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James W.

James W.

Joined on 03/07/13

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 4
Most Favorable Review

Very happy with this case

BitFenix Shinobi XL Window White Steel / Plastic ATX Full Tower Computer Case
BitFenix Shinobi XL Window White Steel / Plastic ATX Full Tower Computer Case

Pros: This case is really lightweight for how large it is. Some other full towers I've tried were heavy before I even put components inside, which makes them nearly impossible to move. Having never ordered a BitFenix product, I didn't know what to expect. I am extremely pleased with the construction of this case. From the materials to the craftsmanship, it really is an A+ case. The fans that adorn the front and top of this case are HUGE. It was difficult to tell by the pictures - and I'm honestly not even sure what size fans they are - but they are intense. I was going to switch the stock fans out for something else, but I've decided to leave it as it is.

Cons: It may be that I haven't installed actual hard drives into them yet, but the empty drive bays don't all stay in their slots very well. A couple toward the center actually just fall right out, but like I said, I'm assuming it's because there aren't drives in them yet. Consult other reviews and see if others have had problems with the drive bays. I am probably going to put some kind of drive blackplane into this case so it won't be an issue for me.

Overall Review: This case DOES come with a 3.5" to 5.25" bay adapter (it's white.) I did not realize this when I ordered the case or I may have purchased a different media card reader. I am still ok with the 5.25" media card reader I ultimately purchased. My main suggestion is to have patience when you are building your computer. Instead of ordering all the parts at once, get this case first and feel things out. I'm going to probably do a little bit of watercooling (CPU only) and I'm glad that I waited purchasing anything until I had the case. Now that I can see and measure all of the different areas with free room, I can easily purchase the watercooling parts I need. Had I tried to measure it "online," I'm sure I would have been sending things back or jimmy rigging it.

Looks really neat, wish it fit my motherboard

Noctua NH-D15, Premium CPU Cooler with 2x NF-A15 PWM 140mm Fans (Brown)
Noctua NH-D15, Premium CPU Cooler with 2x NF-A15 PWM 140mm Fans (Brown)

Pros: Organized and packaged very well. I'd write more, but I couldn't use it.

Cons: It doesn't fit LGA-2011-3 sockets. Oops!

Overall Review: I should have read the darn details instead of trusting someone on Reddit to tell me what was compatible!

Eliminates the need for Cloud Backup Storage

ioSafe SOLO PRO 4TB USB 2.0 / eSATA 3.5" External Hard Drive with Fireproof / Waterproof SH4000GB1YR
ioSafe SOLO PRO 4TB USB 2.0 / eSATA 3.5" External Hard Drive with Fireproof / Waterproof SH4000GB1YR

Pros: We have been deploying ioSafe Solo G3s and ioSafe Solo Pros at our customers' locations for the last year or two. Prior to this product, we had to implement two backup solutions: 1). On site tape backup solution and 2). cloud backup solution. Tape backups usually cost $1000+ cost of tapes, which need replaced every few years. Cloud backup solutions cost monthly ranging from $10-$1000 depending on how many GB of data you are backing up. But with this product, we can do our in house backup directly to the ioSafe hard drive (as opposed to tapes) and these hard drives are protected against disasters (eliminating the need for the external cloud solution.) This device pays for itself over and over again. We have been able to use the backups to restore files that were accidentally deleted by end users. Furthermore, we've already experienced the disaster recovery features first hand. One of our customers were flooded this spring and lost much of their equipment. The backup drive survived and we were able to get them up and running within a couple days. Don't know what we would have done without ioSafe.

Cons: There is not a rackmount solution at this time. I would really like to see a line of SAN/NAS 2U or 3U rackmount RAID arrays that are fireproof/waterproof. Would be perfect for some of our larger enterprise customers who have 20-40TB of data and no real good way to back it all up.

Overall Review: For situations requiring an eSATA port, such as for directly connecting to an ESXi server, this is the correct product. If you're going to be using USB3.0 to connect to a Windows or Apple based server, the G3 is probably the way to go. Both work wonderfully.

No Longer Uses a Cheesy Adapter

AFT PRO-57U USB 3.0 5.25" Bay, CompactFlash/ SDHC/ SDXC/ microSD/ microSDXC/ miniSD/ miniSDHC/ MultiMediaCard/ Memory Stick/ xD-Picture Card. All-in-one Internal Media Card Reader
AFT PRO-57U USB 3.0 5.25" Bay, CompactFlash/ SDHC/ SDXC/ microSD/ microSDXC/ miniSD/ miniSDHC/ MultiMediaCard/ Memory Stick/ xD-Picture Card. All-in-one Internal Media Card Reader

Pros: This has all of the media card inputs that I need. I almost didn't order this because of complaints about the internal USB adapter, but I was glad to find that mine came with a much different cable than what is pictured on NewEgg. On one end, the cable has two USB ends that plug into the device itself. The other end directly connects into a set of USB3.0 pins on the motherboard.

Cons: I have not used it long enough to have had any problems. Will report back if that changes.

Overall Review: NewEgg should update their photographs of the package or mark the old reviews of this product as antiquated.