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Robert R.

Robert R.

Joined on 09/15/04

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 4
Most Favorable Review

Some units don't need a firmware update

Vantec NexStar CX SuperSpeed 3.5" SATA to USB 3.0 External Hard Drive Enclosure - Model NST-310S3-BK
Vantec NexStar CX SuperSpeed 3.5" SATA to USB 3.0 External Hard Drive Enclosure - Model NST-310S3-BK

Pros: Unit works twice as fast with USB3 as it does with USB 2 (with an old ~320 GB eSATA drive.

Cons: Vantec web site could be more helpful in pointing out that SOME of these units (mine has a PC board PA-703 rev 1.1) don't use the JMedia chip, and don't need an update, and that the update firmware will give "No device found", because my unit uses a Asmedia 1051 chip rather than a Jmedia chip.

Overall Review: Don't know what chip set is shipping now.

Most Critical Review

Problems with 1TB 2.5 inch drive

C2G 30504 Cables to Go USB 2.0 to IDE or Serial ATA Drive Adapter Cable, Black
C2G 30504 Cables to Go USB 2.0 to IDE or Serial ATA Drive Adapter Cable, Black

Pros: Swiss Army knife of disk transfers.

Cons: Inconsistent writes on 1TB HST 2.5 inch drive

Overall Review: I used this cable adapter many times in the past to copy whole drives or just a partition, either with Windows, or with Gparted-live. It has worked great until I tried it with a 1TB drive. It all looked fine in Gparted, but when I installed the drive in my laptop, the partitions were all trash. I tried using Gparted again, using a newer USB 3.0 enclosure, and that worked OK. I am guessing that either the adapter has problems with larger drives or with 6 GB/sec drives.

Flakey

ADATA 8GB Class 6 Secure Digital High-Capacity (SDHC) Flash Card Model TurboSD SDHC 8G
ADATA 8GB Class 6 Secure Digital High-Capacity (SDHC) Flash Card Model TurboSD SDHC 8G

Pros: Cheap.

Cons: Looked good at first, but it got worse as it filled up. Corrupted about fifty priceless pictures. Consistently fails a low level format now at block 15881216.

Overall Review: I have four other SD/SDHC cards which work fine in my Pentax K10D. Will always fully format each new card I get. IMHO, You can't trust Windows or the camera to detect a bad SD card.

works now

Antec earthwatts EA380 380W Continuous Power ATX12V v2.0 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply
Antec earthwatts EA380 380W Continuous Power ATX12V v2.0 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply

Pros: It uses less power, and is quieter than the Antec Smartpower unit which it replaced. (The Smartpower died just inside the 3 year warranty. Hope this one does better. Ask me again in 30 months!) My PC draws 57 watts when idle now. (MS-7032 MB, AMD 754 2800+, 160 GB HD, Seagate tape drive, 6200 video, 512MB RAM, DVD, floppy)

Cons: It wasn't free, even after the MIR.

Overall Review: The cables are PLENTY long, maybe too long if your case is real small.

12/17/2007