Seagate STBC2000200 2TB GoFlex Desk for Mac FireWire800/USB 2.0 3.5 Inch Desktop Hard Drive

Daisychainable FireWire hard drive (with Thunderbolt potential)
This is a very sleek and cleverly engineered device. It is unfortunate that that optional module to upgrade to Thunderbolt is prohibitively expensive. (At least the technological infrastructure is there to make this possible for when prices go down. The base or 'foot' is removable and can be swapped)

I have used it with FireWire 800 and have found it very satisfactory. There are two FireWire ports so it can be daisychained.

Unfortunately, it does require its own power source and must be connected to the electricity.

It comes preformatted for Mac.

In the box, you get a 5 foot FireWire 800 cable and a 5 foot USB 2 cable. (It makes it a refreshing change to have cables of ample length included in the box. Thank you, Seagate)

Seagate STBC2000200 2TB GoFlex Desk for Mac FireWire800/USB 2.0 3.5 Inch Desktop Hard Drive

Seaget GoFlex Desk for Mac
The GoFlex Desk for Mac is a 3Tb external hard drive pre formatted for use with the MAC operating systems. What makes this unit a little special is that with the installation of a small piece of software available as a free download from the Seagate web site, the unit can also be made to read and write from a PC, this makes it ideal for anyone who may want to transfer data between the two formats.

On unpacking the unit I was immediately impressed with the build quality of the housing. Very sturdy, it comes with a rubbery feel which helps prevent finger marks on the casing, unlike the current crop of 'piano gloss' housings. This is set of with smart silver trim along the top and front. As the unit is designed to stand vertically the overall effect is akin to a hard-backed book.

At the rear of the base are sockets for power and firewire, while at the side is a further firewire socket along with a mini-USB socket. It should be noted that the firewire sockets are the...

Seagate STBC2000200 2TB GoFlex Desk for Mac FireWire800/USB 2.0 3.5 Inch Desktop Hard Drive

It didn't last 3 months !
Positive: The hard drive was relatively easy to install and it did work fine with Apple Time Machine.
Negative: The hard drive stopped working without any notice after less than 3 months since the installation !

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Creative Labs 70SB109500002 Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1 PRO Sound Card

An amazing bit of kit!
Just to give you an idea, I am running a 2.80Ghz Dual Core on 4GB DDR3 and Windows 7 Professional 64bit.

This device is really easy to install. It does help if you download the Soundblaster drivers from their website (related to the X-FI Pro of course), else youll get imbecilles morons writing negative reviews on here complaining about the poor sound quality!

Just plug to the an available USB port on your Laptop. Theres no need to disable your previous soundcard settings (unless you really want to), because once X-FI is plugged out of the USB & no longer to use, you can easily revert back to your built-in soundcard settings.

The XFI Pro is miles better than my legacy soundcard/chip inside my laptop. Great for audio editing (e.g. on Wavelab, or Adobe Audition), and playback. Im so pleased to have the "What U Hear" functionality back again! Sound quality is exceptional. Creative Labs has never let me down (expept once in 1999, when their Soundblaster...

Creative Labs 70SB109500002 Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1 PRO Sound Card

If your sub does not work - You need to enable it under THX menu
Set-up:
Initial software set-up a doddle. had to download latest version from internet.
Next I set up my speaker system.
To check I had plugged everything in correctly, I used the noise test, and got a confirming noise from each speaker and a rumble out of my sub.

Problem:
Next I played a music file, and the sub was not doing anything.

Fix:
Click in Creative studio Entertainment Console on the Third blue button "THX".
When THX TruStudio is on , goto Settings at the left top.
This shows a crossover frequency slide.
Adjust this to your liking.

Sorted!

Creative Labs 70SB109500002 Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1 PRO Sound Card

would be great if it worked!
great looking bit of kit. the sound is far superior than my onboard soundcard.
only problem is that the latency on this device is awful! ive tried all kinds of troubleshooting steps, drivers, bios tweaks and still no luck. bought the card for recording guitar, vocals etc so its completely useless in this respect. beware if using windows 7 operating system as it seems that plenty of other people have the same problem.
its a shame because as i mentioned before the actual sound is great.

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Seagate ST9500420AS, 500GB Mobile SATA Momentus, 7200RPM 16MB Cache

Fast but noisy/vibrating
I upgraded the 320MB 5400rpm Hitachi HTS543232L9SA02 drive to the 500GB Seagate Momentus ST9500420AS in my Macbook Pro (2.66GHz Core 2 Duo). Technically it works really well, no hiccups with the installation, no heat issues even when working hard, and the system feels more nippy (I use things like Photoshop, VMware Fusion etc.).

