Pros: I bought this before any reviews were posted about it. Was very impressed with the specs for the price. Mine runs very cool but I'm not a gamer. Brilliant display, OK keyboard. Like the touch pad with multiple touch features but most of the time the computer is on the desk with lazer mouse and I have the touch pad disabled. The sound output using Altec external speakers seems much better than my old computer but I haven't hooked it up to the HiFi system to compare to the old computer. Like the USB 3 port for the future and the Sata port for my external drives.

Cons: I wish it had DVI output like my last laptop. I'm using HMDI output to extend my desktop to a 24" LCD monitor. Did not like the way the hard drive was partitioned but I took care of that with Acronis Disk Director. There are no directions for the Asus software that comes with it. Can't find anything about the software on the Asus website either.

Overall Review: My main uses for this machine are for Adobe Lightroom 3.0, listening to music, and Web surfing. Very quick for these chores but I will to upgrade to 8GB of RAM so Lightroom should run even better.

Pros: Seems solid. Compact package for using 4 3.5" hard drives. Up to 12 TB of storage. If you plan to use USB 3.0 be careful ordering because there is a model that looks the same but is USB 2.0 for a little less money. There is also a different model for RAID configurations if that is your requirement.

Cons: Power plug on the side but with my present setup it doesn't matter. Instructions could have been a little clearer for setup but I was able to set it up pretty quickly.

Overall Review: I had two external hard drives. One in it's own enclosure is 500 GB and is five years old and stopped working a few months ago (and the drive had all my music CDs on it). The other is a 650 GB 10 month old drive in a StarTech toaster that was backing up my C: drive and the 500 GB external but had filled completely up several months ago. Yesterday I received the Mediasonic 4 bay enclosure along with a 2 TB bare drive. I installed both the 650 GB and 2 TB drive in the Mediasonic, plugged in the power and connected the enclosure to my laptop with the USB 3.0 cable. Everything fired up without a problem and the computer recognized both drives. I then plugged in the five year old external drive to a USB 2.0 port and miracle of miracles it worked. I immediately copied the old files before the drive forgot it was broken. The 650 now replaces the 500 and the 2 TB will back up the C: drive and the 650 and I still have two drive bays left for expansion. Everything is working properly.

I was going to order SSD from B&H Photo while ordering some other items, but I had a $10 discount coupon from Newegg so I ordered the SSD from Newegg. I would have received the SSD from B&H in 2 days with free shipping. Here it is 5 days later, no SSD and a tracking number that doesn't work. Not buying from Newegg anymore if they are going to use third parties like PlatinumMicro. Just read review Guidelines and it says I can't criticize Newegg or service partners, so what use is this online rating system?