They are the
devil incarnate. Most people don't like them because they are slow, don't work well, aren't applicable, etc. I say
ha! Try installing one
sometime. First of all, they don't fit in the larger, five and something inch
drive bay (without ugly,
kludgey rails) with all of the
normal externally accessed drives, they go in a smaller slot which is, of course, 10^592 times harder to get to. Secondly, they use a weird-ass type of power connector (I believe its called a mini-molex or a sub-mini or sub-mini-molex or something) that
nothing else in the computer uses, therefore, the cheap, proprietary cases given out by
Compaq, et al only have one for the entire computer. This one connector, after being sifted to the bottom by the continual IDE upgrades, is at the farthest point possible from the 4 pins it needs to connect to. This results in yanking the whole molex
brain stem of the computer around, hopefully disconnecting some of the front panel connections and causing the
power button to no longer work. Thirdly, the ribbon cable used by these drives is also non-standard and, like the power connector, is cheaply made. Therefore, its not
keyed, allowing it to be inserted
upside down into the
header. I admit, its a stupid mistake that I make
too often, but everyone else does too. Of course, this is assuming your drive has a header around the
pins, which most don't. This allows you to bend all the pins at odd
angles when you rip the
ribbon cable out in frustration.
Other than that, they're great.