Pros: - 500W - Efficient - Abundant supply of long cables (they all reach) - Round sleeves on all cables

Cons: I didn't get one sooner.

Overall Review: If you think a more efficient power supply costs too much to buy, consider how much a less efficient one is costing you in electricity usage...especially if you use it in an always-on server, like me.

Pros: Nice layout of on-board amenities and overall layout

Cons: 1) Very poor documentation (many circular references like "SVM Support. This setting allows you to enable/disable the SVM support." OK, could you explain WHAT it is?) 2) Very poor RAID support. Requires a special driver diskette before the OS is loaded (especially distressing if you're not installing Windows). Software-based RAID. 3) Only 1 SATA cable included. Could use 2 minimum -- many people are doing 2 drives these days, either as primary & secondary, or in a RAID 1 mirror. 4) Could use a second Gigabit LAN port. I bought this motherboard to run a business server. Dual LAN ports to support LACP (Link Aggregation) would be nice. 5) Does not come with either a speaker or the optional D-Bracket (with the diagnostic LEDs) in order to troubleshoot configurations. Either put a simple speaker on the board or include the D-Bracket standard. 6) No SATA disk is recognized by the OS (tried FreeBSD, CentOS and Windows Vista Ultimate), unless you install the RAID drivers.

Overall Review: This board's documentation could use a MUCH better explanation of how to use and setup in the BIOS the 6 SATA ports. The options for "RAID Mode" are IDE, RAID and AHCI. Huh? No explanation in the guide for what each does. I could not get FreeBSD 7.0 or CentOS 5.2 to even boot. It always hung at the disk driver. This board may be returned to sender if I can't get it working in the next couple of days.

Pros: - Power supply on bottom-very nice! Now your power supply will no longer suck in all of the hot air that rises to the top. Plus, the PS goes behind the 3.5" drive bays, not at the top where people most put their 5.25" drives (i.e., nicer fit). - Very flexible drive bay layout - put 3.5" or 5.25" drives anywhere up & down the front (3.5" with adapters, of course--1 included). Punch-outs on every bay to (un)cover each. - More fan vents than I know what to do with (see Other thoughts). - Top air vents (x2)--excellent for heat dissipation when side venting is impractical (like when you put multiple cases side-by-side or up against a wall) - Toolless drive holders (except for the 3.5" bays). - Very well laid out for space.

Cons: - No reset switch/button -- Huh?! This would've come in very handy for the past few days as I troubleshot my motherboard configuration. - Front fan 3-pin cord is _way_ too short, doesn't stretch to the 3-pin fan connector on the motherboard (yes, they include a 3-pin fan to 4-pin power adapter, but then the fan isn't mobo monitored) - Extra vents don't come with covers when they're not in use (see Other thoughts).

Overall Review: This is a very well laid out case with many possibilities. But, it could use some very low cost improvements in the next revision. Come on, no reset switch (what did you save by leaving that out, like $2)? Also, could you include a 3-pin fan extension cord? Hint: if you want directed airflow, not just in/out any of the open vents, use foil tape--the kind used on heating ducts--to cover over the unused vents. I covered over the sides, back and 1 of the top vents, so that air flows in from the front & out of the top--I put the rear fan on top. This is ideal for my situation where this case is side-by-side with others, rear airflow is impractical, and with directing airflow to the top heat won't collect at the top of the case.

Pros: This NAS unit has an exceptional web-based interface, and with the latest firmware update, it has a wide variety of options to choose from. We bought it for our small business to handle shared user home directories and server backups. We also puchased it for its support of the NFS protocol to allow Unix/Linux to mount the file systems (requires firmware update out-of-the-box).

Cons: It would be great if this model of NAS supported a slide-in/out (hot swap) mechanism for disk drive replacement. Having to screw in and cable each disk is time consuming, requires down time and is overly optimistic. A drive failure will happen; it's just a matter of when. So, hope for the best but plan for the worst, and provide a hot swap mechanism.

Overall Review: Yes, others may have problems with certain brands and models of disks in a RAID configuration in this or any other NAS. This is true of any hardware RAID solution; you have to check compatibility. No, I don't work for Synology, I just know the ins and outs of hardware RAID. After a firmware upgrade, this unit supports RAID6, but with 4 disks it gives you the same capacity and redundancy as RAID1, so why not just do RAID1? (I guess it just gives them one more thing to tout under their "supported" list.)