Surprising performance - no problem multiple installations
589385
Have been avoiding 2010 for 2 years. Not happy with 2010 beta and 2010 starter was a non-starter. 2010 Beta trashed my 2003 installation and 2010 Starter is much slower. This latest version of 2010 is very nice. Big step from 2003, significant step from 2007 - cleaner interface.

By paying attention during install - you can keep your old Office intact. I am continuing to use Outlook 2003 (and all the rest) in parallel to 2010. Graphics improvements in 2010 provide more flexibility and convenience than 2003. For example, the ability to format in Powerpoint text boxes is much improved.

4 stars for the surprising performance of 2010 and and extra star for the price and no hassle installation.  Now on 2 computers - absolutely no installation problems with either. Running Office (as 32 bit) under both Win 7 64 & 32.  near instant load of Excel/Word on I5/2500K-WD/SATA 3/Black-Asus H67 desktop. 1.5 second load on a Acer Atom Netbook with Samsung SSD. No more hesitation than 2003 - a very pleasant surprise. 2010 Starter required 5-10 seconds on the Acer.

BUT - Really do continue prefer the 2003 interface.  MS has cleaned up 2010 compared to 2007 and the Beta. Still, too many key clicks to accomplish the same thing in 2010. I find the graphical output enhancements of 2010 interesting/pretty but actually more distracting than useful, form over function again - personal issue of a 65 year old.

Other Thoughts: Had to make the switch, 2003 running under 7-64 would not open many 2010 Excel files despite conversion, not even in virtual XP. Surprised to be happy with 2010 after working 6 months of frustration with the Beta version in 2010.  Should have made the switch last year but the price today is acceptable for this 3 pack at $105-110. Zero problems so far.
2893931
Arrived on-time, undamaged.  No problems setting it up.  I partitioned it using Gparted and  although I reserved a spot for Windows, for now it screams (MUCH faster than my old HDD) with Mint Linux alone.  The weight of the device was surprising, and the plastic case can be a bit disconcerting, but it works.  I did not bother with mounting brackets; a piece of Velcro floats the boat.  Decent price, good performance, hassle-free install.
1212904
I have this drive and also the 500GB version, connected to two different PCs each running Windows XP Pro SP2. Both drives are excellent although I will mention one caveat below about this 1 TB unit.

I have not experienced any of the problems mentioned in other reviews about booting or DOA. I wonder if the person with the boot problem reformatted the drive as a system drive or had other problems in BIOS setup.

The drives both installed easily and automatically. They come formatted for FAT32 which makes them compatible with earlier versions of Windows although it limits file sizes. Windows Disk Management easily reformats them to NTFS. Although the reformat takes several hours. You can continue using the PC itself, though, while the reformat proceeds.

Something unusual about the USB2 and eSATA interfaces. I tried the USB2 interface on both drives. I also tried the eSATA interface - in one case connecting to an eSATA port through a PCI card (and the PC has a 33 MHz PCI bus, not a 66 MHz PCI bus) and in the other case to a PCIx PCI Express interface. In both cases (!), the USB2 interface provided faster throughput than the eSATA interface. I believe the limitation is inside the PC, and NOT inside the drive. Nevertheless, it transfers about 1.6 GB in about 2.5 to 3.0 minutes. Plenty fast for my use. I now use the USB2 interface.

Note that the fancy although difficult to interpret white LED display in the front of the drive works with USB and FireWire although not with eSATA.

The 500 GB drive is super quiet all the time. The 1 TB unit is a bit odd. After accessing it, some time later it will sometimes make a low-level rapid clicking/whirring noise until the drive is again accessed at which time the noise stops. I actually replaced the 1 TB drive through WD and both drives did this. The drive passes the extended diagnostic test and WD says I am probably hearing a normal noise. I took it off the desktop and put it on top of the mini-tower so the noise no longer bothers me.

I use Acronis software to do disk image backups with these drives and also do simple backups of user folders through Windows. The drives makes this so easy.

I wholeheartedly recommend the 500 GB drive and also recommend the 1 TB unit although be aware of the possible noise.
3303899
I have installed over 40 of these in my clients computers and they all work great so far.  The first one was about 1 year ago and most of them see a great increase in speed.  One or two only saw a minor increase in speed but all worked great.  One problem I have had was some of the computers needed the settings changed in the BIOS.  so if your not at least a little tech savvy then have your kids help ;-)  most of the time a simple Google search will tell you what to do to make it work.
1397402
Excellent product.  Easy setup. Very happy with the performance.
1595093
So easy to install & made a huge difference in performance. I'm not a tech person. I just watched a how-to on YouTube & was done in 5 minutes. This is a worthwhile purchase.
2433363
After having delivered my faithful old home built Windows 2000 computer to the recycling station, I found myself searching for its replacement still needing to run a few important 'legacy' apps.  Learning of Parallels Desktop, my strategy was to recreate the Windows machine on an underused MacBook Pro. The software was on sale with free shipping so I bought a copy.

