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Matt S.

Matt S.

Joined on 08/08/05

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 7
Most Favorable Review

Only noisy if you don't change the settings

Hitachi GST Deskstar 7K1000 HDD-HDS721075KLA330-NDW-R 750GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive Bare Drive
Hitachi GST Deskstar 7K1000 HDD-HDS721075KLA330-NDW-R 750GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive Bare Drive

Pros: These are cheap, and relatively fast.

Cons: Recertified hard drives don't inspire much confidence in reliability. Use these in a redundant setup, and don't forget to set up error reporting in case one of these actually dies.

Overall Review: I'm using these in a raidz1 setup using ZFS under ZFS-fuse in Linux. Everyone that complains about the noise of this drive should know that every recent hard drive has acoustic management settings built in. Under Linux, you can use "hdparm -M 128" to silence the drive. The acoustic management in the firmware has settings from 128 (silent) to 256 (noisy). The default for this drive is 256. There should be a comparable utility for Windows.

Most Critical Review

Quiet but dead(ly)

APEVIA CF7015S 70mm Case Fan
APEVIA CF7015S 70mm Case Fan

Pros: When I ordered these fans I looked long and hard for 70mm <2000rpm fans that seemed high quality. These did fit the bill and, when installed, did function quietly and properly.

Cons: After exactly one year both of the fans died at the same time, silently without warning. I believe it was a cascading failure of one fan that led the other do die quickly thereafter. smartctl sent me an email telling the that my disk array was >190C! I had to use gloves to remove the drives from their bays :/

Overall Review: Next time I'm going with a more trusted brand.

Way louder than expected

EVERCOOL F-EC7015H12BP 70mm Dual Ball PWM Fan
EVERCOOL F-EC7015H12BP 70mm Dual Ball PWM Fan

Pros: This is one of the only 70mm PWM fans that I could find that seemed to be high quality, with a wide range of duty cycles.

Cons: These fans are moderately pricey, which would be okay if I even believed for one second that at 25% duty cycle this things emit ~17 dBa of noise. They sound like vacuum cleaners starting at 25%, and are like jet engines at 100%.

Overall Review: Just save yourself the frustration, and if you need a quiet 70mm fan skip out on the PWM and just get a cheaper, quieter model.

Cheap and good

G.SKILL 2GB DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Desktop Memory Model F2-6400CL5S-2GBNT
G.SKILL 2GB DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Desktop Memory Model F2-6400CL5S-2GBNT

Pros: It's cheap memory that works really well. The voltage is standard, so it should be very compatible. Low latency and decent bandwidth.

Cons: No heat spreader, but that could be a pro, since I would rather have none than a cheap ineffective one.

AVerMedia MTVHBVMXR AVerTV Hybrid Volar Max
AVerMedia MTVHBVMXR AVerTV Hybrid Volar Max

Pros: Good design, good reviews, Vista x64 driver.

Cons: Maybe I received a faulty unit, but I could not get the tuner to tune OTA, analog or digital cable. The tuner would change channels in incorrect increments (something like 1/10 of a "station" at a time) resulting in the same "station" spanning about 10 channels at a time. I tried tuning in both Vista MCE and the AverMedia software.

Overall Review: I was really excited about this one...

Sangean AM/FM Shower Radio H201
Sangean AM/FM Shower Radio H201

Pros: Well built, good strong sound and tuning, station memory, flashlight, back-lit display with clock.

Cons: Costly compared to other options, though well worth it.

Overall Review: I wonder why there is a no returns accepted policy for this product?