Joined on 03/08/07
Best performer in-class so far
Pros: I had previously reviewed the Seagate SATAIII 4TB NAS drive and had been very happy with it. However WD is my brand of choice for mechanical drives and was happy to receive this for testing. The drive was connected in an HP ML350 G5 server 4GB DDR2 ECC Xeon E5335 2.0GHZ Windows 7 Pro 64bit SATA III PCIe Card Windows recognized the drive and there were no problems with formatting the drive. I benched this drive, the Seagate, and the three 10k RPM 3GBs SAS drives that are in RAID5. CrystalDiskMark 3.0.2 RAID5 SAS 3GBs Seq Read :107.7MBs Seq Write : 33.2MBs 4k Read : 0.742MBs 4/k /write : 2.341MBs Seagate Seq Read : 168.4MBs Seq Write : 163.9MBs 4k Read : 0.591MBs 4/k /write : 1.468MBs Western Digital* Seq Read :178.8MBs Seq Write : 168.2MBs 4k Read : 0.744MBs 4/k /write : 2.028MBs HDTune 2.55 RAID5 SAS 3GBs Avg Transfer Rate : 68MBs Access Time : 7.2ms Seagate Avg Transfer Rate : 154.1MBs Access Time : 13.3ms Western Digital* Avg Transfer Rate :143.4MBs Access Time : 9.6ms To round out the pros you have a five year warranty on a drive that is built to run 24/7. I have always been happy with WD RMA process and have never been let down (so far).
Cons: I really can't think of any con for this drive except the cost. It's performance is marginally better than Seagate's current offerings but costs more. This is not something that I can take an egg away from, especially since it provides such large capacity with lower access times.
Overall Review: If you need large storage for backups that aren't mission critical, I would grab these over anyone elses. Of course this assumes you don't have access to hardware that would support a large number of smaller faster drives.
Not bad, could be better
Pros: First off let me get my normal disclaimer out of the way ***RANGE EXTENDERS SHOULD BE LAST RESORT*** The unit is small, attractive, and fits into most environments. The only design flaw I can find is that it is very wide taking up two sockets on my wall mounted surge suppressor. I am using the Ethernet port on the device so I did NOT want to have it unprotected. Netgear even provides 90 days of FREE tech support to get things up and running for those who do not know what they are doing. A nice touch that I would like to see from other vendors. Setup was really simple using the Ethernet jack. Plugged in the cable, opened the web browser, went through the wizard, and Bob's your uncle everything is running. Very simple and easy. It took a little bit of work but I was able to log back into the configuration page which showed me connection speeds. It fluctuates between 144Mbps-300Mbps. Most of the time it is less than 200Mbps. Still the connection is consistent and performs better than the dying USB wifi adapter it replaced. I was able to use the configuration page to disable the wireless radio, essentially turning it into a bridged client adapter.
Cons: It only uses fast Ethernet (100Mbps) for wired connections. This is a pet peeve of mine. There is a physical on\off button. Wish they would have given you a scheduler in the configuration page instead. When I disabled the wireless radio, turning the device into a client bridge, the web gui reported that the radio was still on with the previous settings. However a wireless scan showed no signal being produced. There is a different page indicating the radio is turned off, but this would confuse someone who is not familiar with the technology. The unit modifies all client MAC addresses including wired ones, so if you filter MAC addresses keep this in mind. The last issue is an odd one. After the initial configuration of the unit, for some reason my browser opened up Bing.com. I REALLY don't like Bing so it was odd to have Chrome load it out of the blue. But there have been no issues since.
Overall Review: I have never had much luck with extenders, creates more problems than they solve. Better to add another AP but I understand its not always an option. If you can get this on sale it is well worth the money if used as a client bridge. (ie for your Xbox\PS4 or TV). It has been connected to my main PC and I am fairly happy with it.
