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Geoffrey B.

Geoffrey B.

Joined on 01/29/07

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 4
Most Favorable Review

Took a second, but it's working

Xigmatek 1TB USB 2.0 / eSATA 3.5" External Hard Drive HDU-USD0110 Black
Xigmatek 1TB USB 2.0 / eSATA 3.5" External Hard Drive HDU-USD0110 Black

Pros: Its a great concept, just plug in any hard drive you want and it'll boot up. It supports both 3.5" & 2.5", so that's always a plus. Main reason I got was to help out my boss and help him recover some of his files he's lost on his old computer. I've been meaning to get a new external hard drive anyways, so I just went ahead and got this. It's nice! the LEDs on the front don't burn your eyes out like the Western Digital ones do, and the drive itself doesn't get too hot when doing alot of day-to-day tasks. The drive supports up to 1TB hard drives, other than that I have no idea..

Cons: Well, the drives themselves don't slip in and out as easily as they should. Took me a few minutes how to get the little bigger into the actual slots. The power button is on the back, which, is kind of annoying because it's right in between the USB cable and the power cable. Very inconvenient; I would have prefered if it was more in the front so you could perhaps, just touch the circle in the front, instead of having to squeeze my fat fingers inbetween two cables.

Overall Review: If your like me and was scratching their heads when they finally booted it on and nothing showed up under My computer, its because you have to FORMAT the hard drive. (Don't forget, this hard drive is new and has no bloatware on it) Go to Control Panel > Classic View > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Highlight "Disk Management" Then find the bugger that has 931GB on it. Just right click on the little graph and select the Volume thingy and follow the promts. Hope that helped you!

Installed into a Nokia Booklet 3G

Crucial RealSSD C300 64GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) CTFDDAA064MAG-1G1
Crucial RealSSD C300 64GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) CTFDDAA064MAG-1G1

Pros: It's a 1.8" drive with Micro SATA connections. Fits perfectly into my Nokia Netbook. VERY fast sleep/wake. I can open Microsoft Office 2010 in about 3 seconds on a Z530 Atom Processor. The speed of the computer has significantly risen; There is no need to use ReadyBoost to help speed up the computer. (Windows won't even let you; declares that it wouldn't even help so Bill says 'don't even bother.')

Cons: Most people don't realize that SSDs use up more power than standard spinals. From my normal 10 hours of battery life, I'm now seeing about 6-7 hours of battery life. When I initially installed the drive, and after Windows had finished installing everything & I finished the drivers, it kept locking up. It was at random times as well, almost once every 30 seconds or so. However, after installing a free tool that optimizes SSDs, and it has been performing stellar ever since. I also attempted to update the firmware via Crucials website. You have to burn the firmware update from an .iso onto a CD, boot from the CD, and then install from there. However, the firmware update got stuck. It could not find the hard drive to update. Couldn't seen to figure out how to update it, so I just downloaded some SSD optimization software. That seemed to work with the sluggishness.

Overall Review: I also had to disable TRIM support on the Booklet, because it does not support it. Be sure to check your motherboard support before; or you can just simply disable TRIM support under regedit if your not sure. Otherwise, it's a great SSD that doesn't break the bank. Pick up a Pogoplug for an infinite amount of storage space for this SSD, and a Mobile Broadband Card to access your files from anywhere. For the very few out there with another Nokia Booklet 3G, I must say this is a must-buy. However, be ready to devote a whole day to reinstall your entire computer.

INOi 1TB USB 2.0 3.5" External Media Hard Drive MH720-00999
INOi 1TB USB 2.0 3.5" External Media Hard Drive MH720-00999

Pros: I don't personally own the 1TB model but I do own the 320GB model which I purchased in March 2007. This thing is pretty solid. Nice, big heavy build that is pretty hard to tip over. The remote is very small, sometimes too small and can get hidden sometimes, but this thing is WAYY better than trying to lug 100's of DVDs around. It plays the most popular file extensions like AVI, MPG and WMV, but it doesn't play any MP4 extensions so Mac lover be aware. I used this hard drvie for everything before I bought a MyBook 500 for all of my data to dedicate this drive to just movies, television shows and music.

Cons: Well, after awhile, things like to die. Don't get me wrong, the drive still works. I can still watch videos and listen to movies and view files on my computer. But I used to leave this thing on all night long when I went to bed, so things started going out the longer I used it. Right now I'm listening to a broken fan that's running on the back. It's not excessivly loud, but it can be annoying at times. Additonally, the blue HDD light on the front gave out about a month ago. Again, not a huge deal, but can be annoying. Slightly a convience for me because that light is BRIGHT and being in a dark room got the light to be very annoying.

Overall Review: I went out and bought myself an eletrical timer for my hard drive to turn the hard drive off at about 3am so it wouldn't be running for an additonal 8 hours. It'll prolong the life of your hard drive casing. This is the best hard drive I've ever own. Loads more features than any other.. Its just decided to be human like me and slowly die away.. The case that is anyways.

Alot of bang for a buck!

XFX GeForce FX 5200 256MB DDR PCI Graphics Card PVT64KUAFG
XFX GeForce FX 5200 256MB DDR PCI Graphics Card PVT64KUAFG

Pros: This was a very easy to install card onto my old Dell, its an old Pentium 4 and it kept running rediciouly slow, so I finally caved in and bought this great card. Even the boot-up time has been decreased and the games and most of my video runs very smoothly now. I've only tried running the Sims 2, but before it lagged and now its as clean as a whistle!

Cons: The card itself has a large fan on it that takes up alot of room. Also, if you didn't know your computer was running before, you'll KNOW when your computer is on now. The fan is very noisy, but for only $50-$60 bucks for a good solid card like this, you have to make consequences. Lastly, I plugged the VGA output on this card into my TV and it was slightly blurry and staticy, where as before I put the card in it was fine. I used a DVI cable to a desktop monitor and works great now.

Overall Review: If your looking to upgrade an older computer, this is the card for you! Just make sure that the computer is at least a Penitum 4 and has a PCI slot that has some extra room on the left-hand side for that bulky fan. This product is great and I think I can finally play some real games on this sucker now!