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Stephen E.

Stephen E.

Joined on 03/02/04

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 27
Most Favorable Review

3TB for Synology NAS

Seagate Desktop HDD ST3000DM001 3TB 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive
Seagate Desktop HDD ST3000DM001 3TB 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive

Pros: Confirmed by Synology as compatible in a variety of their NAS devices. I have the DS411 and have four of these running in SHR (essentially RAID5). The NAS is behind a door in my TV cabinet, so noise is not an issue. It is on 24/7 and I have had no problems to this point.

Cons: Price. Come on nature, stop messing with our production plants!

Overall Review: Obviously this is not an enterprise-class drive so there is no TLER, RAFF, or other features designed for always-on RAID use. However, I don't feel this is as important as some make it out to be when it comes to average consumer storage. For 24/7 critical environments, sure, you need the enterprise drives, and that's what I buy at work. But for the kind of disk activity an average home user is going to generate, I honestly don't feel the presence or absence TLER is going to make a huge difference. Even enterprise drives fail despite our best practices; the risk is always there.

Most Critical Review

What's up with the price?

WD Green WD30EZRX 3TB IntelliPower 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive
WD Green WD30EZRX 3TB IntelliPower 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive

Pros: Decent 3TB drive designed for basic storage and desktop use.

Cons: What's up with Newegg's pricing recently? This drive is $60 cheaper at another well-known retailer (as of 10/28/11). I don't think Newegg is going to sell many of these at this price.

Overall Review: Don't be tempted to use these in any RAID configuration other than 0 or 1. Intellipower plus lack of LTER optimization is a recipe for failure in advanced RAID arrays. Consider RAID 1 if you're looking for protected media storage with this drive.

10/28/2011

Quiet, looks great, matches the Panzer cases

Cougar Hydraulic Vortex FR 120 mm Red LED Cooling Fan. CF-V12FR
Cougar Hydraulic Vortex FR 120 mm Red LED Cooling Fan. CF-V12FR

Pros: - Very quiet at moderate RPM settings. - Really nice orangey-red light. - I prefer these kinds of fans with the LED on the outside instead of in the center - they just look better in clear cases.

Cons: - Not really a con, but the light is more on the orange side of the spectrum and as such doesn't completely match a standard red theme. Doesn't really bother me but it might bother a purist.

Overall Review: - Bought this to supplement the 3 included Red LED fans that came with my Cougar Panzer-G case because they don't provide a 4th fan for the exhaust.

Light, fast and colorful

COUGAR Revenger 12000 DPI High Performance RGB Pro PFS Gaming Mouse
COUGAR Revenger 12000 DPI High Performance RGB Pro PFS Gaming Mouse

Pros: - The DPI switch is ingenious for switching DPI on the fly. It's only 3 major increments this way, but that's usually enough for most games. I like it on the second setting for the vast majority of games. Through the Cougar UIX platform you can fine tune it to your liking. - The RGB lighting is very nice - especially the DPI lights on the left side, giving you a visual indicator of where your DPI is at. UIX makes adjusting colors simple and there's a lot you can do with it. - The mouse is extremely light (maybe a con for some) and feels great in the hand. I think it's molded perfectly for medium sized hands. - The Revenger has a really interesting design with the "fangs" on either side and the mouse wheel set back in the middle. Looks cool without going over the top. - I personally like the mouse wheel - it's not too loose and the increments are not too heavy.

Cons: - None I can think of.

Overall Review: - I prefer this Revenger over the newer Revenger S, which loses the DPI LEDs and the bottom LED strip. - It goes to 12,000!!

Beautiful IPS monitor at a great price

HP Pavilion 27xi Silver / Black 27" 7ms IPS HDMI LED Backlight LCD Monitor 250 cd/m2 10,000,000:1
HP Pavilion 27xi Silver / Black 27" 7ms IPS HDMI LED Backlight LCD Monitor 250 cd/m2 10,000,000:1

Pros: Gorgeous colors and sharpness, helped by the glossy coat. Decent brightness and contrast. Tiny bezel - very Apple-like. Not fast, but there is absolutely no issues with gaming. Very sexy design, a word I would not normally use in the same sentence with HP.

Cons: Discontinued?? Forreals?? Very glad I got mine just a week before this announcement.

Overall Review: Spent much time debating between 2560x1440 and 1920x1080, and in the end, I just didn't see the value in spending $300+ extra and getting 360 more vertical pixels. Seeing this 27xi on sale for $249.99 didn't hurt either. This is a fantastic monitor and I felt a lot more comfortable getting this than some random Korean or Chinese monitor with the larger resolution. It's a shame it's been discontinued, but if you find one somewhere, you should pick it up.

Excellent, full featured USB3 hub

Orico Bokcore BC-U3H5-SV Full Aluminum 4-Port USB3.0 HUB with 3Ft USB3.0 Cable - White
Orico Bokcore BC-U3H5-SV Full Aluminum 4-Port USB3.0 HUB with 3Ft USB3.0 Cable - White

Pros: -Nice brushed aluminum design, goes great with Macs -Has a good weight and lays completely flat on desk -Blue LEDs next to each port light up when a device is connected -Separate 5V charging port for iPads, phones, etc. -Modular USB cable allows for flexibility with placement on your desk

Cons: -Blue LEDs are exceptionally bright in a dark room -Logitech Unifying Receivers do not work through this -The upward-facing ports result in a little bit of visible cable clutter depending on how your setup is arranged -Requires power supply - not bus operated

Overall Review: Overall this is a great hub that looks good and gives you visual cues as to what's plugged in and active, and I love that it doesn't have a fixed length USB cable which most other hubs have. Everything I've plugged into it works except my Logitech Unifying Receiver (for my K750 keyboard and Performance MX mouse) but that may be a limitation of the Logitech products and not a fault of this hub. I just plug that directly into my MacBook Pro and this hub into the remaining port. I also have a gaming PC next to my desk and it's super easy to transfer this hub from the MacBook Pro to the PC so all my devices go with it.