"xbench" (a free Max benchmarking utility) now reports a "Disk Test" score of 52.6 (vs. 33.7 for the 5400rpm drive). Sample xbench results show a much better performance increase than expected:

Sequential
Uncached Write 256 MB blocks: 78 MB/s (vs. 40 MB/s for the 5400rpm drive)
Uncached Read 256 MB blocks: 80.6 MB/s (vs. 41.1 MB/s for the 5400rpm drive)

Random
Uncached Write 256 MB blocks: 52 MB/s (vs. 20.7 MB/s for the 5400rpm drive)
Uncached Read 256 MB blocks: 26.2 MB/s (vs. 13.2 MB/s for the 5400rpm drive)

Unfortunately the drive is a bit more noisy than the Hitachi, the normal "disk spin"...

Seagate ST9500420AS, 500GB Mobile SATA Momentus, 7200RPM 16MB Cache

Big notebook drives
It's hard to see past the value of this 500GB 2.5" notebook hard drive. I still find it amazing the way storage space doubles - the drive replaces a non-functional 250GB 5400rpm Western Digital unit that was original OEM equipment. The difference in speed between a 5400rpm and 7200rpm drive is easily noticeable during boot, with Windows 7 Professional starting to a login prompt in less than 25 seconds on my system. However, once things are up and running and in everyday use scenarios, the benefits are more marginal. I'm sure this is partly due to the built-in flash cache module on my Dell XPS M1330 notebook (aka Windows ReadyBoost/ReadyDrive/SuperFetch), and party because the seek to seek times don't really improve with a higher spindle RPM.

Suummary:-

Excellent drive, backed by Seagate's rock-solid reliability and performance. No noticeable increase in noise over a 5400rpm drive, and with Vista/Windows 7 hybrid disk power savings I'd say the battery life is more...

Seagate ST9500420AS, 500GB Mobile SATA Momentus, 7200RPM 16MB Cache

MacBook
Easy to install and just a couple of minutes to format.
Used Time Machine to load on a full clone of the original drive which took a couple of hours.
No problems at all - no vibrations, no more heat than the original.
Probably the best

Toshiba PA4284E-1HJ0 1TB Stor.E Partner USB 3.0 2.5 Inch External Hard Drive - Orange

A good buy, I highly recommend it !!!
This is a very nice 500gb drive, perfect for all you home data needs and requirements, to give you an idea of what 500gb's of data represents you are looking at 131,000 songs or 142,000 photos or 410 video clips. For most home applications filling it would be a challenge.

The box is small but informative, giving you all the information required :
The drive is USB3.0 but also backwards compatible with USB2.0, using a fast USB3.0 connection you can get transfer speeds of up to 5.0 Gbps. The drive does come pre loaded with NERO backItUp & Burn software but I haven't tried it yet so can't vouch for its ease of use (having said that I have heard lots of good things about NERO).

Out of the box the contents are simple :
The drive is finished beautifully, feels robust and well built and a perfect complement to my Toshiba NB500 Netbook. It has a little LED light which indicates power and data transfer. It is small and compact at 12cm long, 8cm wide and 1.4cm...

Toshiba PA4284E-1HJ0 1TB Stor.E Partner USB 3.0 2.5 Inch External Hard Drive - Orange

Very good as expected
This is a great little hard drive. It is very small, compact and nice to look at as opposed to some of the larger ones out there. I was backing up my data within minutes of receiving it through the post, no installation needed. I expect no issue with it as Toshiba is a good brand. Not a lot to say about a hard drive really... Very good purchase!

Toshiba PA4284E-1HJ0 1TB Stor.E Partner USB 3.0 2.5 Inch External Hard Drive - Orange

Toshiba PA4272E-1HE0 Store Partner 2.5 inch 500GB Hard Disk Drive - Black
Excellent product! ;) Highest Recommendations. Light, extremely easy to use, elegant, excellent finishing, fast... Comes with the cable, you do not need separate adapter. For 500 GB you do not need anything else.

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Samsung Ultra Slim Retail External DVD Writer - Black

Does what it should
I brought this for the new imac (late 2012) as I thought the apple SuperDrive was to over priced. This product works great and had no problems with it.

