HDD Chatter - Was Re: Making of Endorphin (photo blog)

[Sasha]

Tip : mount the Fan(s) on some rubber (between screw and case, I used an old inner tube from a bike  Grin )....it makes them more silence Wink

Thanks MTE, but I`ve got space only for one smallest fan I can find.

PS. I am also planning to build myself mobile PC based, simillar to what Kris did and I will definitely use fans on opposite sides of the case. I used bike inner tires before to dump HDD vibrations inside similar mobile PC project. for mounting fans I found silicone glue better.  ;)

[TheAncientOne]

I used bike inner tires before to dump HDD vibrations inside similar mobile PC project.

You need to be careful with this one. There used to be a paper on the Seagate site showing that soft mounting could adversely affect access times. Basically the problem is that when the positioner moves, some if it's energy goes to move the drive casing by torque reaction. If the case moves easily, the positioner misses it's target and has to be corrected, slowing the access time down. You can get round this by a two stage mount, hard, then softer.

Seagate have re-done their site recently and I can't find it anymore - perhaps it only affected older drives. I weas trying to reduce the racket from a huge bank of SCSI drives in a video studio. Spindle sync made a major difference, (and made stripe access faster), we then decoupled the cabinets from the floor, which was better still. I didn't like to spend too much time in the area though: the whine set my teeth on edge.

If your rackmount is only for audio, what about using laptop drives? They are quieter and cooler, but not quite as fast.

Mike

edited for ypting rerros.

[Sasha]

soft mounting could adversely affect access times.

That makes pretty much sense action-reaction... nothing new, but still... I would never expect that kind of problem in todays disks. I think HDDs are most primitive part in modern computer that didnt changed much till this day, except of capacity. ...moving heads, spinning disks coated with oxides... how primitive is that  ::)

Thanks for informing me about it, I will take that into serious account. I will probably weighted the HDD and than hang it. :P

I dont like the idea of using laptop HDDs for audio.

[TheAncientOne]

I dont like the idea of using laptop HDDs for audio.

They're using them in blade servers......

Mike

[stryd_one]

Well, they're installed... We avoid actually using them though ;)

Problem with laptop HDD's is the crappy read times :(

[TheAncientOne]

Well, they're installed... We avoid actually using them though ;)

Problem with laptop HDD's is the crappy read times :(

I just work with the things too: it looks as if 2.5" is the future, with power consumption at long last becoming an issue.

http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/servers/savvio/savvio_10k.1/

I agree about read times on 5400 RPM drives, but unless you're running some serious rig, why is that such a problem for simple audio? Accesss times are not far off a fast drive, and though they can't match the transfer rate of a SATA 2, the real issues for large files are more in the buffering region.

BTW. Have you noticed that despite all the speed increases in SATA, a decent SCSI drive still shifts data a whole lot faster. This might change as NCQ drivers actually begin to work as they should.

Been up to my neck in speed tests a few months back, building a very fast rig for a photoshop user, and having carte blanche for the photoshop private swap file drive choice. Seagate 15K Ultra 320 SCSI beat out the Raptor 2 by a good margin, but more interestingly, an Intel SCSI card had way better throughput than an Adaptec. The clincher was slightly used drives/cards at a good price. The Raptor was very very good though, and if we'd had to buy a new SCSI card, I'd have gone Raptor instead.

A few thoughts anyway. Another one is that Laptop drives are often more shockproof than desktop, so might make sense for a mobile rackmount, (which is where my head was at with this).

[stryd_one]

<voiceover>

And that was another hella knowledgeable post brought to you by TheProf industries... TheProf - He knows stuff. *soundbite*

Now back to our regular programming...

</voiceover>  ;D

Yeh for audio recording the 5400 drives aren't so bad (unless it hits the swapfile, so RAM is good) but obviously they're not so hot for sampling... And the biggest buffer you can get is a must..

To be honest I haven't played with SATA at all... SATA 1 wasn't worth the effort, and SATA 2 seems good but I don't use it at home and at work it's all SCSI too... Mmmmm... Fibre.....

Intel SCSI card had way better throughput than an Adaptec

That's...weird!

