suggested (turn off PCI-e link power saving option, increase PCI-e voltage, use hibernate instead of sleep, reseat the card, try a different slot, etc).

Overall Review: The resolution to the disappearance problem (and the saving grace for this card) was that after I moved it to an Intel system using a cheap Biostar SIS-based MB, it worked flawlessly. The system uses S3 sleep, but the tuner never disappears--it is always there just like it should be. This card is tremendous value IF you are using an Intel system, for that it deserves five stars. On AMD systems, however, it receives a one star rating as it is nothing but sheer frustration.