Pros: From all the Hitachi HDD reviews, I was expecting to get a drive that ran very hot and had average performance. New Egg must have shipped me the wrong drive then! The drive I received is very zippy and doesn't run hot at all! My idle temperature is 31C and after a 6 hour long read/write load test, it peaked at 35C. In comparison, my 1 TB WD Caviar Black idles at 33C and peaks at 37C in the 6 hour load test, installed in the same test bay. Data transfer tests were also very fast. Using a 2GB sequential write, I averaged 135 MB/s read/write. 512K random was 55 MB/s read/write, and 4k random was .6/1.2 MB/s read/write. This makes it the second fastest drive I've seen at sequential data transfer. In the same test, my 1 TB WD Caviar Black scored a 125 MB/s sequential, 60 MB/s read/write. and .5/1.4 MB/s read/write. I think the Hitachi equals the WD Black in all around performance.

Cons: Heavier than most drives; maybe a problem if you have flimsy trays in a HDD backplane. No SATA cable included in the retail package.

Overall Review: I see lots of complaints that this drive is hot, but my real world tests show different. I test each drive starting at room temp of 25C and let them idle for 1 hour. Then I do a 6 hour load test of reads/writes. The peak temps from my various drives idle/loaded are: 500 GB WD Green (5400 rpm) 30C/33C 500 GB Samsung (7200 rpm) 29C/31C 1 TB WD Green (5400 rpm) 29C/33C 1 TB WD Blue (7200 rpm) 31C/35C 1 TB WD Black (7200 rpm) 33C/37C 1 TB Samsung (7200 rpm) 29C/31C 2 TB Hitachi (7200 rpm) 31C/35C Clearly my Samsung Spinpoints run the coolest, but my Hitachi didn't test any hotter than my WD Blue drive, and was cooler than my Caviar Black. I would definitely buy this drive again!

Pros: Great drive for Windows 7 and some version of Linux. Quite and cool.

Cons: Not suitable for Windows XP or Windows Home Server. Not suitable for versions of Linux that force disc format to start at Sector 63. Same alignment problems as other advance format drives, but no jumper solution to fix it for older systems. The other advance format drives on the market can be made compatible with older OS's by installing a jumper. Samsung decided to not offer this option, leaving older systems flapping in the breeze. The lack of backwards compatibility cost them a full egg.

Overall Review: I tested this drive extensively. In Windows 7, it will format with a starting sector of 2048, which is aligned for a 4k drive. HD Tune reports 103 MB/s. CrystalDisk reports ~130 MB/s read/write and ~40 MB/s read/write w/ 512k random. However, if you use XP, WHS, and some versions of linux which start at Sector 63, the drive format is misaligned, and the 512k emulation does not compensate for this. Mis-aligned, HD Tune still reports 103 MB/s. However, CrsytalDisk reports ~128 MB/s sequential read write. The 512k random is ~ 40MB/s read, but only 20 MB/s write. The 4k random data suffers the same 50% slowdown during writes. The bottom line, if you use this drive in XP, WHS, or anything else that formats starting at Sector 63, you will suffer a 50% slower write performance. Bad news for an OS.

Pros: Provided power. Had enough connectors for my application.

Cons: No on/off switch on back. Fan was loud. Died prematurely.

Overall Review: This was an okay power supply for what it was. Used in a very low power (less than 100W draw nominal) NAS system. The power supply lasted through its warranty period (1 year), but it failed with ~24,000 hours of use on it, and it is rated for a MTBF of 100,000 hours. In the dozens of PC's, servers, and NAS units that I have built over the years, this is only the second PSU that I've ever had fail. I normally build for reliability, so I can't really recommend Athena Power if you need a PSU that will be considered reliable. I had to buy this unit, because at the time, my normal PSU options were not available and had a lengthy backorder. Fortunately, I didn't have a lot of faith in this unit, and I had went ahead and back ordered my regular PSU. So I had one on hand for a quick swap out, and I expect it can survive 10 years of 24/7 usage, and it was only $14 more than the Athena Power unit that failed early.

Pros: One of the fastest drives I've ever tested. The fastest at this price range. Sustained read/write on a 2GB file was 145 MB/s average. 512k random was 60 MB/s. 4k random tests were .5/1 MB/s read/write. The fastest sequential numbers of any drive I've tested and the 512k and 4k random tests were up there. The only way to get a faster drive is pay 2X as much, or get a SSD.

Cons: None

Pros: Cheap. Quiet. Low Power. Easy Install.

Cons: Retail product looks suspiciously like an OEM product. No box, manual, screws, etc. that a retail drive normally has. Just a drive in a anti-static bag.

Overall Review: I have an older P4 with only two SATA ports on the motherboard. I bought two of these and a Rosewill RC-201 PCI SATA Controller to setup a RAID1 for storing family photos and videos. Speed wasn't a concern since the controller is only 1.5GB SATA and also limited by the PCI bus. I have to use the jumper to slow the drive down. No problem recognizing the drives in XP. No problems setting up the RAID1 (took about an hour to format the two drives with NTFS once the RAID was setup). I use a 7200 rpm 75GB SATA Hitachi Deskstar as my boot drive, and these drives are way more quiet than the Hitachi. They made no noise at all during formatting, while the Hitachi was idle. I copied about 40GB from the Deskstar to these drives, and if they made any noise, you couldn't hear it over the Hitachi. I haven't yet seen a drive temperature higher than 100F, even when I copied the 40GB. The Deskstar hit 111F during the transfer. So far they are great!

Pros: Works as advertised. Cheap. Installation and setup was a breeze.

Cons: Poor documentation. Poor Windows RAID GUI Installation. My Wireless Keyboard doesn't work at the RC201 BIOS.

Overall Review: I bought this and two WD Caviar Green drives to setup a RAID1. It is only being used to store family digital photos and videos, so speed wasn't much of a concern. Set BIOS jumper to 2-3 to bypass card BIOS, booted to XP, and installed drivers (which took awhile to scan the driver folder). It installed a SATA adapter driver. Shutdown, and installed the drives. Booted back into XP. Went to admin tools, disk management and initialized the two new drives. Shutdown and changed jumper back to 1-2. Booted XP. This time, it detected the card as new hardware, and installed a SATA RAID driver. Rebooted again and tried to enter adapter BIOS with F4, but couldn't. Turns out my MB BIOS enables my wireless keyboard, but then the RC-201 BIOS disables it, meaning I had to plug in a wired keyboard. Got into the BIOS and setup a RAID1. Booted XP and it showed two drives as one. Formatted and all is working well! Documentation is horrible and confusing, and I know what I'm doing!