Joined on 09/25/06
An update to my original review.
Pros: Pro's remain the same as my original review.
Cons: I've been contacted by Corsair support after writing my original review. Corsair will be shipping me two replacement fans at no cost to me, and do not want me to remove or send in any components from my water cooling kit now. Tech Support has even apologized for the original request to dismantle the water kit from my system. They're just going to send me the fans without questions.
Overall Review: Thumbs-up on Corsair support for correcting this situation!
Nice device overall
Pros: The wireless function works as intended. Place it down on a table, press the power button, and devices can connect to it wirelessly, and stream the content on it in real time. It's nearly idiot-proof in terms of usage. The built in interface has a upload feature that uses WiFi to put data in to it. If you want brainless storage for your mother or someone without much tech knowledge this would be for them. Turn it on, upload stuff, then press button to turn it off, take it with you to turn it on, and then let your friends see it. It also has a USB 3.0 interface to connect it via usb like a "normal" external hard drive if you wish to copy stuff on to it quicker than WiFi allows. 1TB in size is very nice and lots of room. No external software is required to use, upload to or otherwise utilize this device with windows 7 and mac.
Cons: However there are quite a few cons to this device that keep it from being perfect. If you have a desktop computer with a USB wifi card that also uses a wired connection at the same time for internet, you will be surprised when you connect the wireless to this hard drive. First off, connecting WiFi to this hard drive will DISABLE YOUR INTERNET CONNECTION! Even if you have a wired LAN connection at the same time, it will Hi-Jack your internet connection, blocking all internet traffic inbound (or outbound) through ALL INTERFACES on the computer. It is possible (once you connect to the device and browse it's web interface) to tell it to connect to a wireless access point, and then permit you to have internet access again while using this device. However, in doing this.. the internet connection is routed through the wireless hard drive, through your wifi card on your computer, and then in to your machine, even if you still (All this time) have a wired connection. (As long as you are connected to this device, it will not allow you to route any internet traffic through any wired connection on your machine. It does not block local LAN Traffic through wired ports though) This may work, but it adds about 10-20ms latency to all internet connections routing this way. You can although, place this wireless hard drive as a "go between" and extend the range of your wifi access point, by placing it and moving away from it, connecting your laptop to it, then telling it to connect to your access point, working as a wireless bridge. But if you wanted a wifi bridge, there's significantly cheaper products to do that. It gets hot on the bottom. I thought it would be a neat idea to put this thing in my pocket while it was on and walk around with my laptop, streaming music. It works but eventually this device gets so uncomfortably hot to the touch on the bottom that you worry something will become damaged inside of it. The provided USB cable to charge the hard drive's battery is a unique longer-than-normal plug tip. If you lose it, there's no chance of using a generic plug to charge the device, and you're out of luck for charging the drive's battery any more. It will not charge on the built in usb 3.0 interface, only the smaller plug. It also will not charge while you're connected via wifi and streaming a movie. It only charges when the wifi is disabled, and the device is turned off. You can however connect the charge cable and stream movies over wireless with a 0% capacity (Dead) battery.
Overall Review: It's impossible to know which video/audio formats work with the built in browsing software embedded in the device. (You can however browse the hard drive directly by specifying it's IP in internet explorer once connected and access everything with your PC's normal software) It's not listed anywhere in the documentation that came with it, and I even called seagate support and they were not able to provide me with a list of file extensions that work with it. In my testing: It WILL play Mp3, it WILL NOT let you play *.wav, *.wave, nor *.Ogg files IT WILL display: *.JPG, *.PNG. IT will not display: *.Bmp, *.gif, *.tif Movies.. The only movies I've been able to successfully play via the browser are *.mp4 movies, and even then some of them using non-standard codecs won't play on it either. DivX and XviD codecs work on it, and it plays uncompressed *.mp4 files. The following do not work: *.m2ts, *.mkv, *.avi, *.mpg, *.mpeg The only other thing to note, when you press the power button and the little LED lights go off on the front of the device, the hard drive inside remains spinning for a long while after, 5, 6 minutes some times. This leads to battery draw during times you think it's not drawing. Also you should not just assume it's off when the lights go off and throw it in your bag and start jostling it around until you know it's off, you could damage the hard drive and lose all data on it. You have to pretty much put your ear to the thing and listen until it completely stops spinning before tossing it in a bag and going.