Samsung Ultra Slim Retail External DVD Writer - Black

Does the job
Only needs 1 USB slot to use unlike older external drives which need 2 to properly power them, this was essential as my ultrabook only has 2 USB slots. Nice size, definitely slim and lightweight anyway, taking up very little space in the laptop bag. Runs DVDs fine but haven't got around to burning any discs but not a big deal nowadays anyway with USB keys being so readily available.

Samsung Ultra Slim Retail External DVD Writer - Black

Good for Macbook Air !
I wanted an external disk drive to use with my Macbook Air. After a lot of research I felt that this model offered the most bangs per buck. Not cheap and tacky and not too expensive. It came out well in many independent reviews of drives under

Samsung Slim CD DVRW External External DVD Burners - Silver

Does what it should
I brought this for the new imac (late 2012) as I thought the apple SuperDrive was to over priced. This product works great and had no problems with it.

Samsung Slim CD DVRW External External DVD Burners - Silver

Does the job
Only needs 1 USB slot to use unlike older external drives which need 2 to properly power them, this was essential as my ultrabook only has 2 USB slots. Nice size, definitely slim and lightweight anyway, taking up very little space in the laptop bag. Runs DVDs fine but haven't got around to burning any discs but not a big deal nowadays anyway with USB keys being so readily available.

Samsung Slim CD DVRW External External DVD Burners - Silver

Good for Macbook Air !
I wanted an external disk drive to use with my Macbook Air. After a lot of research I felt that this model offered the most bangs per buck. Not cheap and tacky and not too expensive. It came out well in many independent reviews of drives under

Seagate STBX1000200 1TB Expansion 2.5 inch External Hard Drive

Impressive!
I was set to rant about the decision by Seagate to use a proprietary data cable, but it turns out this is what a USB 3.0 cable looks like. If you still have USB 2.0 ports, don't panic, the drive is backwards compatible, but you won't see the speed increase.

After a painless registration process you're given the opportunity to install Seagate's drive management software and Memeo backup. I'd rather not install unnecessary software, preferring to use the built-in Windows Back-up software as required, so I can't really comment on the quality of Memeo.

In theory USB 3.0 allows for data transfer speeds 10x faster than 2.0, but in practise you're going to be limited by the speed of the drive in the enclosure and that will probably be the case for some time to come, certainly until external SSD drives become more common.

In reality I'd estimate a real world speed increase of about 3x compared to a comparable USB 2.0 drive of similar size. That's definitely...

Seagate STBX1000200 1TB Expansion 2.5 inch External Hard Drive

does what it says on the tin
Small, compact and sleek. A welcome utility to make my life easier. I bought it for evaluating new software in a virtual machine. So far so good.

Seagate STBX1000200 1TB Expansion 2.5 inch External Hard Drive

A nice little portable hard drive
No complaints about this new Seagate drive. I went for the USB 3.0 version even though none of my PCs yet have this capability. They all will in the next few years, so this version ensures a longer useful life. Set up is very easy and it's nicely designed and pretty portable provided that you don't want something to carry around in a jacket - it's fine for a laptop case.

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HGST Touro Desk DX3 4TB External Hard Drive - Black

Best drive I've owned
This is an excellent drive and I would recommend it to anyone.

Pros:
Small-medium sized and very neat looking
Fast - another reviewer complained about the PRO version being slow. I don't understand this, if you connect it using the cable provided to a usb 3.0 port it transfers at around 125 mb/s. It makes moving around the movie collection effortless.
Quiet - I was very surprised at how quiet it runs. It doesn't seem to overheat at all and whatever fans operate inside it are silent.

Cons:
When you disconnect it using Windows, the light on the drive stays on so I'm not fully sure if it has powered down completely.

I'm not sure what the difference is between the DX3 version and PRO version, but they must be trivial.

HGST Touro Desk DX3 4TB External Hard Drive - Black

Value for money
First off, lets talk performance. With a 1TB write run of files ranging from 80-400MB and some smaller files scattered throughout, I managed an average of 110MB/s. More than 3 times as fast as USB 2.0 products and a very respectable speed indeed. Read speeds were also in the same region. I used TeraCopy which allowed for file verification and am happy to say that not a single file suffered any errors.

The lack of fans may be disconcerting to some users, but this is a 5k RPM drive in a enclosure which gives plenty of breathing room for the drive to benefit from passive cooling and I didn't find heat to be an issue during my testing. Fans can sometimes be WORSE for an enclosure in my opinion, I have had an enclosure which had a fan vibrating abnormally but silently and I didn't know till one of the drives failed (presumably from the vibration, because I had multiple drives of the same make in other enclosures which were ok). And in certain weather conditions, a drive that is...

