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Tanner H.

Tanner H.

Joined on 07/17/06

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 9
Most Favorable Review

Very Nice

NORCO RPC-4220 4U Rackmount Server Chassis w/ 20 Hot-Swappable SATA/SAS 6G Drive Bays (Mini SAS Connector)
NORCO RPC-4220 4U Rackmount Server Chassis w/ 20 Hot-Swappable SATA/SAS 6G Drive Bays (Mini SAS Connector)

Pros: Low price for what it is. Compare to hot swap bays that take up 5.25 bays and convert to four or five 3.5 bays and you come out way ahead with this. In my home file server, I wouldn't even consider mounting the drives in anything other than one of the hot swap cages; with a RAID, there is too much risk of accidentally pulling out another power cable or whatnot when adding the new drive (or removing a failed drive). The cooling is very nice as well. Everything is kept to a good temperature. All the drive bays have their own activity light (useful for finding a drive). Despite what it says, you can mount a 3.5" OS hard drive inside the case. The case I received has USB3, which isn't listed in the specs. I tested all the drive bays and they all work. SAS cables are a godsend, I truly cannot imagine having 20 SATA cables streaming through any case. 5 SAS cables to RAID cards (or in my case, 4 SAS cables to two RAID cards and one SAS->SATA cable to my motherboard) is really the way to go. Makes everything much much easier to manage. The previous drive cage I had was a massive PITA to deal with because it needed 5 SATA cables going to it and two Molex connectors.

Cons: The case I received does NOT have redundant power connectors. One of the reasons I chose this case was the redundant connectors. Not really a deal breaker, but since this case also has USB3, it's clear there is a new revision of the hardware that Newegg isn't taking into account. No instructions for anything. This isn't really a big deal for the motherboard mounting or using the drive cages, but when you want to start adding the OS drive (assuming you're using a supported 2.5" drive or mounting the DVD drive, it gets a little tough until you figure out how it all works. Not a big deal, but still seems bizarre. Personally, I used an old external USB DVD drive I had laying around and yanked it out of its enclosure. Fits perfectly. Then, I just connected the USB cable to the internal motherboard USB headers (the drive itself didn't have an adapter on it like I had initially expected). The top two rows of drive bays are a bit to snug, the drive trays stick a little bit. Once again, not a deal breaker, but still a con.

Overall Review: I've seen people complain about the noise this puts out. It's really not that bad. I mean, it's way too loud for a bedroom or living room (where some people were putting it), but for its intended audience, it's not bad at all. I'd prefer the fans to be loud over potentially 20 drives overheating. I keep it in a room we don't use often and when we do, the noise isn't bothersome in the least. None of the cons are a big deal, this case it really pretty great, especially for the price. Most everything is simple and easy to figure out even without the instructions. SAS cables make everything easy. It would have been nice to have the redundant power supply connectors, but I'll deal. Truthfully, I've never had one of those connectors ever break or the cable from the PSU die, so it's probably not a big deal. Highly recommend.

It Works Very Well

Black Dual USB Car Charger (Bagged) 5 Watt (1A)
Black Dual USB Car Charger (Bagged) 5 Watt (1A)

Pros: Works extremely well. Charges two android phones at the same time very quickly. I did open it up and solder the data pins together though (this is how most non iDevices recognize a device as NOT being a computer), which allows it to put out the full power the device is requesting.

Cons: The downside is that I even needed to open it up and solder the pins in order to get it to put out full power. Oh well ... as a work around if others are interested, you can buy cables that are 'charging cables' that have the data pins shorted in the cable rather than the device. The only other downside I have is that this thing is huge! It definitely sticks out. Since it actually delivers on its power promises, I'm putting up with it for now, but I could definitely imagine it getting in the way, depending on your car.

Overall Review: I got it for free after rebate and it was definitely worth that price. I don't know if I'd be willing to pay the full 12 dollar price on it, but it's a very good charger and works well.

Working Great

WD Green WD30EZRX 3TB IntelliPower 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive
WD Green WD30EZRX 3TB IntelliPower 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive

Pros: I've had this drive in my home server as a backup drive for quite some time now. It's got 6708 hours racked up of near 24/7 operation and it's still going strong. I see a lot of poor reviews, but I'm sure I've had this drive powered on for more time than a majority of others and I haven't had any issues with it.

Cons: It's only $10 cheaper now than when I bought it last May.

Overall Review: Overall I'm happy with the drive. Still going strong after nearly 280 days of 24/7 online time.

Wow, REALLY Quiet!

XIGMATEK Dark Knight II SD1283 Night Hawk Edition CPU Cooler with Stealth Aerospace Industry Thermal conductive ceramic coating LGA1150 Haswell Compatible
XIGMATEK Dark Knight II SD1283 Night Hawk Edition CPU Cooler with Stealth Aerospace Industry Thermal conductive ceramic coating LGA1150 Haswell Compatible

Pros: This monster is quiet! It's got a single 120mm fan and a MASSIVE heatsink. The stock fan would keep me awake a night, this one is pretty much silent.

Cons: No instructions. For AMD it's pretty much plug and play, but it comes with a lot of extra hardware to make it work with Intel. This makes it look really complicated (when you don't have any instructions).

Overall Review: Originally I had plans of putting another 120mm fan on the other side, but running at stock speeds it's not really necessary on my AMD x6

Wow! This thing is great!

Sharkoon SATA QuickPort USB3.0 2.5" & 3.5" Black SATA USB 3.0 Docking Stations
Sharkoon SATA QuickPort USB3.0 2.5" & 3.5" Black SATA USB 3.0 Docking Stations

Pros: USB3 is insanely fast compared to USB2. The device seems to be well built & I've ran it for a couple days straight with no issues.

Cons: The USB2 dock this is replacing had media adapters built in (for SD cards and other media formats), but this one doesn't. It would be nice if it did, but I'm just nit-picking. There really aren't any cons to this device (so far).

Overall Review: A lot of the reviews show this thing as dying really quickly, but I've had great luck with it so far. This thing is awesome.

Great Drives so far

SAMSUNG EcoGreen F4 ST2000DL004 2TB 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive
SAMSUNG EcoGreen F4 ST2000DL004 2TB 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive

Pros: Drives were cheap & they already have the firmware patch applied (which was a pleasant surprise). I bought five of them & ran a badblocks scan on them and they all passed with no problems. It took ~6 hours per drive to run the scan, but I feel it needs to be done.

Cons: Uh.......That a 2TB SSD can't be bought for the same price? No real cons that I've run across.

Overall Review: I was originally looking at the Hitachi 5K3000 series drives, because their 1TB drives have been ultra reliable. Unfortunately, the 2TB drives are not reviewed very well. I know more people leave bad reviews than good & that's just the nature of people, but the same can be said for these Samsung drives and they seem to be rated better.