Joined on 11/18/07
Excellent save for a few caveats
Pros: Price, speed, and features. Has lots of settings you can tweak if you so choose, including 3 levels of transmit power. Can also disable QSS if, like me, you prefer manual setup. Can also operate in several modes--not just standard AP (Ethernet to WiFi bridging). PoE is also handy, but see cons for more detail. Configuration can also handily be backed-up/restored from a file, though update the firmware first if you use MAC address restrictions.
Cons: There are four main cons. First is the PoE is non-standard (it's "passive" PoE and not 802.3af or 802.3at). However, this is also probably is the only way they can offer it at such a price. Secondly, the Ethernet uplink is only 100mbit, so even at full duplex you won't hit "300mbit" for traffic bridging the wireless/wired interfaces, especially when you consider overhead. Thirdly, the default configuration is NOT DHCP. It's statically configured, so you'll have to make sure you are using the same network and subnet mask for initial configuration--or just use a crossover cable and a static configuration on a PC for a good temporary network to reconfigure the setting. Finally, if you update the firmware, it WILL revert to the factory default settings, so update the firmware before you do anything else! This isn't a huge con for most people, but I remotely administer these and I don't happen to use the same network as their static configuration on any of my networks.
Overall Review: Despite the cons listed, the features and price still make this a good buy. I liked it enough to purchase a second one after my experience with my first purchase.
Great!
Pros: Works exactly as advertised. I was worried about the additional height of the RAM (due to the heat spreaders) colliding with my CPU fan, but it fits with several mm to spare. I purchased two pairs (4 DIMMs/16GB total), and am running them at advertised timings @ 1600 MHz and 1.5v. Passed a complete run of memtest86+ with 0 errors.
Cons: Not the lowest timings, but costs substantially less than those with a CL of 8, and you lose little (if any, in some apps) performance.
Overall Review: If you are not getting 1600MHz, make sure you go into your BIOS and set it to use the XMP profile, and that your motherboard supports it. It seems a lot of other users are having issues and may have not configured their system correctly.
Great
Pros: Advanced format, and 1TB in the standard (low) height 2.5" form factor. Price was good too ($90 when I bought it), back before the floods. Speeds were in line with what storage review reported.
Cons: Cache is a little on the small side, but that doesn't have a huge impact on performance.
As advertised
Pros: Works as advertised. Has a jumper setting to support both 5v and 3v3 flash cards. Has no issues in IDE mode (the motherboard using it does not support AHCI). Using it as my only disk on one of my FreeBSD machines.
Cons: I/O speeds are not great, but this is likely due to the speed limits of the card and not the CF/SATA adapter. Synchronizing the FreeBSD ports tree with a CF HD is especially slow.
Overall Review: Check the jumper before you use it. The factory setting on mine was 5v, and some cards may only support 3v3. My card supported both, so the setting was irrelevant in my case.
Second copy works...
Pros: Works as advertised. Supports AHCI. Have burned several BD-Rs, and verified the contents with no issues.
Cons: First copy was defective. Upon initial ejection of the tray, a small plastic piece, the spindle (centers the disc while spinning), literally flew out of the drive, and a spring was left sitting loose inside the drive--presumably what had caused the projectile to fly so far. RMA'd to Newegg, and the second copy is working with no issues.
Overall Review: Either wear glasses or keep your eyes far away when initially ejecting the drive.
Pros: Works, not too terribly expensive, sturdy.
Cons: Side panel also removes the bottom of the case. Fan is a little noisy for its airflow.
Overall Review: No instructions are included, so I wouldn't recommend it for inexperienced builders.