HGST Touro Desk DX3 4TB External Hard Drive - Black

If you need the space - this is the one to get
If you need the space - this is the one to get. I've bought two of these. Tried them on USB2 and 3. Worked fine in USB2 mode, USB3 they fly, a good 95MB/s thats megabytes not bits! The drive is quite challenging to remove from it's case, requiring a metal blade and a couple of plastic levers. I did this as it was cheaper to buy the external drives rather than the internal ones.

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Seagate STAX1500202 1.5TB Expansion 2.5 inch Hard Drive

Impressive!
I was set to rant about the decision by Seagate to use a proprietary data cable, but it turns out this is what a USB 3.0 cable looks like. If you still have USB 2.0 ports, don't panic, the drive is backwards compatible, but you won't see the speed increase.

After a painless registration process you're given the opportunity to install Seagate's drive management software and Memeo backup. I'd rather not install unnecessary software, preferring to use the built-in Windows Back-up software as required, so I can't really comment on the quality of Memeo.

In theory USB 3.0 allows for data transfer speeds 10x faster than 2.0, but in practise you're going to be limited by the speed of the drive in the enclosure and that will probably be the case for some time to come, certainly until external SSD drives become more common.

In reality I'd estimate a real world speed increase of about 3x compared to a comparable USB 2.0 drive of similar size. That's definitely...

Seagate STAX1500202 1.5TB Expansion 2.5 inch Hard Drive

does what it says on the tin
Small, compact and sleek. A welcome utility to make my life easier. I bought it for evaluating new software in a virtual machine. So far so good.

Seagate STAX1500202 1.5TB Expansion 2.5 inch Hard Drive

A nice little portable hard drive
No complaints about this new Seagate drive. I went for the USB 3.0 version even though none of my PCs yet have this capability. They all will in the next few years, so this version ensures a longer useful life. Set up is very easy and it's nicely designed and pretty portable provided that you don't want something to carry around in a jacket - it's fine for a laptop case.

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Seagate STAX500202 500GB Expansion USB 3.0 2.5 Inch External Hard Drive - Black

Impressive!
I was set to rant about the decision by Seagate to use a proprietary data cable, but it turns out this is what a USB 3.0 cable looks like. If you still have USB 2.0 ports, don't panic, the drive is backwards compatible, but you won't see the speed increase.

After a painless registration process you're given the opportunity to install Seagate's drive management software and Memeo backup. I'd rather not install unnecessary software, preferring to use the built-in Windows Back-up software as required, so I can't really comment on the quality of Memeo.

In theory USB 3.0 allows for data transfer speeds 10x faster than 2.0, but in practise you're going to be limited by the speed of the drive in the enclosure and that will probably be the case for some time to come, certainly until external SSD drives become more common.

In reality I'd estimate a real world speed increase of about 3x compared to a comparable USB 2.0 drive of similar size. That's definitely...

Seagate STAX500202 500GB Expansion USB 3.0 2.5 Inch External Hard Drive - Black

does what it says on the tin
Small, compact and sleek. A welcome utility to make my life easier. I bought it for evaluating new software in a virtual machine. So far so good.

Seagate STAX500202 500GB Expansion USB 3.0 2.5 Inch External Hard Drive - Black

A nice little portable hard drive
No complaints about this new Seagate drive. I went for the USB 3.0 version even though none of my PCs yet have this capability. They all will in the next few years, so this version ensures a longer useful life. Set up is very easy and it's nicely designed and pretty portable provided that you don't want something to carry around in a jacket - it's fine for a laptop case.

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Transcend P8 15-in-1 USB 2.0 Flash Memory Card Reader TS-RDP8K (Black)

Excellent product
Ok so it's

Freecom 56057 1TB Tough Drive USB 3.0 2.5 inch External Hard Drive

Well-made drive. Almost perfect.
The drive's main enclosure has a velvety-smooth rubbery-plastic finish, and has a black plastic section at the end which houses the in-built plug lead. There are no power or USB secondary sockets. The lead 'hinges' courtesy of its own flexible material, so I don't feel comfortable bending it too much. So, unless the drive is on your desk next to your PC's USB socket, you're sure to end up needing a USB extension lead. In the lead's closed position, it's held in place firmly by friction and by a magnet that grips the metal USB 'A' plug. The light-blue status LED is solid-ON when nothing's happening, and phases on/off smoothly when there's data transfer. On that front, it's totally silent in operation.
The drive takes 36 seconds to appear on my USB2 laptop, and copying from internal drive via USB2 runs at 14.6 MegaBytes/s (I copied a single 500 MB file). Also, it works fine on my little USB-to-TV media player. I have an older USB1 PC with a USB2 PCI card installed and, on this, the...

