Pros: • Z68 chipset • 6 SATA ports • solid construction • no legacy PCI slots • inexpensive

Cons: • no USB 3.0 • only one chassis fan header

Overall Review: This board is currently used in a 12TB NAS/SAN box. Not a demanding application, but it has been fast and steady. I would not hesitate to purchase again.

Pros: Cheap, Sturdy Enough

Cons: The SSD mounts nearly flush against the side of the bracket. You risk damaging the SSD when installing the bracket in your case if you use screws longer than the ones included with this kit.

Overall Review: I don't know why Mushkin decided not to center the mounting holes or why they put them so close to one edge of the bracket. Installing the SSD on the opposite (wrong) side of the bracket is an easy workaround if you cannot use the included screws, but what was Mushkin thinking when they designed this thing? Well, it works. Just be careful you don't crush your SSD.

Pros: Sturdy metal construction Port-based VLANs IPSEC & SSL VPN All Gig-E ports Supports jumbo frames Small size Console serial port Limited lifetime hardware warranty

Cons: Painfully slow Web GUI Fundamentally unstable

Overall Review: At one time I had as many as eight of these units in the field, but now I've replaced them with competing products (at my own expense) because my clients deserve better. Simply stated, Netgear's engineers have not been able to provide a firmware update that enables this firewall's full feature set without breaking something in the process. Fix the DHCP lease problems and the router intermittently drops RDP packets; fix the frequent lockups and the router starts dropping DNS traffic; fix the periodic loss of wireless connectivity and the LAN-WAN rules stop working. I pulled the last unit earlier this week (firmware 4.3.1-22) because it could only go a few days before clients began to experience timeouts, half-loaded webpages and loss of internet connectivity. Nearly three years and nine firmwares after I purchased my first FVS318N, Netgear added the only feature that makes sense for this flaky firewall: the ability to automatically reboot itself every 24 hours. The FVS318N isn't the only recent Netgear product I've seen with reliability issues. Poor design, poor implementation and laughably poor support is a good reason to look elsewhere for SoHo/SMB kit.

Pros: Inexpensive Reliable

Cons: Can be picky about PCI-e slot

Overall Review: I've used this part in several applications. It's a decent implementation of a very cheap wireless chipset. I tend to download Realtek's wireless drivers rather than use the ones included on the installation CD.

Pros: 5 year limited warranty Includes 2.5" to 3.5" adapter The drive shipped with firmware 1.5

Cons: It's too thick to fit in some laptops that make use of 2.5" hdds. Power consumption could be better.

Overall Review: I'm no fan of OCZ, but I bought this drive on a lark when the Samsung 830 series 128GB SSDs were unavailable. So far the OCZ drive has performed as advertised with no issues.

Pros: Good performance for a green drive, reliable, lowish temps. Ideal for applications that demand capacity over random read/write performance.

Cons: No longer manufactured by Samsung.

Overall Review: I've used this drive primarily in low-demand arrays for BDRs, network backup systems and my main home NAS. In these pampered conditions--excellent cooling, large single-client file transfers, extended idle times--they've been fast, available and reliable with a failure rate of about 5% in the first year. Failures have been graceful with all but one reported by SMART before data loss occurred. My experience has been mainly with the Korean-manufactured HD204UI flashed with the 1AQ10003 firmware intended for the Japanese market. As a side note, Seagate's RMA process has been painless--replacement drives have all been rebranded Korean-made HD204UIs.