SATA RAID, Dual-Format DVD Shoot-Out & More

Greetings HotHardware Fans!  Can you believe it's already Wednesday?  Those long weekends really throw me for a loop!  They make it seem like the week is just flying by.  Then again, when you've got a pile of hardware to test, stacked from floor to ceiling, there never seems to be enough hours in the day!  But that's a story for another time - Right now, it's time for the news...

 SATA RAIDing With Maxtor @ Bjorn3D:

"RAIDing - it's what pirates and vikings do... no, wait, this is a computer hardware and software review site, so that's probably the wrong kind of RAID. How about a Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks? Yeah, that's more like it. For those unfamiliar with the term, RAID systems require at least two hard drives, and they allow for two main benefits over single drive configurations - increased performance and fault tolerance. Well, that's the simple way to look at it at least."

 Five Dual Format DVD Writers Shootout @ HardwareZoom:

"All the drives are capable of 8x DVD+R writing except Sony. From the performance graph, there seems to be some problem with the results from Benq, it shouldn't be writing constantly at 6x. Nevertheless, if we compare the graph for Pioneer, TDK and LG, we can see that Pioneer will hit 8x at around 600MB, while TDK and LG will reach 8x after writing 2GB of data."

 Review of the SilverStone Berserker SST-B032F Case @ WhiningDog:

"We were thoroughly impressed with the SilverStone SST-B032F. It offers a great deal of expandability, is easy to set up, has a tool-less chassis, is well constructed (minus our gripes about the front panel), and is relatively inexpensive. Once finished, the SST-B032F was definitely one sweet looking system."

 Editorial: Flat Enough but not Black Enough @ DesignTechnica:

"Recently I stood in a room full of new digital TVs from a major manufacturer and watched as a 42-inch set listing for $6999 was far outperformed by a 46-inch set selling for $1499. That was no surprise to me, but it may be to some of you.

Don't blame the manufacturer. In this case it was Hitachi, which makes some of the best DTVs out there. Because the company is vertically integrated—making many of the parts that go into its products—Hitachi exercises an unusual amount of control over the performance of its television line. You could actually say, as the old song does, that nobody does it better."

 HIS X800XT and HIS X800Pro @ Hard Avenue:

"Hardware Avenue have posted their review of the HIS X800XT IceQ II Limited Edition and HIS X800Pro IceQ II Limited Edition videocards. HIS have taken the power of ATi's latest creation and added a few additions of their own to develop two very fine high end videocards. Find out just how well they stack up in our review."

 HTPCnews.com Modder's PSU Review: mATX 300w 14db PSU:

"Recently there has been a massive surge in people building custom HTPC cases from pawn shop purchases of dead DVD STB's and CD changers. Until recently there wasn't any power solution that involved a decent set of rails to go along with the small size of a mATX form factor that would include a fan that only produced 14dba. This barrier has been shattered and this most recent mATX PSU from Ahanix could very easily be a custom case modder's dream come true ( Yea! no more opening up ATX PSU's and risking electrocution ;-) ). Come see how it stacked up against our latest AMD test bench and if it survived a 36 hour marathon of prime95."

 Blue Logitech MX510 mouse @ OCModShop:

"This is one of the most exciting reviews I have done in a long time and it is a mouse. After getting fed up with my previous mouse and how bad it was I started looking for the best mouse on the market. The overwhelming response from everyone I talked with was to get a Logitech MX500 or MX510. Now that I am a MX510 user I understand why everyone vouches for this mouse and says it is the best. Not only is this mouse technically superior to all others it looks great and is very comfortable. Simply put this is the best mouse I have ever used and you can't go wrong with it. If you are a gamer you will notice the difference in your game and feel the response this mouse offers to your movement."

 Philips PSC724 Ultimate Edge @ Overclockers Online:

"What we have today is called the Philips PSC724 Ultimate Edge. Last September I was given the chance to write on the Philips Aurilium external sound card and in this article today I'll be pitting this new blood against both the Aurilium and the M-Audio Revolution 7.1 sound cards. While the Aurilium is an external sound card, we'll be paying most of our attention to the sound quality and not the performance of that particular product. This should give us an idea of where the PSC724 falls compared to last years technology as well as, what is still considered one of the best consumer audio cards available, the Revolution 7.1."

That's all we have for you at the moment.  Check back a little later though, I'm sure we'll be able to pull together some more goodies in a few hours...