Freecom 56057 1TB Tough Drive USB 3.0 2.5 inch External Hard Drive

well built
i ve have and older one of these (320 gig)and another 2 of this model. they are very well built. drop resistant and also seem dust and water resistant as well. ive taken all three of them to afghan many times, more dust then you can imagine, wet weather and the heat didnt effect these in the least. unlike my laptop and other drives. now the freecom ones are all i use.

Freecom 56057 1TB Tough Drive USB 3.0 2.5 inch External Hard Drive

Good with just minor concern
I have used this hard drive for 6 months. It still works no flows here :). I have a concern about the build in cable it is great to have this but it would be nice if was longer and more flexible, now i need to carry additional cable to be sure I can fit the hard drive on any computer. But this is just a minor issue. Transfer rates are good, I guess for the price this drive rocks :).

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WD Elements 3TB External Desktop Hard Drive USB 2.0 - Black

Does what's needed
I've already got two of the 1TB versions of this, but having just moved to Mac machines, the 1TB were not large enough for Time Machine to backup the system and my files. So I simply purchased the 3TB version without worrying about other brands.

Very happy with the unit, was able to format to Mac OS Extended easily and copy the data over and Time Machine has been backing up without issue now fine.

Small, quite, reasonable speed, more than happy.

Should not I've never used these for live data, just transferring data between machines or backups where the speed was not critical. When these things have occurred I've been happy with the speed, but couldn't comment on how well they handle when you're working off files stored on the units. Don't see why it should be much of an issue though.

WD Elements 3TB External Desktop Hard Drive USB 2.0 - Black

Excellent value...
I've had this for approx 2 months now & I'm quite impressed. I have hammered it with storage of video & software files (I've only got 40gb free space left) & not had any problems, it's as fast at transfers as any other USB2 drive I have used. It's a little bulky & heavier than the non powered portable drives but hey, it is a 3 Terabyte drive after all. You just can't get that size of storage in a smaller portable drive. All in all very good value, I'd definitely buy another one.

WD Elements 3TB External Desktop Hard Drive USB 2.0 - Black

Faulty drive
After working for 10 days the drive stopped loading on the computer, It isn't visible on any level even in Disk Utilities.

I waited for 2 months for this item to be available on amazon, its frustrating the drive has failed so quickly. I'm currently waiting for amazon to restock the drives so i can get a replacement.

I guess the only true way of ensuring your backups are safe is to buy multiple drives.

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QNAP TS-210 4TB 2 Bay Turbo All-in-one NAS Server with iSCSI, iPhone Streaming, iTunes Server & Media Server

Outstanding and easy
This was a good investment. It was easy to set up, and easy to explore and start using the advanced features. I'm using a single Samsung Spinpoint EcoGreen F2 1.5TB SATA II 3.5-Inch Hard Drive (32MB Cache, 5400 RPM, 3 Year Warranty, OEM) inside - no glitches. Streaming with the UPnP server to Archos 7 160GB Internet Media Tablet WiFi 7",High Resolution Touch Screen 800x480 pixels,convenient leg stand. for perfect TV viewing and XBMC open source software for PC viewing. Comes with built-in joys like web server (and php) and mysql, but hosting Tomcat on this model is not possible, sadly. Would certainly recommend this to anyone looking for an easy entry in to the world of digitising the home entertainment experience, or wanting to back up valuable photos, home movies, or even those who want to cheaply host a personal blog site themselves,...

QNAP TS-210 4TB 2 Bay Turbo All-in-one NAS Server with iSCSI, iPhone Streaming, iTunes Server & Media Server

Great product
I bought the TS210 after returning a Netgear Ready NAS due to numerous issues.. terrible product .
The TS210 is however a great product, easy to set up and use. I have 2 Macs and a PC each works seamlessly with the NAS. Time machine for Mac works at first attempt.
It took me a couple of hours to set up and understand how the interface works, but after this just a breeze. I configured the two drives for separate access rather than RAID due the way I want to back up large video files for long term storage.

QNAP TS-210 4TB 2 Bay Turbo All-in-one NAS Server with iSCSI, iPhone Streaming, iTunes Server & Media Server

Most excellent NAS device, good range of features
QNAP TS-210: I have had this device running for just over 5 months now and happy to report I am extremely impressed with this device. I had my initial reservations and it was only one option among others such as drobo, synology etc. In the end I plumped for this based on the range of features it offered for the price against many reviews - there was a lot of mixed reviews for this device, but slightly more positive than the other devices i was looking at. One of the things I did do though before buying the unit was to go to the QNAP website where it lists all compatible drives for each nas model. They also list notes for drives it may have issues for.