[Sasha]

Thank you all for valuable information about HDDs, but let`s not go further out of the topic. I don`t mind personally but it is better to keep our house tidy.  ;) Thanks for understanding

[stryd_one]

There we go, a new thread and a tidy one  :)

[kris]

hello

    i find all this about hardrives interesting

as i run a sata1 hardrive in my midi-box at the moment i have found no problem with the performance it will record eight tracks of audio simultaneously with no problem

  but i was thinking of replacing it with two sata  laptop drives running as a raid

  because

  a)  less noise (the noisiest thing in my box is hard drive )

  b) less weight

  c)  less power consumption (with solar power this is always an issue)

  but you've made me think about it i would appreciate any comments from people who actually use 2.5 drives for audio maybe in a laptop

ps thats 8 tracks of audio in cubase sx +reason rewired with as many tracks of midi as required  i dont see the performance problem issue

  regards kris

[Sasha]

Another one is that Laptop drives are often more shockproof than desktop, so might make sense for a mobile rackmount, (which is where my head was at with this)

That is interesting... Is that because gyroscopic effect has smaller effect on smaller disks and shorter arms of reading head, or laptop HDDs are made more solid than regular HDDs?

[Tanstaafl]

Being a pseudo-geek, I get Analog Devices newsletter.  This thread brings back a memory of 3 or 4 years ago.  Yes, laptop drives were (and continue to be) perfected by IBM, Seagate, Fujitsu with accelerometer chips built into 2.5 inch drives to prevent data loss.  These AD chip driven drives will move the heads to a safe area whenever the 'G' force detected is more than an acceptable value.  And it seems that noise levels are getting better by the month.

I agree with theProf..... for performance and multi-tasking SCSI is the only way to go.... too bad nobody makes Micro SCSI drives.

I'm holding my breath over solid state drives.......

I have had to REALLY shield my portable MoogModular-Midibox.  Housing for the hard drive, Baffles for the CPU fan. Various electronic shielding for noisy bits. (sound card(Audigy), and Ferrite cores for all of the major wires.

The box has a miniATX motherboard running a dual core 2.x CPU, built-in video

-Audigy card on a vertical riser

-ASIO drivers

I think in the next few years we will get CHEAP/reliable/fast solid state drives so.......

my 2 cents worth

gb

[kris]

Tanstaafi

    any pics of your kit anywere sounds interesting

  regards kris

[Tanstaafl]

Some ( 2 year old) preliminary pix are at my website.... but, the Gizmo has changed in the last couple of years.  I commandeered an old KORG UniVox to put the stuff into.  However, I have not made photo's since moving to the new box with the integrated PC.  If I get enough requests, I'll make new photos.

But..... you can get an idea of what I have been doing with MB, go to:

http://www.ggbnet.com/picstuff.html

that shows the MMV and MidiBox CV (with mods).

As stated, if there is an interest in seeing the new setup, I will photograph and post.

c ya

gb

[TheAncientOne]

Stryd's magic wand: Shazam! new sorted thread. Thanks.

Apologies for the meander: I am blessed (or maybe the opposite), with a mnemonic memory, which brings things back on cue. Which sometimes makes me a very boring meandering conversationalist....

Mike

[stryd_one]

Stryd's magic wand

Who told you about that? ;D

Actually I just realised that I forgot to move it to misc, but I'll leave that till later... Still trying to figure out haw to use the green stars for good and not evil ;)

: Shazam! new sorted thread. Thanks.

Apologies for the meander: I am blessed (or maybe the opposite), with a mnemonic memory, which brings things back on cue. Which sometimes makes me a very boring meandering conversationalist....

Mike

I think I speak for us all when I say that it's no problem at all. Your meanderings tend to be educational and interesting, I say meander on! Worst case scenario is that I split the topic like this (which I will only do upon request of course, or where it's obvious...) so no probs  :)

[DavidBanner]

Still trying to figure out haw to use the green stars for good and not evi

Evil is much more interesting!

Join me on the dark side? May the 4th, be with me?

(sorry, terrible I know,  I'll just go and have a quiet word with myself outside)

[Tanstaafl]

ok, you guys are just jerking my chain at this point..... right?

[stryd_one]

No!

*Pulls out the light sabre*

[DavidBanner]

from CCTV taken moments ago: