Pros: I have to admit going in, up until now I have considered hybrid hard drives that combine a small SSD with a conventional hard drive to be more a marketing strategy than a real speed advantage over a conventional hard drive. I was mistaken. This noticeably improves boot and access times--see test data under "other thoughts," below. It's a quiet drive and doesn't run excessively hot, holding in my test system case at a steady 95 degrees. No special drivers are required; the drive's own firmware handles moving files in and out of the onboard SSD as needed. The SSD is not visible as a separate drive.

Cons: No cons noted at this time.

Overall Review: To test, I am using the sort of system that I believe is the target audience for hybrid drives: systems that are not the newest and most expensive technology (as these are the most likely to have full-size SSD drives), but which are still current enough that the speed boost of a less expensive, faster drive is wanted. The test system is a Core 2 Quad 9505 on an i750 SATA-II motherboard in AHCI mode with 8 GB RAM, Creative X-Fi sound, and AMD 6870 graphics. It has Windows 7, an antivirus program, motherboard drivers, sound driver, and graphics driver loaded. Windows 7 64-bit install time (not counting post-install updates): 25 minutes on conventional drive, 22 minutes on hybrid Boot to login prompt: 46 seconds on conventional drive, 26 seconds on hybrid Boot to full desktop 1 minute 15 seconds on conventional drive, 48 seconds on hybrid drive Interestingly, the speed increases over time as the drive learns what files are the most frequently accessed. Windows 7 on the conventional drive boots at roughly the same speed no matter how many times it has previously been booted. Window 7 on the hybrid drive on the seventh boot to login prompt: 24 seconds (a 2 second gain) Windows 7 on the hybrid drive, seventh boot to full desktop: 35 seconds (a 13 second gain) Conclusion: this is a relatively inexpensive and simple way to get a large system drive with some of the speed increases of an SSD. No installation of third-party drivers is needed, neither is any special configuration required.

Pros: Inexpensive. Does well in independent testing. Easy install.

Cons: Detects cookies as viruses. If you turn off background scanning, it generates a security warning that you cannot turn off. Detected X-Fi driver as a virus and removed it from system without prompting, rendering sound card inoperative.

Overall Review: Not impressed. Although it does well in independent testing, I was amazed to see it flag simple cookies as viruses. Detecting a common sound driver as a virus is beyond the pale. Not recommended.

Pros: Any keyboard with Cherry key-switches is going to be pretty nice to type on, and this one is no exception. Physically, it's a full size keyboard and comparable in size to other Corsair keyboards, with a very similar removable wrist rest. The RGB effects are pretty and the colors brighter than some other RGB keyboards. Water resistance is a plus but this isn't the same thing as "water proof" -- it's still a gamble how well your keyboard would come through a spill, and it will depend a lot on what was spilled, how much got on / in it, and whether or not it was powered on at the time. Also, this would be a more useful feature if the keyboard had drainage slots.

Cons: Not really "cons," more like minor quibbles: having the "Function" key take the place of the right Windows key is okay unless, like me, you are in the habit of using that Windows key plus "L" to lock your keyboard. Drainage slots would be good. Since the keys do set in slightly recessed "islands," if there is a spill, liquid will pool there.

Overall Review: The price point is good for this keyboard. I hope the trend towards spill resistance continues!--if better implemented, this could be a very valuable feature for those of us who usually wind up eating in front of our computers. I would recommend the keyboard. Mechanical keyboards are so much better for your hands and fingers!--because you don't have to "bottom out" the key for the keystroke to register. Once you get used to a mechanical keyboard, you will be amazed at how nice it is to not have the ends of your fingers go numb when you have to do a lot of typing from the repeated pounding of bottoming out the keys on cheap membrane keyboards.

Pros: This is a large capacity, 6 TB SATA 6.0 Gb/s mechanical hard drive. The features that distinguish it from the competition are the optimizations for NAS performance: AgileArray, IronWolf Health Management, Rotational Vibration sensors, and one million hours mean time between failures. It has a 7200 RPM rotational speed and a 256MB cache, making it a fast performer for a mechanical hard drive. It comes with a 3-year limited warranty. No issues noted in installation and use -- everything worked as predicted straight out of the box.

Cons: No cons noted so far. Over the past years, Seagate has had serious reliability problems with many of its mechanical drives. Hopefully they have now addressed these issues.

Overall Review: The drive is a good value at its price point. Do be aware that Seagate has had reliability problems in the past and plan accordingly -- important data kept on this drive should be backed up frequently. As to whether I would recommend this drive -- the answer is conditional. If the drive is still operating normally and without any issues after it has been in use for a year, then I would feel more confident in recommending it. I've seen enough Seagate drives fail to need to have several good experiences before I could whole-heartedly recommend them.

Pros: I'm not using this as a "hot swap" bay, but rather changing out SSD's for a hardware dual-boot system. It works perfectly for that--the two OS's never see each other and never coexist in the system at the same time, which for my purposes is ideal.

Cons: No cons noted.

Overall Review: Easy install and a good price point.

Pros: Large heatsink makes for easy, safe handling and easy install--you don't have to touch the PCB at all. Very fast SSD, measured 2867 MB/s read, 2842 MB/s write, verses 1735 MB/s read, 1526 MB/s write for the 1TB NVMe SSD it replaced. Extremely high endurance, the 2 TB SSD I have is rated at 3115 TBW. Runs cooler than the 1TB NVMe SSD it replaced, so far hasn't gone higher than 122 degrees F under heavy load.

Cons: They don't appear to have any monitoring / status software for the SSD. Not a deal-breaker. If looking at this for a laptop or a space-constrained system, make sure the heatsink won't be too large for your desired use.

Overall Review: Not inexpensive but given the speed and high endurance, I consider it a real value at the sale price that was in effect when I purchased it. This is an amazing SSD.