Having scanned the list for drives that didn't have any issues or notes against them and specifically searched for those drives to purchase, I ended up buying two 1.5 tb samsung HD154UI (F2's i think). Don't make a mistake of just buying any old hard drive to use with the nas box, and check to see if your hard drives has...

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Belkin Hi-Speed USB 2.0 Universal Media Reader in Black

Superb!
Typical Belkin quality!. Attractive functional design. Covers ALL major and not so obvious memory cards. Tiny little slot for micro SD cards for mobile 'phones. Driver disc not needed for Windows 7 64-bit. Just plug and play. Very impressive upload speeds. Almost instant. USB lead is of a good length. LED indicators. Great value for money, and you get the Belkin lifetime warranty.

Belkin Hi-Speed USB 2.0 Universal Media Reader in Black

Belkin Card Reader
The product is fine as one would expect from Belkin.
However it came with a disc that when loaded onto my machine installed a totally unnecessary programme that was basically an intrusive tracking programme.
I object to such programmes being packaged unneccesarily with a product of this nature.

Belkin Hi-Speed USB 2.0 Universal Media Reader in Black

Good quality and excellent range of card support
I shoot a lot of video and stills and have always found it a huge pain to plug the seperate cameras into the computer. But the cameras I use from different brands all use different cards including the now pretty much defunct xD cards. So after doing a lot of research I decided to buy this card reader and I am delighted.

I use ultra fast compact flash, SD cards, memory sticks (all sizes), micro SD, xD cards and all of them plug in and work, even the 32gb ones.

The device itself I plug into the USB port on the monitor and it looks good. It has a little green LED to tell you it is working. You can put it face down if you are not using it for a while to stop dust getting in there. For Windows 7 it is plug and play. I connected it and that was it. All working. I plug a card in and it appears in My Computer as a drive and the auto run menu comes up immediately. It is excellent.

I would seriously recommend this if you use a lot of different memory cards. It...

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Transcend All-in-1 Multi-Card Reader Device (SDHC/SDXC/MSXC USB 3.0) Black

Transcend F8 All-in-1 Multi Card Reader USB 3.0
Transcend F8 All-in-1 Multi Card Reader USB 3.0

This is a small and light USB 3.0 card reader made with Genesys Logic GL3220 controller. It supports 3 types of cards CF, SD and MS., including all variants of these cards up to date. F8 opens 3 drives when connected to PC, so transfers between micro and normal cards must go thru the computer.
PRO:
- very pocketable for Multi card reader
- fastest in my small collection of readers *
- good quality of manufacturing for a plastic construction
- drive bays are good (at least for SD and CF no MS to try) and on the front side for me
- reads and writes old Sandisk SDHC 30MB/s card with 30MB/s - not all USB 3.0 readers do that

CON:
- small weight when used on desk: heavy cable will lift it up (Flat cable will help if you can get one..)
- no xD slot if you need one
- for MS users: slot is on the...

Transcend All-in-1 Multi-Card Reader Device (SDHC/SDXC/MSXC USB 3.0) Black

Small and fast.
A very worthwhile upgrade from my USB 2.0 card reader. Using a Transcend 85MB/s SD card I can pull data off the card at about 80-90MB/s using the Windows driver here: [...]

--- Sadly Amazon have removed the link to the driver. It is available from the Hama website. ---

The reader is very small and seems well made. CF cards locate positively and SD cards do not require too much insertion force (unlike some readers I've used). My only criticism is that the connecting lead is far too short to be of use to anyone using a desktop PC. Fortunately Amazon sell this extension lead: Max Value 2m USB 3 Extension Cable - Black which is cheap and works fine.

Transcend All-in-1 Multi-Card Reader Device (SDHC/SDXC/MSXC USB 3.0) Black

MULTI CARD USB 3.0 READER (TRANSCEND)
High quality, reliable, currently used with cards from NIKON D800, big files that transfer quickly and reliably.
Unit itself small and solid, Cable thick but quite short (estimate about 50cm) this helps ensure high tranfer speeds met.

