Joined on 10/14/05
Cheaper than most, as good as any you will find
Pros: The good stuff: - It comes apart easily with two fingers but feels snug and sturdy once it snaps back together. - There are screw holes that are actually in the right place for you to mount the drive to the frame (not necessary but adds sturdiness). No extra rigging required. - The controller is quick. I'm using a Fujitsu 5400rpm 3.0G/s SATA 320gb, NTFS formatted... it copies big files and big batches of mixed file sizes very quickly. - Easy install. XP picks it up faster than most thumb drives I've had. - Runs cool and quiet with the Fujitsu drive - It's cheap - Not sure you can find a better one for cheaper
Cons: - On/off switch is not necessary and just one extra thing that I'm liable to break. I'm thinking about flicking it to "on" and then breaking it off.
Overall Review: - Some people have complained about smudges. I haven't noticed any smudges. - Some people have complained about the magnets on the case/sleeve. Yeah, they're magnets. They're no stronger than fridge magnets and probably 1/1000th the strength of magnets that are _in_ disk drives. Bottom line, the smudges and magnets will not get you.
Too good to be true? Nope.
Pros: - Inexpensive - Good construction/quality look and feel - Works well, shielding seems to be doing its job - Supports my 1080p Samsung
Cons: I tried to find a con so that I could post it here like "ha! you get what you pay for!" but it's not the case. It's just the rare instance of a good, sanely priced product.
Overall Review: Don't overthink this... but pay attention to the specs. This cable is only rated up to 1440p so I can't vouch for this working on your shiny new 4k. Also, if you're buying new cables to try to get rid of noise on your screen, you should also consider putting your electronics on a voltage regulator.
quiet, cool, fast
Pros: Some stuff I like that you might too: - Silent during seek/read/write, no detectable vibration - Runs mostly cool - Very fast (3Gb/s, and it shows) I used to buy only WD/Seagate but I've had awesome luck with my past 2 Fujitsu drives.
Cons: - None. I tried to stump it with a mix of large/small file write activitiy and it's still fast as hell.
Overall Review: - Fits nicely into a Vantec Nexstar-sx as a high capacity 2.5" backup, and it's still cheaper than a WD/Seagate off-the-shelf product
Awesome design, a little cramped
Pros: The things I cared about that you might too: - Works extraordinarily well with Windows7, despite no W7 drivers being available from Asus yet. - Works well in Ubuntu 8.10 although I had some issues with DVD playback that I couldn't resolve (using an LG H22NS30 SATA DVDRW) - 2x PCIe1x slots are a bonus for such a small box - Fast, quiet (silent compared to a PS3), and fits in well with other home theater equipment. - Framerates, color, and resolution with DVD playback and Netflix watch-online are great - The HDMI output is phenomenal compared to VGA on the same screen (I'm using a Samsung 6-series, so I can flip back and forth to see the difference)
Cons: - Inside the case you may run into some issues. For me, the hard drive's SATA connectors were RIGHT in the way of the motherboard's SATA controller ports. I had to drill some holes in the drive enclosure to move it about .75" forward. If you plan on using PATA/IDE, you shouldn't experience this problem at all (PATA controller is positioned well). If you don't mind possibly having to bust out the drill, you can still be happy. - As you may have read in other posts, there is no PCIe16x port. Just the 1x's. If this is a problem, I would recommend not getting this box. - DVD playback in Ubuntu died (I tried several players, several codecs to no avail), but I've heard reports from others that it works for them. Recommend figuring out which drives work and which ones don't in Linux.
Overall Review: Spend the extra 70 bucks and get a BD-ROM or a BD-R.