Joined on 05/11/05
Solid drive!
Pros: Seagate name-brand. 3 TB capacity. Solid performance.
Cons: A bit pricey.
Overall Review: My first experience with the IronWolf lineup. This drive is designed for NAS setups and as such 24/7 operation. I added this to my server as a dedicated drive for my virtual FreeNAS. Working great so far. The write speed isn't quite where I would like it to be but I think it has to do with virtual drivers rather than the drive itself.
Works, but very loud
Pros: Has all the necessary connectors and is a server power supply. Two fans (albeit loud) help keep the unit cool. Fans are positioned on the sides instead of the bottom like most modern PSUs. I call the side fans a pro since I do not care for the bottom fan style.
Cons: Fans are very loud. May possibly be a defect. This PSU is supposed to have smart fan controls and advertises as silent. I let the system run idle for several minutes with the case open and the fans never quieted down.
Overall Review: I'm hoping it just a defect. There was also some mystery white gunk on some of the cables. I am exchanging this for N82E16817338110 which is 80 plus bronze certified and this one is not.
A good starter chassis for direct attached storage
Pros: 3U chassis with 16 drive bays which support SAS and SATA drives, with some exceptions.
Cons: Even empty the chassis is extremely heavy. It is also sold as empty shell so you have to add all the internals. No instructions are included with the chassis. The drives are a very tight fit and require considerable force to insert them into the bays. Front power switch is not covered which makes it prone to being accidentally turned off. See overall thoughts.
Overall Review: To expand on the pros and cons. Some drives are not compatible with the chassis, in particular the advanced format high capacity nearline SAS drives don't seem to work. I could only get it to work with either SATA or legacy nearline SAS drives. This chassis requires that you add your own power supply and SAS expander card. It also requires requires a separate iSTARUSA adapter model ATC-ATP89-6 which is a 24+8 pin to 10 Molex connectors and the connectors for the power switch. Without this adapter, the chassis cannot be powered on. Since no instructions were included, I had to contact tech support to get that information. Lastly, the front power button really needs some sort of cover to prevent accidental turn offs. While putting the front face plate back on I bumped the power switch with the plate and ended up power cycling the chassis. That little blip was enough for the RAID to panic and drop the disks and sound the alarm. Needlessly to say a 15-min rampage ensued since I thought I was going to have to spend all night rebuilding the array and restoring from backup. Fortunately I was able to online the disks and import the array in a matter of minutes, but still that would not have happened if the power switch was more protected. I would have given this item two eggs but it gets a bonus egg for the very helpful tech support.
Well...
Pros: 9 available drive bays (8 provided), hot swappable, nice looking design, included SFF-8087 to SFF-8088 card.
Cons: Very heavy (without the drives), only 1x 120mm fan, micro power board relies on adhesive to be mounted to the case.
Overall Review: As indicated above, this case is very heavy, granted it is a steel case, not aluminum. Having just 1x 120mm fan for exhaust may not be sufficient for 8 drives, although you can purchase 40mm 2-pin fans separately for each to add cooling. The micro powerboard is approximately the size of a 1 inch square and has 2x 3-pin fan connectors, a power led connector, and a molex connector. It uses an adapter cable to connect the molex to the main 24-pin power supply connector. The power supply is just regular cheap unit, I did not see an 80 plus certification and since it is not modular, a lot of cables went unused and splitters were used to turn 1 molex into 2 sata ports. What I found unacceptable was how the micro powerboard was mounted, or lack thereof. The plastic casing for the board was mounted to the bottom of the case with adhesive. An inner adhesive was used to mount the powerboard itself into the plastic case. When I inspected the case upon arrival, the adhesive had failed and the power board was just sitting there making contact with the steel. Had I not caught that, it would have likely shorted out. For this reason, I decided to return it. What I would like to have seen with this case is a more efficient power supply, and a properly mounted power board with screws and not adhesive.
Very elegant case, almost perfect...almost
Pros: Spacious with plenty of airflow, thanks in part to large fans on the front and back of the case. The green LEDs on the fans are a nice touch. Fans are whisper quiet. Dust covers provided for the top mounted ports which is a major plus. Also one of the few wide cases to have a 5.25 bay available for optical drives.
Cons: The built-in card reader for SD cards is only USB 2.0. It uses the same 9 pin connector to mount said port on the motherboard if one is available. This case has a USB 3.0 port on the front, but only one port though. The USB 3.0 cable that connects to the motherboard should allow for 2 USB 3.0 channels. The other channel could have been used for the SD card slot instead of it being USB 2.0 so I think that is a design flaw. I did not have any more 9-pin slots available on my motherboard so the card reader is useless to me. Like another reviewer said, the 3.5 HDD bay are welded and bolted to the case. The positioning of the bay can potentially interfere with modular power supply cabling.
Overall Review: Overall this has been a very nice case so far. It is very light and while it was low difficulty installing the components, it can be time consuming if working with the case for the first time. I transferred the components from a 4U rackmount case to this desktop case. Thanks to the improved airflow, the CPU temps dropped 10 degrees.
Glad this was available
Pros: This is a straight cable, miniDP on one end, and VGA on the other. The VGA side has the converter within it so no additional power is needed. Works perfectly with my Mac Mini Late 2012 model.
Cons: The screws on the VGA connector are misaligned. They are too far apart by about 1.5mm which makes screwing it in on the back of the monitor impossible. I am using cable management so it is unlikely to come unhooked though.
Overall Review: Other than the mishap with the VGA screws, this is a solid product!