So good now own two. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

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QNAP TS-210 2TB 2 Bay Turbo All-in-one NAS Server with iSCSI, iPhone Streaming, iTunes Server & Media Server

Outstanding and easy
This was a good investment. It was easy to set up, and easy to explore and start using the advanced features. I'm using a single Samsung Spinpoint EcoGreen F2 1.5TB SATA II 3.5-Inch Hard Drive (32MB Cache, 5400 RPM, 3 Year Warranty, OEM) inside - no glitches. Streaming with the UPnP server to Archos 7 160GB Internet Media Tablet WiFi 7",High Resolution Touch Screen 800x480 pixels,convenient leg stand. for perfect TV viewing and XBMC open source software for PC viewing. Comes with built-in joys like web server (and php) and mysql, but hosting Tomcat on this model is not possible, sadly. Would certainly recommend this to anyone looking for an easy entry in to the world of digitising the home entertainment experience, or wanting to back up valuable photos, home movies, or even those who want to cheaply host a personal blog site themselves,...

QNAP TS-210 2TB 2 Bay Turbo All-in-one NAS Server with iSCSI, iPhone Streaming, iTunes Server & Media Server

Great product
I bought the TS210 after returning a Netgear Ready NAS due to numerous issues.. terrible product .
The TS210 is however a great product, easy to set up and use. I have 2 Macs and a PC each works seamlessly with the NAS. Time machine for Mac works at first attempt.
It took me a couple of hours to set up and understand how the interface works, but after this just a breeze. I configured the two drives for separate access rather than RAID due the way I want to back up large video files for long term storage.

QNAP TS-210 2TB 2 Bay Turbo All-in-one NAS Server with iSCSI, iPhone Streaming, iTunes Server & Media Server

Most excellent NAS device, good range of features
QNAP TS-210: I have had this device running for just over 5 months now and happy to report I am extremely impressed with this device. I had my initial reservations and it was only one option among others such as drobo, synology etc. In the end I plumped for this based on the range of features it offered for the price against many reviews - there was a lot of mixed reviews for this device, but slightly more positive than the other devices i was looking at. One of the things I did do though before buying the unit was to go to the QNAP website where it lists all compatible drives for each nas model. They also list notes for drives it may have issues for.

Having scanned the list for drives that didn't have any issues or notes against them and specifically searched for those drives to purchase, I ended up buying two 1.5 tb samsung HD154UI (F2's i think). Don't make a mistake of just buying any old hard drive to use with the nas box, and check to see if your hard drives has...

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QNAP TS-210 2 Bay Turbo All-in-one NAS Server with iSCSI, iPhone Streaming, iTunes Server & Media Server

Outstanding and easy
This was a good investment. It was easy to set up, and easy to explore and start using the advanced features. I'm using a single Samsung Spinpoint EcoGreen F2 1.5TB SATA II 3.5-Inch Hard Drive (32MB Cache, 5400 RPM, 3 Year Warranty, OEM) inside - no glitches. Streaming with the UPnP server to Archos 7 160GB Internet Media Tablet WiFi 7",High Resolution Touch Screen 800x480 pixels,convenient leg stand. for perfect TV viewing and XBMC open source software for PC viewing. Comes with built-in joys like web server (and php) and mysql, but hosting Tomcat on this model is not possible, sadly. Would certainly recommend this to anyone looking for an easy entry in to the world of digitising the home entertainment experience, or wanting to back up valuable photos, home movies, or even those who want to cheaply host a personal blog site themselves,...

QNAP TS-210 2 Bay Turbo All-in-one NAS Server with iSCSI, iPhone Streaming, iTunes Server & Media Server

Great product
I bought the TS210 after returning a Netgear Ready NAS due to numerous issues.. terrible product .
The TS210 is however a great product, easy to set up and use. I have 2 Macs and a PC each works seamlessly with the NAS. Time machine for Mac works at first attempt.
It took me a couple of hours to set up and understand how the interface works, but after this just a breeze. I configured the two drives for separate access rather than RAID due the way I want to back up large video files for long term storage.

QNAP TS-210 2 Bay Turbo All-in-one NAS Server with iSCSI, iPhone Streaming, iTunes Server & Media Server

Most excellent NAS device, good range of features
QNAP TS-210: I have had this device running for just over 5 months now and happy to report I am extremely impressed with this device. I had my initial reservations and it was only one option among others such as drobo, synology etc. In the end I plumped for this based on the range of features it offered for the price against many reviews - there was a lot of mixed reviews for this device, but slightly more positive than the other devices i was looking at. One of the things I did do though before buying the unit was to go to the QNAP website where it lists all compatible drives for each nas model. They also list notes for drives it may have issues for.

