[JeffY]

I have bought 3 hard disks over the last couple of years and they have all turned noisy yet were very quiet to start with. When I first looked at doing a HTPC I wanted to use solid state technology but the prices where prohibitive. Recently I decided to have another look and now its much more affordable. The solution I decided to try is a 256MB DiskOnModule, this is a very small plastic covered thing that plugs directly in to the IDE connector on the motherboard and perfectly emulates a standard HD. Throughput wise these are surprisingly slow but have the advantage of extremely fast seek times. Apart from large file copies and the larger software installs everything else operates very quickly indeed. You can buy larger Flash IDE drives but again prices start to go through the roof. 256MB doesn't sound much but you can get a base Windows 98 OS install down to about 60MB using 98lite which leaves plenty of space for HTPC apps.


Jeff

 

[dwk123]

I've looked at flash disks, and they can make sense in some cases. The big problems with them are that they are slow (as you noted) but also that they have a somewhat limited write-cycle lifetime. If you're using the HTPC/machine in an 'embedded' fashion to run one or two specific apps with very little conventional disk activity, then this is not a problem. If you expect to use the flash as a normal HD with heavy write traffic, it is definately not a good idea. I'm looking at using one in an embedded Linux audio device, and think it'll be a good fit.


FWIW, you can get CF->IDE adapters for about $20 which allow using any normal compact flash card as a HD - no need to buy a special purpose flash disk.

 

[BizarroTerl]

Is there a similar adapter to replace a floppy drive? If so, where could I get one? Thanks

 

[Brian Hampton]

Hey,


I want to get something like this going on in my HTPC.


My CPU and video card and chipset on the mainboard are all cooled passively and using a temp monitoring program that is sufficient. My power supply has a temperature controlled quiet fan and it's practically silent. My DVD drive is an old 2x (20x for cd) that is quiet and problem free (and region free too.)


But, my hard drive noise is crazy loud. I could get a newer hard drive but some type of memory card solution appeals to me more. I have very limited software on the machine since it's only for DVD's with ZP and Scaling of NTSC with Dscaler. Transfer rates should not be a problem for me. I can disable Virtual memory without problems. The memory card wear shouldn't be much of a problem as little to no HD activity is required. Without the noise the machine could be left on 24/7 so the hard drive would hadly be used.


Edit: So, Jeffy do you have a link to the product you are using?



-B

 

[Roberto Koelewijn]

I bought a 2.5" IBM notebook HD with liquid barrings. It spins almost noiseless, only when you access the drive it makes a soft clicking sound.

 

[m0e]

Quote:

Originally posted by Roberto Koelewijn I bought a 2.5" IBM notebook HD with liquid barrings. It spins almost noiseless, only when you access the drive it makes a soft clicking sound.

How do you connect a notebook drive to a desktop PC?

 

[chap]

If you look around for it, you can find the cable that you need to connect a laptop drive to a pc. The only thing I'm not sure is how you keep it stable so it doesn't move.

 

[JeffY]

Brain,


Here it is

http://www.milesie.co.uk/asp/product...?ProductID=366


I asked about wear and they said you can write to each block of memory about 250'000 times. It also has built in algorithms to help spread wear.



Jeff

 

[steveg]

The seagate barracuda ATA drives are very quiet. I just got the 80 gigger 7200 RPM from Dell and it is very good, so much quicker response that the 1 year old maxtor I had. Its cheap too, only 106 delivered from Dell.

Maybe not quite as nifty as a flash drive, but may be better to have a disk storage in the long run.


Oh, BTW usually when you buy an adaptor to use a 2.5" laptop drive in a desktop computer, I think they usually come with a bracket to mount the drive on.

 

[jahesh]

This thread reminded me of an article I read at Tom's hardware a couple of months back. It was about using a RAID controller and 2 notebook drives to make a fast and quiet storage unit. If anyone's interested, the article is here: http://www4.tomshardware.com/storage...01/index.html.

 

[kkrull]

 http://www.ramplus.com/2535hddadkit.html

 

[dannydlp]

Just wanted to ressurect this thread by asking if anyone has actually used a compact flash card with ide adaptor to run XP yet? It seems alot more usable now that prices of these cards are coming down so much.