My first installation failed on an upgrade notice that popped up while I was entering the activation key. The machine locked up hard but luckily I was a able remove the corrupted install. The second attempt went well after dismissing the upgrade notice. With Parallels running, I subsequently executed the upgrade.

I created a virtual machine for the 'guest' Windows 2000 operating system and installed it and the legacy software from the original distribution media. That process was wrought with glitches and lockups but eventually everything worked. Still, the feel wasn't quite right.

Fortunately I didn't write this review then; a Leopard compatibility release has been issued and this software now provides a performance level very much comparable to what you would expect with a native hardware machine.

I also have a Windows XP virtual machine running.  It installed from a bootable CD with no issues.  It's response is excellent and it actually boots and shuts down faster than my native hardware machines. It's networked with my home WiFi connected Work Group. Email and Internet works properly and even a USB device works through it's Windows installed driver.

I attempted interfacing Bluetooth device but haven't found a way to connect a Parallels serial port to the virtual Com port that OSX creates from the PowerBook Pro hardware.  I'm thinking a USB Bluetooth dongle with Windows installed drivers might work.

Parallels is developing into a slick program and I admire the intellect behind it.  There are still some rough edges present but the Leopard patched version gets good marks and my recommendation.

---  CHAS
1025756
I ordered/received two of these 10/100/1000 NICs (already had one installed in the Frankenstein mid-tower that's almost "completed") to bring all three PCs up to the same network speed (using a DLink Gigabit switch).  You should install the software/driver first, then, power down/off, unplug the power cord, if applicable: wait for any LEDs on the motherboard to go out, if applicable: remove existing NIC, find suitable PCI slot, install the new NIC, power up, if applicable: go into BIOS setup to disable onboard NIC, and you're done. I found all three NICs were "tight" to install, i.e., you have to push the board (by its edge) away from the mobo's center towards the mobo's outer edge for the adapter's PCI connector to be aligned and allowed to be pushed into the mobo's PCI slot.  I haven't performed any thorough throughput tests but a couple of test copies to/from the "server" resulted in at least 5x-6x improvement from the previous configuration (100 Mbps NICs and 100 Mbps switch).  Very happy with the inexpensive upgrades.
4737545
Too early for a long-term evaluation, but I was having issues with random shutdowns. I went up 100 watts to this one, and so far that issue seems to be resolved. It has adequate cabling, installs easily, and so far runs fairly quiet, even when running a high demand program. Runs on an 8core AMD Phenom3 w/many peripherals,3 monitors, and seems to handling the loads without issue.  Nicely packaged.
2421894
I installed this bad boy to get rid of my older router and separate hub. This allowed me to combine multiple units into one and get better speeds than I had before. I am impressed with the ease of installation. I thought this would take me at least a couple of hours, but it only took one. I had the DI-614+ up and running then installed my wireless network card (the DWL-520+) on one of our PCs and it was already connected to the Internet before I even changed the settings. Of course I went back and customized everything, but the default settings help with determining if the products work at all. All mine work great.
I get great signal strength from the other side of the house and I would recommend this to anyone who wants to start sharing their DSL or Cable connection quickly and painlessly.
1116834
Installed this in my Lenovo laptop and have seen a very noticeable change in bootup/shutdown and overall response time.  Incredible value for the performance given.
608377
This initial review is based on install and one days usage.  The initial install was fairly straight forward.  The first one plugged into my cable modem went in no problem.  The second and third one had trouble being found but after timing out on the third attempt to find the devices each time it gives you an option to add it by serial number and both were added no problem.  My wife and I both work from home primarily and we have seen a major increase in speed.  Also for the first time we have a full wifi signal is the back part of our house and into our sunroom. I will follow this up in about a week to let you know if anything has changed.
2643790
Simple installation,  great price,  works wonderfully
3648426
Happy to report that 2 of these are working in my Synology DS918+, giving it a nice 16GB of RAM. This will now allow some "Virtual Machine Manager" experimenting.
1313115
So far i've have 8 of these running nonstop 24/7 since early October of 2012 with no hiccups. If all goes well, i'll be buying another 8 to replace the remainder of my aging 1.5TB ST31500341AS drives.

The SV35s are relatively quick clocking in at 160+ MB/s transfers for large files. Standard performance these days i suppose as the areal data density keeps increasing.

All in all i have no complaints with Seagate. Out of my current crop of 16 ST31500341ASs, not a single one has failed in the four+ years i've been running them solid 24/7 with no spindowns (with admittedly very low utilization except for when filling them up initially). Either i've been supremely lucky or the reported failure rates of Seagate drives are slightly overblown. Needless to say I have high hopes for the SV35 series. Will update this review if any of them go south.
1962950
good performance, better than a similar big box store version,
4967545
I have over 90 of these units running in my environment for NAS storage. All are working well. I have had one go out and it is questionable whether or not it is actually defective (I have not had time to check).