Having scanned the list for drives that didn't have any issues or notes against them and specifically searched for those drives to purchase, I ended up buying two 1.5 tb samsung HD154UI (F2's i think). Don't make a mistake of just buying any old hard drive to use with the nas box, and check to see if your hard drives has...

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Samsung Slim Retail External DVD Writer - White

fantastic product
This item is the newer version of (SE-208AB /TSBS - [amzn. to/177TVI1] you may think that SE-208AB is the newer product, but I assure you...this (SE-208DB) definitely is, i got quite confused and couldn't tell the difference, but luckily for you guys, I'm here to discipline your confusion :)

If you want to know the difference between the different external writers then go to the samsung '.com' website and follow "Home >> Consumer >> PC / Peripherals >> Optical Disc Drive" or go to > bit .ly/11HZo5v < (note: SE-S084F is an older version). Now you might say "The older one has 'Speed Adjustment Technology: S.A.T', why doesn't the new one have this". To be quite honest with you, the DVD writer knows what speeds best for itself, it doesn't need the computer to interfere and to tell it what to do, this 'Speed Adjustment Technology: S.A.T' is what causes failures and so on. Its also worth noting that the slower you write your data on to a CD/DVD the more reliable and accurate...

Samsung Slim Retail External DVD Writer - White

Great value
Plug and play, great addition to new iMac which doesn't have an DVD drive, worked no problem, only down side is the eject button doesn't always work once idle and have to use finder to eject/open.

Samsung Slim Retail External DVD Writer - White

Compact, efficient and attractive
I have been struggling with the DVD drive on my Mac-Mini for quite a while and finally got around to purchasing an external one.

I haven't looked back since I bought this. It is fully compatible with Mac, plug-and-play and away you go.

Superb product.

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Western Digital MyBook Studio Edition II 2TB Firewire 400 / 800 & eSata External Hard Drive

Ideal for Time Machine backups and video editing on a Mac
I've had a USB 500MB MyBook for some time and it has never given any trouble. I've also had my eye on the Studio Edition MyBook because it is Mac-friendly and has FireWire 800, which I want for video editing in iMovie. So when the time came to upgrade to Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) I took a quick look at what I could get and went for the Western Digital MyBook Studio Edition II 2TB Firewire 400/800 & eSata External Hard Drive. The 2TB size allows me to have a 700GB Time Machine partition and still have over 1TB for video storage. I'm using the time machine volume for both my iMac and my new 13" MacBook Pro. If you use the disk with Time Machine, first select the disk and choose Get Info from the File menu in Finder and untick the "Ignore ownership on this volume" check box.

The disk is attached to my iMac and enabled as a shared disk. The MacBook backs up wirelessly over WiFi to the shared disk. The initial MacBook backup would have taken a long time over WiFi so I plugged the...

Western Digital MyBook Studio Edition II 2TB Firewire 400 / 800 & eSata External Hard Drive

Excellent piece of kit
I have had this installed on my iMac for about a month now and it seems to work faultlessly. I use it to store my large photographic library and have it in Raid 1 configuration so everything is mirrored on the second drive.

It was very easy to install and configure just plug it into firewire or USB install the enclosed software click on the icon in the toolbar to configure to Raid 0 or Raid 1 and away you go!

I have this drive daisy chained by firewire 800 to a MyBook 1tb Studio Edition which is my 'Time Machine' drive.

Would thoroughly recommend this to anyone with a Mac looking for a high capacity external hard drive

I have had 2 WD drives for about 2 years - a WD passport and a 1tb MyBook Essential Edition which have been used with a laptop and PC desktop respectively and both have been heavily used and have prooved to be completely reliable.

Western Digital MyBook Studio Edition II 2TB Firewire 400 / 800 & eSata External Hard Drive

Damned good value for money
I have recently replace all the external drives on my file server. Previously I was using four Lacie 1TB jobbies (each of which was really four 250GB disks internally), but wanted to replace them because they're noisy and draw a lot of power. So I ended up with two Western Digital Mybook Studio II 2TB devices, which I've been using for 3 months (one of them) and one and a half months (the other).

I've got the same amount of storage as before, but it's now pretty much silent, drawing a lot less power. They were easy to install - as is expected these days with a modern operating system they're "plug n' play". They even came out of the box pre-formatted with HFS+ instead of something retarded but PC-compatible,although if you are lumbered with a legacy Windows machine reformatting them should be trivial. Speed is ... not something I care much about, as all my access to them is over a nyetwork that is slower than the bus connecting the disks to the host machine, but they're...

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