Computer Hard Drive Question

He said he wasn't interested in Linux.

 

The OP said nothing about a separate partition. Remember, the OP isn't on the same level of expertise as we are, so I configured my answer to that.

 

You're right I'm not an expert. I have only built one computer and that was 5-6 years ago. I did partition my hard drive then and put the OS on a seperate partition.

Partitioning is pretty basic.



I do agree that windows and a gui is overkill, but it might be kind of nice. I am also leaning more towards this build being BOTH a music player and a ripping station. I am comfortable with DBPoweramp and foobar2000 for these tasks, and I am confident that I can achieve bit-perfect output with a windows XP install.

I know I need to backup and I will.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

 

For CD rips I like eac but that can be confusing to use.
also since it seems like you have to computers you could always rip on one computer and then transfer it to the other computer over ethernet. Would cut down on noise.
And look in to the linux option, can be confusing but once you get its easy and would be super quick and effective.

 

I use a Windows XP laptop, loaded with dBPoweramp and Foobar2000. I have all of my audio files on two Western Digital 1TB external hard drives (Main and back-up). I have been very happy with the results and reliability. My next step is to acquire an outboard DAC. Unfortunately, my laptop isn't equipped with a Firewire output. I will have to live with USB for now.

 

Doug, start looking at an empty NAS that you can put those 1tb drives into, maybe even raid them. They would make a nice network backup of everything you have EXCEPT your music collection.

 

Thanks, but I've already got a NAS box with 2 1.5tb drives in it and I'm sick and tired of waiting for that turtle. Sometimes it's speed is just fine and other times it seems to take forever.

It's hard to belive that my 1tb drives are quickly becomming obsolete to me. I now have 4 of them I'm no longer using not to mention scads of smaller drives, 500g, 320g, 250g, 120g etc. I also have the 3 2.5" 1tb's which are great except for the funky usb connectors which don't hold the cables if there is the slightest degree of movement. Why they went to that smaller usb connector is beyond me. It's not much smaller than the standard small usb connector but it's much less robust.

Oh, did I mention that I also have the (2) 1tb drives that were in my NAS box before I upgraded them to 1.5tb's. That makes a total of 6 of them that I'm no longer using for music.

 

Well my little audio box is almost ready.

I went in a slightly different direction as far as power supplies go, and got a micro atx with a 270W power supply.

Here are the components I went with.

CASE

MOTHERBOARD

AMD Athlon64 LE-1620 CPU

1TB WD Green HARD DRIVE

DVD DRIVE

1GB DDR2 800 Memory

WINDOWS XP



A wireless keyboard and mouse and a monitor will be purchased tomorrow.

The first test will be to compare the optical out of the motherboard feeding my slightly modified Zhaolu 2.5C DAC. I will A/B this with my Arcam CD player and see how it stacks up.

 

270W PSU is a big mistake. Get more power! You should be running at least 500 with that Athlon chip!

 

Sweet.

Not sure that I like the smallish 8cm fan in the case - hopefully, this can be controlled by the MB??

XP? 1GB memory?
Not a problem though, if this is just a "server."

 

I should have clarified - small case fans, at any effective rpm’s, are usually fairly loud.

 

The athlon chip is a low energy 45W chip. 270W is MORE than enough for 1 HD and 1 DVD drive. No graphics card...no other accessories.

 

I am going to try and run without a case fan, but we'll see. I am concerned about the noise as well and I do believe the MB has a fan controller. Thanks for the thoughts.

 

I'm with the two disk system crowd. Hard drives are cheap anymore unless you want to use a solid state drive. (SSD) for your main c drive. Even the cost of those is coming down.

 

Yeah, I know, but I like to err on the safe side.

 

That's like you want 1000 HP engine in your Toyota Corolla... make no sense.

 

Thought some might be interested in the cost of this project.

Case-50
Motherboard-45
CPU-30
HDD-90
Memory-30
DVD-25
CPU Fan-20
Wireless KB and Mouse-20

I'm at $310.

I still need a cheap LCD monitor. I wish they made small ones. Smallest seems to be 15".