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Greg H.

Greg H.

Joined on 12/08/04

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 15
Most Favorable Review

Interesting comments...

ZyXEL GS1100-16 Unmanaged 16 Port Unmanaged Gigabit Rackmount Switch
ZyXEL GS1100-16 Unmanaged 16 Port Unmanaged Gigabit Rackmount Switch

Pros: Not moving parts so silent. Negotiates fastest speeds reliably. Compact yet still still rack mountable.

Cons: Not really a con as much as a user problem, but it has a button on the front for 802.3az functionality. I have found buttons to disqualify any product from being idiot-proof. Eliminate any buttons to keep this working as intended. Otherwise its the first thing that gets punched when a problem arises.

Overall Review: Some areas of my company tend to use left over hardware, some that is even from the late 90's. These guys if they drop a port won't replace a switch, they will daisy chain another switch to it. A troubleshooters nightmare. Being the guy they call when they can't figure it out what's happening, I won't even try to support their old Bay Network stuff still in production. I bought a small supply of these to hand out when they complain of problems. Once they replace their old stuff, then I will help them. These are NOT routers despite some of the reviews. Also, since there are no fans, you can't put these is as harsh of an environment before they overheat. You need A/C! Not saying that's the problem of the other reviewers, but just something to be aware of.

Most Critical Review

Hit or Miss

WD Red Plus 3TB NAS Hard Disk Drive - 5400 RPM Class SATA 6Gb/s, CMR, 64MB Cache, 3.5 Inch - WD30EFRX
WD Red Plus 3TB NAS Hard Disk Drive - 5400 RPM Class SATA 6Gb/s, CMR, 64MB Cache, 3.5 Inch - WD30EFRX

Pros: Decent value initially. Hold lots of data.

Cons: One was bad upon delivery so I paid to ship it back for a replacement. The replacement is also bad so now I have to ship it back too. I am not thrilled I am out $24 and two trips to the post office for nothing in return.

Overall Review: Bought 4 of these to fill a small NAS for archival purposes. 3 worked great and passed the initial self test. As mentioned, 1 did not so I sent it back. The replacement also did not pass the self test so now I have to pay to send it back again, this time for a refund. Even though 3 out of 5 have worked, those aren't very good odds so I can't recommend these to anyone, hobbyist or professional.

Works and is blazingly fast

ORICO M.2 NVMe SSD Case for PCIE M Key M+B Key SSD Disk USB 3.1 GEN 2 Aluminum Heatsink Enclosure 10Gbps Support Up to 2TB With Type C to C Cable
ORICO M.2 NVMe SSD Case for PCIE M Key M+B Key SSD Disk USB 3.1 GEN 2 Aluminum Heatsink Enclosure 10Gbps Support Up to 2TB With Type C to C Cable

Pros: Cheap Fast!!

Cons: Gets extremely hot I would consider it cheaply pieced together Drive rattles around in the case

Overall Review: I've had my fair share of Orico stuff and its all just super cheap and poor quality. This is the same, but at least it does work. Knowing that, I'd say this is worth the price for sure if it lasts. It's pretty cheezy though The board the nvme connects to is not secured in any way. It just floats in the case and rattles like crazy. It also gets blazingly hot just sitting with no writes or reads. I will say however that connecting it thru a USB-C port using just a leftover nvme from an upgraded laptop, it is blazingly fast. I'm talking, it copied a 4GB iso in under 3 seconds. Hard to complain about that. To summarize, Orico basically makes questionable quality hardware, but when it works, this thing is pretty incredible. If the risk is worth it to you, give it a shot.

12/23/2021

Neat little laptop

ASUS VivoBook 14 S403 Thin and Light Laptop, 14" FHD Display, Intel Core i7-1065G7 Processor, 8 GB LPDDR4X RAM, 256 GB PCIe SSD, Thunderbolt 3, Windows 10 Home, Silver Blue, S403JA-BH71
ASUS VivoBook 14 S403 Thin and Light Laptop, 14" FHD Display, Intel Core i7-1065G7 Processor, 8 GB LPDDR4X RAM, 256 GB PCIe SSD, Thunderbolt 3, Windows 10 Home, Silver Blue, S403JA-BH71

Pros: Very portable, ie, lightweight, thin, but doesn't seem delicate. Screen is great! Bio-metric security that isn't a pain to use Good performance Battery (at least new) last all day

Cons: Only nit I have is the sound volume at 100% is barely audible to anyone but the person sitting at the keyboard. Wish it had a touch screen, but I'll get used to not having it eventually

Overall Review: I had come to enjoy the benefits of a Chromebook that was very fast to load when needed, long life battery, portable, but could be tossed in a bag at a moments notice and survive. When I started needing things like special VPN software and my password manager though, the Android only options were a real weakness. I began to feel the need for a full fledged laptop. So far this is been the almost perfect replacement, giving me 99% of everything I had with my Chromebook, only with twice the horsepower and a much better screen. If it lasts, I will feel very good about my purchase and ended up buying a second one for my college bound kid.

Perfect for our needs

Ubiquiti NBE-M5-16 2-PACK 5GHz NanoBeam M5 16dBi airMAX Bridge
Ubiquiti NBE-M5-16 2-PACK 5GHz NanoBeam M5 16dBi airMAX Bridge

Pros: Simple to setup, but can do complex things to with a little more tinkering Reliable. Not a single issue to report and we don't even have ideal conditions nor perfect dish alignment Good design. We have these on a very dirty barge unloader platform. Occasional rain is all we need to keep the devices clean and operational.

Cons: None so far but we bought the recommended lightning arrestors and cabling to go with it.

Overall Review: I absolutely would by this product again. We bought it for a simple project to be able to control the air handlers in a large barge unloader remotely. We were quoted about $15,000 to pull in fiber and the cheapest was $3000 to install a T1 speed radio pair with absolutely no security at all. For WAY less than $500 we installed these and two pfsense firewalls to get well over 30mbs and 'double encryption'. Now the operators can turn on the heat or AC from their desk across the plant site before even climbing up the 5 flights of stairs to the operator seat, stream the weather from the Internet while operating the cranes, and monitor the exterior cameras. Seems like a no brainer.

11/22/2017

The effort isn't worth the expense

Sans Digital 4 Bay eSATA Port Multiplier JBOD Tower Storage Enclosure (no eSATA Card bundle) TR4M+BNC
Sans Digital 4 Bay eSATA Port Multiplier JBOD Tower Storage Enclosure (no eSATA Card bundle) TR4M+BNC

Pros: Good paper weight when full of drives.

Cons: So far, I can't find a port multiplier card to work with it. I am on my third one.

Overall Review: I am no IT beginner, yet this thing is either rocket science or it flat doesn't work. I can't tell yet because I can't find any card that works with it. I am past my 30 days return already and I still have never used it. I'm almost ready to chalk it up as a complete loss and dump it in the trash. DEFINITELY not worth the hassle.