Advantages: Fast, reliable, Good Price
Disadvantages: No SCSI cable included, Not Great instructions

...I bought this for our office server which before-hand was running a DDS5 tape drive. I have to say the DDS5 backup system we had was excellent and never caused me any problems. We got to a point where we needed two tapes to do a backup, and considering we keep backups for up to a month, thats a hell of a lot more tapes we would have to buy. After a lot of research and learning about DLT and SDLT, we discovered the V160. DLT allows backups to 40GB (80GB Compressed) and SDLT is alot more (i forget the figures). DLT would not have been enough and SDLT is a hell of a lot more expensive. Quantums V160 is right in the middle of the two and each tape can store up to 160GB data if compressed. We managed to get the drive for around £700 and then bought a number of tapes. It was delivered direct from Quantum within a week. The one problem I... Read review

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Advantages: Fast, reliable, and the prices are coming down
Disadvantages: Tape load time is still slow... typical DLT, though

...Enterprise backups are important... as we all know. I've long trusted DLT technology and the DLT-8000 doesn't disappoint. As long as you know how to get the most from a tape drive, and a SCSI subsystem in general, you won't have any problems, but you will have greatly shortened backups. I've obtained nearly 350MB/minute with this drive. On an 100GB server, that puts the backup window at less than 5 hours! There are two keys to getting the most out of these drives. First, ensure that your tape drive firmware is updated. There were at least 2 or 3 different versions that have been improved upon since these drives first came out. The update is really as simple as making the tape with a free utility, pushing a couple of buttons on the drive and inserting the update tape. Second, make sure your SCSI controller is able to handle the speed... Read review

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Advantages: Fast Small and 80GB!
Disadvantages: Nothing really

...After getting myself into the whole iMovie and DV camcorder thang, I realised that the tiny hard drive (10 Gb) in my iBook was not enough (1 hour of DV footage takes up 13 Gb), so I started looking for alternatives. As Firewire is the only high speed connection on the laptop, I looked around. Most 30-40Gb Hard drives for Firewire (Also Sony i.Link) were £250, but I saw this one by Maxtor - 80 Gb for under £350. The Box is smaller than I thought, and Graphite and ice to match the iBook, but it does come with an ugly and propriety power supply. Very fast was my first reaction. It can stream DV footage without any dropped frames - and thats 5 Mbytes/s. So, unless you are doing pro DV or something really demanding there is no point in buying the 75Gb drives out there that cost over £700 - the extra little bit of speed is really... Read review

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Advantages: Lots more improvements with a lower cost!
Disadvantages: itunes not included

...player, Its a media player. You can store photos, music videos, tv shows, movies and of course music (with its artwork). And with 80 GB you'll have trouble trying to fill it up! A cool little feature is "Cover Flow" which lets you flick though the artwork of each album kinda like a jukebox makes looking for a song easier and quicker then before just by running your finger along the click wheel. The only disadvantage i found is that you have to download itunes which is fine but others without the internet may find this a major hurdle. Features: # PC and Mac compatible # Completely skip-free playback # 40 hours of continuous play (audio) from a 3-hour charge; 1.5-hour fast charge to 80% capacity # Autosync your entire iTunes library # Create playlists and rate songs # Shuffle songs or albums # Customise menus # Store and view contacts... Read review

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Advantages: small. light, fast and plenty of space
Disadvantages: none....

...pretty. Storage Capacity 120 GB is a fair bit. I have my whole itunes library on there plus backup copies of pretty much my whole computer including photo's etc… and there is still tonnes of room on it. The official specs say that it will hold up to 71 hours of DVD quality video, 40,000 mp3 songs, 45,000 digital photo's and so on….basically it holds an awful lot of stuff on it. Connection Really very simple….USB. It comes with a cable, which is a bit short so the drive needs to be close to the computer, it doesn't need any extra power supply or anything like that either, which does however mean you have to be careful if your using it while you computer is running of battery power because obviously it will run out faster. Speed Quite fast, but if you want to be technical it has an average seek time of 2 ms. In my experience as soon... Read review