Just what I needed
Pros: The existing Corsair PSU I was using had it's fan off-balance and would vibrate. This was really annoying to hear while working throughout the day. Was excited to try out this unit since it wouldn't spin up unless it was needed. My workstation consists of an i5, two DIMMs, SSD, 2.5" HDD, and an older silent video card (which pairs well with this PSU). My work load consists of remote terminals so very little happens locally. This equates to a near silent experience without the video card or PSU spinning up. If you listen carefully you can only hear the CPU and case fan. Installation was...installing a PSU. Nothing to say about it.
Cons: Wish the cables would have been in a sleeve, would look nicer and be less prone to getting nicked.
Overall Review: Nothing wrong with this unit.
Very Happy
Pros: I have a Dell Vostro 200 that was built for Windows XP. Up until now it was the spare computer no one wanted to use. Recently my 10 year old wanted to play some games on the PC but I lacked a gaming PC. So we took the Vostro and upgraded the CPU, video card, and hard drive. I had previously installed a 600W Antec PSU, but with the CPU and GPU upgrades caused the internal breaker to flip constantly. I knew 600W was enough for the parts we installed but it was obvious the Antec was not up to the task. My son was very excited to install the Corsair as it was modular since he hated the extra cables from the Antec. Installation was standard with only a slight hiccup with the CPU power connector. Since this is a Dell motherboard nothing can be easy, we had to pull back some of the sheath on the P2 connector then twist it around so the pins would match up. This was a Dell issue and was not caused by the PSU. This Corsair 650W PSU is able to power the heavily outdated, and inefficient, GTX 470 and the Core 2 Duo 3GHZ CPU. No loss of power and no cooling issues either. The build quality is good enough to withstand my son kicking the computer off it's stand in the middle of the night. The fan has yet to come unbalanced.
Cons: No cons that I can think of. It's a PSU and it works.
Overall Review: I really like this unit, have added it to my approved replacement part lists at work.
Fedora 24 workstation
Pros: It supports up to 4 displays, though only able to use three, in Fedora 24 using open source drivers. The unit runs cool and the fan rarely spins up. Thought considering I'm just a Systems Analyst I don't push it that hard. I appreciate a silent workstation so this is a huge plus.
Cons: With using the default open source drivers I can only get three displays to work. When time permits I will go through the tedious AMD driver install process which should allow the fourth display to show up.
Overall Review: Mainly used to display web pages, RDP sessions, terminals, and the occasional youtube video. Great workstation display for the price.
Great Flash Drive
Pros: Needed to re-image laptops at work one at time. Decided a flash drive would be the best method for this type of deployment and 128GB was just enough for two most commonly used images. The speeds are respectable and stable with up to 70MB/s transfer rates to/from mechanical hard drives using Clonezilla over USB 3.0 . USB 2.0 is saturated by the drive. As stated performance is very stable. I was thinking it would fluctuate based on the price of the unit and the possible use of inferior chips. Pleasantly surprised with being able to image one of our laptops in under ten minutes. This has been a huge benefit as I drive up to two hours visiting different locations. When a user reports their system is performing poorly I can pop this in and have them up and running in 30 minutes total. It is made of plastic but overall build quality is not bad. Strong enough I feel comfortable shipping them across the US and letting users in remote offices image their own systems until the PXE boot server is in place.
Cons: Though not really a con the partition table had to be wiped out and rebuilt with MBR for Clonezilla to boot off of it properly. So if your going to make this a bootable drive keep that in mind. The other issue I have is the use of shiny plastic. Seriously, flash drives get thrown in drawers and pants pockets. Shiny plastic is not practical and scratches easily.
Overall Review: After reviewing this unit I went out and purchased several more to ship to various locations. Very happy with performance/cost ratio.
Fast Shipping, Needs Better Descriptions
Ordered a product as last minute father's day gift. Received very quickly and the item was packaged properly. However, this seller has many of the same type of item that are all very similar. I know little about OBDII readers and with all of them the same price and saying they do the same thing I get confused on which to buy. If there could be more information on model numbers ect I would appreciate.