I would like to replace my Seagate Barracuda with one in my media jukebox pc.


Also, which are the Windows XP services and/or components that access the hard drive in the background frequently that could be shut off to prevent undue card wear.


Dan.

 

[Teeps]

Check out the "blackviper" web site for your XP services question.

http://www.blkviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm

 

[avsmja]

I’ve built several PC for music recording applications where PC noise is your worse enemy.

Nothing’s better than Seagate Barracuda IV or V models. Period.

It's amazingly quiet and cold.


My advice:

- Buy a Barracuda IV or V (not the 5400 but the 7200 rpm) such as this one: http://www.seagate.com/cda/products/...81,572,00.html


- If you still think it’s too noisy, put it into this noise reduction case: http://www.quietpcusa.com/acb/showde...t_ID=1&CATID=1

 

[dannydlp]

avsmja,


I've got a 120 gb Barracuda V and its fine, but all hard drives seem to generate electrical noise that can be heard through my system. The noise level remains silent until the hard drive spins up then it can be heard as a low buzz through my speakers. Hence the reason for wanting to eliminate it from my PC. The only other solutions would involve better electrical screening or distanceing the PC which would worsen the sound quality with long interconnects (my amp doesn't have balanced analogue inputs)


Dan

 

[jldet5]

Quote:

Originally posted by avsmja I’ve built several PC for music recording applications where PC noise is your worse enemy. Nothing’s better than Seagate Barracuda IV or V models. Period. It's amazingly quiet and cold. My advice: - Buy a Barracuda IV or V (not the 5400 but the 7200 rpm) such as this one: http://www.seagate.com/cda/products/...81,572,00.html - If you still think it’s too noisy, put it into this noise reduction case: http://www.quietpcusa.com/acb/showde...t_ID=1&CATID=1

I'm running a maxtor 7200 inside the silent case. However I believe it was running way to hot. So I sat the silent case sideways inside the PC case and rigged a slot fan to blow over the heatsink.

 

[showard]

So those SilentDrive enclosures are only rated for drives at 5 watts or less.

The Barracudas are all WELL over the 5 watt limit. This means you are most likely cooking the hard drive and I would expect an early thermal related failure in your near future.


Samsung makes a Spinpoint line of drives that run at 5400 RPM and fit inside of the 5 watt thermal limit for the SilentDrive. This is what I use. You simply can NOT hear the hard drive if you are more than 6 inches away from it. The performance is good if not astounding.

 

[Jones_Rush]

Quote:

So those SilentDrive enclosures are only rated for drives at 5 watts or less. The Barracudas are all WELL over the 5 watt limit. This means you are most likely cooking the hard drive and I would expect an early thermal related failure in your near future.

I run a Barracuda IV 40gb (one platter) hd inside an acoustic enclosure.

My computer has been ON 24/7 for many many months now. I usually encode DivX movies through the night. Up to now, no prob. I can still hear it though, just a bit. The acoustic enclosure case is only warm to the touch in the winter, but boiling hot in the summer. Anyway, I really don't care, I have everything in backup, and a 3 year warranty for the Barracuda.

 

[jldet5]

I'm considering going from the maxtor to the barracuda without the silent drive.


I thought the barracudas were silent? It must not be if your putting it into a silent enclosure?


A 7200 rpm hard drive in the silent enclosure (without a fan) could get cooked in the summer with out central air on.


Also, how you mount the silent drive matters. Plastic drive rails cause more heat build up.


In the end, the coolest arrangement (using the internal HDD temp sensor) was setting the silent drive on its side at the bottom of the case with the heat sinks up. Rigged a slot fan (at 7v) to blow over the heat sinks.

 

[Jones_Rush]

Quote:

I thought the barracudas were silent? It must not be if your putting it into a silent enclosure?

Still, the Barracuda IV is the only device with moving parts left in my computer. You can't expect it to go down to 0db (even inside a silent enclosure) to mingle with the rest now, do you ?.