Joined on 08/18/05
Good deal, very quiet
Pros: Decent price; actually a little cheaper now than when I bought it. I found this drive through the forrest drive comparison tool. Also, EXTREMELY quiet. This is good for me, because it's going in a media/home theater PC that sits in the living room. I actually was not quite convinced that the drive was turned on and working until I started using it, it was so quiet.
Cons: No SATA cable included, but that's to be expected these days. I forgot about this and had to order the cable separately; if that happens to you, shop around for deals on shipping.
Overall Review: Not really a "con", but I got this drive to use in an older computer along with a PCI SATA card. If you're doing that, remember to also get power adapters, since older machines won't have SATA power cables as well. A while back they made SATA drives with older 4-pin Molex power connectors, but I guess not anymore.
Large, high-resolution, simple
Pros: High resolution. It's hard to find reasonably priced LCDs with resolutions greater than 1920x1080. I don't see any point in a large screen if the resolution is the same as my 22" monitor. This has a 2560x1440 resolution, offering significantly more viewing area. It's also not outrageously priced like some other hi-res monitors. Great image. Unlike other posters, I had no problems displaying POST and BIOS screens.
Cons: Very simple controls; power and brightness adjustment. I suppose you can adjust everything else through your graphics card. No HDMI input, although you could use a DVI to HDMI adapter. I'm unclear about the HDCP support in this monitor; it's not relevant for me, but might be for someone else. It's really thick, and has a large power brick, if you care about that sort of thing.
Overall Review: Requires a dual-link DVI cable to run the native resolution. It comes with one in the box, but don't accidentally swap it with a single-link cable from some other monitor. I bought this for CAD and drafting work, and it's fulfilling its role. Currently using it with an nVidia GT610.
cheap, simple, linux-friendly
Pros: Dirt cheap; SATA drives are cheaper per GB these days than IDE/PATA drives, so it was worth it to spend a few bucks on this card and get a SATA drive for an older machine. Popped it into the PCI slot, and its BIOS showed up right after the computer BIOS. Worked flawlessly with Arch Linux (the new KnoppMyth distribution) - I did absolutely nothing, and the attached drive was detected without issue.
Cons: No SATA cables, which is lame, but expected these days. Don't forget to order them.
Overall Review: Didn't try the RAID functionality, and I don't intend to. Kind of nice that it also includes an extra IDE/PATA port - not sure if that can take two drives (master/slave). If so, this card will allow you four more drives in addition to what your motherboard takes. That's a lot of extra storage!