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Advantages: Is a hardrive and an MP3 player in one
Disadvantages: 8hours of battery

...simple parts. They click and done. On the charge is a Firewire port to charge the ipod (1-4 Hours). You plug the ipod into the Firewire cable, and then plug that in to the Firewire port In Most of the ipods 20+ you can get an ipod dock in the box but on some you have to buy it separately You Can get it for £33 from www.everythingipod.com Instructions book and a CD containing software are included. ---------------------------- Helping you Decide There are many different hard disk drives of different sizes (GB). Below is the size of the ipod stated on the box. Next to it is the amount of 4MB songs it can fit at a 128Kbps rate. With the prices you can decide which ipod may be best for you and in your budget gap. 10 GB = 2500 songs. About £ 20 GB = 5000 songs. About £249-£299 30 GB = 7500 songs. About £ 40 GB = 10,000 songs. About £373... Read review

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Advantages: Quiet, Compact and Reliable
Disadvantages: Occasional difficulty initialising tapes

...Have only been using this drive for 3-4 weeks but it has proved invaluable. The 12GB native capacity is more than adequate for most data backup needs. I, personally, backup data files rather than system files which uses much less storage. System backups are not the most reliable and inevitably need a re-install anyway. The drive is, generally, very quiet although it does occassionally make a nasty rattling, from the tape itself, when winding/rewinding halts. Speed of backup is acceptable I normally backup about 2GB is less than an hour. I have not had occasion to restore files yet but do not anticipate any problems. The HP SureStore is a well-established and well-respected brand. The 4mm DDS tapes are very compact and easy to store and label, allowing simple library organisation. For larger capacity backups the drive supports compression... Read review

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Advantages: Amazing amount of material that can be carried around in one place, reliable
Disadvantages: Desirable to thieves! Wheel can be a bit fiddly initially

...the different playlists that I had saved. = WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE? = My classic 160 Gb iPod is a thin, rectangular device, measuring 104mm x 62mm x14mm, and weighing 162g, with a shiny metallic back casing and matt black front. (My old 80 Gb had a shiny black case on the front). On the front at the top, there is a 2.5inch LCD screen, with an LED backlight, while the lower half is dominated by a wheel. This wheel is one of the style innovations, and is the means by which you navigate to the various items that you have copied to your iPod, and also is used to set volume levels. Initially, I found this quite fiddly, and I still favour a keyboard to this, but it fits in the modern, style image that the iPod has. = HOW DO YOU USE IT = The audio files, normally audio on CDs, are copied into your iTunes library, using the i... Read review

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Advantages: Big memory, not heavy in weight, long battery life
Disadvantages: None that I can see

...I purchased an Ipod classic and I must say that it is one of the best purchases I have made. It has a massive memory and easy to use with iTunes. Movies, TV programmes, music and photos, everything is on mine and it is so easy to add and take off things you don't require for a while. I have 80GB and I have 600 photos, 520 songs and 60 movies on it and I still have 40GB to go. Absolutely brilliant, my friend has just bought a 160GB and it is so easy to use he doesn't need my instruction to use it for the first time. With a large compacity this is certainly one for all generations and is great if you are travelling because you can take advantage of the long life battery and watch films, tv or listen to music while you travel.... Read review

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Advantages: fair amount of storage space for price
Disadvantages: Can be a bit noisey at times

...with 80gb Hard drives being the norm in most entry level pc's the price of the 160gb hdd is dropping. If you are looking for a reliable Hard drive for storage of MP3s, video or even gameing then the 160gb will be up your street. The space on the Drive makes it ideal of an entry level "pvr" system. I am currently using one of these as a secondary drive. I have so far managed to record 8hrs of tv to it at decent quality and still have plenty of space left..... The drive Is sata 150 with 8mb cache and 7200rpm spindle. This enables faster reading and writing to the drive. You will need to have a System Board that supports sata 150 or purchase a sata pci card if you want to run the drive in an older machine. You can buy a convetor which will enable you to plug the drive into a normal 40 pin IDE port. Ther is a warning to this though... Read review

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