Speedy, sometimes
Pros: When these work, they're very fast and work at the typical 100 Mbps speeds, and sustain those speeds for a long time. Connection couldn't be easier. Plug one in at one end of the house, plug the other in at the other end of the house, they sync together automatically, nothing is needed. No software to control the device. They're totally self-contained. These things are small in size, and low power, they only draw 12-15 watts each.
Cons: I live in a single-story 1600 SQFT duplex that was built in `82, so modern electrical. There's an unknown distance these things work at, I estimate it about 200-250 ft from each other. Less than this, they work great, 100 Mbps connection, sustained connection.. everything's fine. But then you go a little further away and try to use the "far unit" on a different outlet and it will run for a while then disconnect after 5 minutes and have to be unplugged and re-plugged. Further away than that (the very far side of the house) and it won't even connect at all. In my house, it either works, works with disconnects, or doesn't work at all. As with all PowerLine Adapters that claim 200 Mbps, that's not possible at all, and is assumed "full duplex operation" which doesn't work either. The most you're ever going to get out of these is 100 Mbps both ways. These also have to be connected directly to an outlet to function. You can not use these on: Power strips, UPS's, Extension cords, anything with a surge protector in-line. This is the same for all Power Line adapters though.
Overall Review: If you're going to use these over a short distance (1-2 bedrooms away) they work great, awesome, run at full speed and everything is hunky dory. If you're hoping to go from one end of your house all the way to the far end, these won't work for that and you should know this before you buy this product.
A good all-Around motherboard
Pros: The Installation is a breeze, everything was straight-forward with no hitches or problems what so ever. With everything installed, I benchmarked it with Intel Burn Test for 4 days 24-7 and no crashes, no problems at all. The onboard audio sounds good. The option for built in packet shaping for gaming priorities with the onboard NIC is a nice plus. The bios had a well laid out menu and it ran flawlessly. XMP mode for 2400 Mhz DDR3 actually worked and ran at 2400 Mhz without a hitch.
Cons: This isn't very common for me, but there are actually no cons that I experienced with this motherboard. Every single little detail just.. worked, exactly as expected and it should.
Overall Review: Some of the hardware used in my testing of this board: Intel Core i5-3330 Ivy Bridge 3.0GHz (2) XFX Super Overclock AMD Radeon HD 7770 (4) 4GB Mushkin Enhanced Blackline Ridgeback DDR4-2400 (16 GB Total) Samsung 256 GB SATA-III SSD Seasonic Platinum 1000 Power Supply. While this system may be very good for overclocking, I actually did not overclock, as the only processor I could get my paws on to test this was a locked multiplier CPU. So I can not comment on overclocking. However, for a straight up basic no-frills motherboard, this one actually worked awesome out of the box, which is not something I can say very often about motherboards these days.
Case modding will be likely!
Pros: If you own an Antec 1200 chassis, then you will want to know that this -WILL- fit into the top of an Antec 1200 chassis, but you have to be creative and willing to drill holes in the top of your chassis. See other thoughts for sizing suggestions. Actual pro's from an "Utterly insane, extreme overclocker" follow, I run my x58 i7 way above what most people would ever consider to be sane / safe for it. I'll give you a comparison before and after to give you an idea of the performance to expect from this cooling unit. System settings before water cooler: I7-950 Nehalem core, overclocked @ 4186mhz @ 1.468v cpu vcore, averaging 45c - 50c idle, and 89c - 94c under 100% load on all 8 threads. I was using a Cooler master GeminII S heatsink with a 8000 rpm 92mm delta fan (on a fan controller, only put to full speed when cores were loaded to 100%). After installing this water cooler on cpu @ same settings: averaging 30c - 34c idle and maxed out at 71c load temps (loaded to 100% on all cores/threads). So that's a idle temp drop of about -16c, but a load temp drop of about -23c verses air cooling. This is no small feat and pretty significant by most considerations. Besides all of this, (since I'm personally comfortable running my processor very hot) this water cooling unit has enabled me to push the processor up further to 4308mhz & 1.60v vcore, which now runs at a max of 89c - 91c under load. If you're in to absolutely nutty insane overclocking, this (massively large) radiator will definitely handle your extreme heat loads of the most demanding situations. Installed with the factory fans it is nearly completely silent. This was my first experience with water cooling at all and I wish I had done this sooner years ago, the noise reduction is probably the best part.
