Good bulb but a regular ballast from your local hardware store has a hard time running them, it a good 20 minutes for them to warm up all the way (who wants to spend 10 times as much for a better ballast for same result). I don't feel they do any better job then the 2 dollar bulb. But they work and are good quality.
I've use the single T5 before and it worked out very well for six clowns. So I'm going to use it again on a single ballast. Inside of a grow box that's about 2 1/2 feet tall by 3 feet. The bulb before I wasn't successful on numerous tries but at the end I finally got it right.