Cons: The two cooler master factory fans started making a rather noticeable "rattle" noise at day #2 of usage. I submitted an RMA with cooler master and they insist on my dismantling my computer and sending the entire unit back to them, fans, radiator, water block, and even the mounting bracket on the under-side of my motherboard. I tried asking to just send the fans back but was told the entire unit must be returned as one. This means an extra 12 hours of work just to replace the fans (which I can access with a screw driver without removing anything from my system), about 4-6 hours to disassemble enough of my system to remove the motherboard and then another 4-6 hours to re-assemble it when the replacement parts arrive. This is just too much just to replace two fans (which I can access with a screw driver without removing anything else from my system), so I'll work out something on my own instead. I don't know if my experience is typical, but after suddenly having a totally silent system with this water cooler, it's very noticeable when the fans are "rattling" like this.
Overall Review: This will not fit in most computer cases! Make sure you look at the actual physical dimensions listed on this page for the radiator. DO NOT ASSUME that just because it mounts two 140mm fans that the radiator is therefore 280mm. It in fact has portions of the radiator that extend an additional 15mm on either side (for a full 310mm length) and may make fitting in some locations difficult. Instead of pulling the entire system for RMA, I plan to just replace (upgrade!) the two fans with a pair of 140mm sleeve-bearing Yate Loon fans, likely 4 total for push-pull eventually, depending on how the first two work out, but for now just two. I have several pictures of how I figured out how to mount this in an Antec 1200 chassis and it may be useful to others wanting this cooler but also owning this chassis. They're available on my DeviantArt page, just look on DA for user name "AquaVixie", it should be an obvious gallery there, also with full detailed specs of my entire system. Other thought: After having air cooling with a loud fan for a little over 3 years in this system... I actually can hear my hard drives when they have activity for the first time. It's a little un-nerving to hear them clatter suddenly and look at my computer when I hear the noise. It's okay.. It's just something new to get used to.
Convient kit
Pros: The setup couldn't be easier really. I plugged one in the outlet in my room near my router, connected a Cat5 cable to my router's network ports, then all the way at the other end of the house (bear in mind this is a 2600 sqft house) I plugged in the other unit into a wall outlet. I didn't have to do anything, it sync'd automatically in about 10 seconds and it was online. I connected a network cable from the second device to my laptop, and pulled a DHCP IP off my network and I was online browsing youtube. Internet speed test websites were reporting 30 Mbps down, 20 Mbps up (Our internet is capable of 75 Mbps down, 30 Mbps up).
Cons: The rated speed of 200 Mbps is a complete farce and a lie. Even with 100 MBps full duplex you won't connect above 100 MBps with this device, no matter how close they are to each other. Over distance, the speed degrades the further away you space the two units. I was only able to sustain at best 30 Mbps connection across a little more than 1500ft away. I had both units on the same outlet together at one point and they still only connected at 65 Mbps at that distance. These devices do not work on extension cords, or power strips. You must plug them directly in to the outlet it's self with nothing between it and the outlet. This is explained in the quick-start paper inside the product but it's something you should know before purchasing as well.
Overall Review: I have installed a Wireless-G access point at that far end of the house for more coverage, so we could have WiFi access points at either end of the house and have good internet speed throughout. This device works for that and we now get 25-30 Mbps internet over wifi at the far end of the house instead of the usual 3-7 Mbps we were getting before with just one access point.