Advice for new hard drives

[Gavin]

Dear Chris & Forum members

I would very much appreciate some advice and guidance on slecting some new external hard drives.

 

My digital(computer)system is currently: Mac mini, 2 x Lacie 1tb hard drives, dcs puccini u-clock feeding an Emm Labs DCC2 SE into active ATC SCM 50's, controlled with an ipod touch and remote application. Around 1500 cd's (ripped with Apple lossless). I am very, very happy with sound which is startlingly close to a cd played on the Emm Labs CDSD SE.

 

As I continue to add to the music collection I would like to identify and purchase better quality hard drives, currently one is used for playback and the other purely for back-up. They reside in the system rack so noise is I think a potential consideration. There is some on-off malfunctioning from one of the drives and thus the decision to change now.

 

I would not say that cost is no object but, I am happy to invest what is required for better quality and life of data storage. Your guidance is gratefully received.

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi Gavin - Have a look at the drives and enclosures I've recommended on the C.A.S.H. List

 

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/Computer-Audiophile-Suggested-Hardware-List

 

[dimsal]

Take a look at this device: OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2.

 

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/hard-drives/RAID/Desktop/

 

Very well built and performs flawlessly.

 

[Ted Timmis]

Hey Gavin,

 

I have spent a great deal of time looking into hard drives as servers for music and photos. In fact, I just shelled out $1200 to recover 800gbs of music after I knocked over my external hard drive when attached to my laptop. In my estimation, I think the way to go is a DLNA network attached storage device, also known as a NAS. A NAS is basically an external hard drive with a small processor in it and has its own IP address.

 

What this means is that you can plug it into your router and then stream (wireless or wired) music throughout your home network. You can even access the router from locations outside your home as your own private website.

 

The other critical aspect of NAS storage is DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance). DLNA allows the NAS to communicate with other DLNA devices such as a DLNA TV, Receiver or even a digital picture frame. The beauty of this kind of set up is that you can play music, videos and photos from the NAS anywhere in your network as long as the receiving device is DLNA certified. You can even use your iphone or Android as a remote control on some of these devices.

 

The next question is which one to get. The things to look for are raid capability, expandibility, itunes support, bit torrent support and surveillance camera support. Finally, one should consider the speed of the processor. Having looked into many different NAS devices, I have narrowed it down to two. These drives are QNAP (I believe it is QNAP Pro 439+) and Synology (I believe it is Synology DS 209). These are the fastest NAS devices available; from what I understand there is very little delay when playing music. Also, I believe they both have the Intel Atom processor which means they have the processing power to run the DLNA software and transcode where necessary. These will set you back around $700 to $800 although I have to confess that I haven't purchased one yet.

 

Finally, a less expensive alternative is to buy a router with USB storage capability. These routers have a usb port into which one can plug an external hard drive. Once plugged in, the router will allow the drive to be accessed on the network. One example (which I am currently using) is the Apple Airport Extreme. It has no problems with lossless files but playback is limited to my computer. There is also a slight delay in playback. One point with the Airport Extreme: You must re-format the drive to FAT32 to have it work with the Airport Extreme. Most drives come formatted in NTSC. I'm not exactly sure what this means but make sure you do it on a new drive as this will wipe out any data you have stored on it. Anyway, I hope this helps and please let everyone know how your setup works out.

 

[blueixus]

I am using a Lacie d2 quadra. It is fanless and popular in the pro arena, it seems very well built and robust.

 

I am using a 1TB drive which amply suits my needs

 

I have to say I am not a great fan of more complex offering as they seem more prone to failure - this is simple.

 

I backup to a separate device.

 

[Andrew S.]

SSD

 

[Gavin]

My sincere thanks for all the input, some homework and evaluation to do now, thanks again.

 

[davidR]

I love these drives: http://www.glyphtech.com/

 

[diw]

I like these as well....when I got these I reasoned that anything that was built to resist abuse by rock musicians was going to be something hard for me to break...you also get a really neat plastic carry case so that you can wander around like an itinerant record producer. However they have proved to be a little noisy....nowhere near as loud as most silent running intelligent fan drives but noticeable at close range...I got two to use one as a backup kept in a different location and one has had to go back to Sweetwater ( great and helpful people ) because of a problem with the socketry. The impetus to adopt this system followed a bad experience with an OWC RAID enclosure which failed because the power supply went peculiar. Having gone through the Great Ripping process with 1400 CDs and following a scrupulous multiple back up process...I was down to one secure copy in a ropy enclosure....way too scary. So now I backup diligently and keep the CDs as well. The Glyphs can also be rack mounted if that is your preference

 

[Panelhead]

I started out with two LaCie 1 TB external drives. One a D2 Quadra for main and a flat one in a plastic case for backup. Had an issue, sometimes on power up the Mac Mini would read the plastic one before the D2 and make it the iTunes library.

Got tired of this headache and purchased an Iomega Mini Mega to sit under the Mac Mini. Gave the plastic cased LaCie to the wife with backup of her iMac.

Used Firewire for all the connecting cables. Later read that it is better to run the dac on one buss and the drives on another. So swapped to USB for the external HD's and Firewire to the dacs I have. Cannot say it is any better. But it makes sense that the bits coming from the HD have to go to the computer and then to the dac. There is only one FW port, so either the HD or the dac becomes a hub. This way there is only one cable from the computer to the dac.

One dummy question from me. I purchased a handful of short, cheap USB cables made by Ziotek. I like really short cables, 6", 12", 18" max. But found that the Mini could not see drives connected with a USB A to A cable. No issue with a USB A to B.

Figured out why most gimme USB cables are A to B. But why do the A to A not work?

 

George

 

BTW, still use the D2 for playback because it is passive cooled. But up to three of the Iomega drives that match the Mini. One for back up. One for backup of the backup. And one to back up the SSD drive now in the Mini. Still have another SSD in a 2.5" case as a back up, but going to it for recording with the wife's Macbook and an Apogee Duet. That will all run off the laptop battery.

 

 

[spacey]

I'd stongly recommend Samsung Spinpoint drives. I've had 2x1TB running raid for 2 years 24/7 in a netgearNAS, they've been running faultlessly since day 1. I also have a 1TB 2.5" in my laptop which is a 5400rpm (the 3.5" are 7200rpm) and is much quiter than the Hitachi 180GB HDD it came with.

 

[Leigh Hibbins]

Much has been said about external hard drives regarding reliability, ease of use, security of data, noise, etc., but I'm not sure much has been said about sound quality. I have four external hard drives. They all sound different. I have done repeated comparisons using the same music files through the same computer and DAC. The differences are not subtle. Best results are with a network drive connected, not by its ethernet connection and a router, but directly via USB 2.0 (but still functioning as a network drive and still requiring log on). Why there is a difference I do not know. Is it the connections in the drive's enclosure? Is it the processor of the device? I would like someone to explain this. Better still I would like someone to produce an external drive that takes all the variables in to account to achieve the best sound quality.

 

[Leigh Hibbins]

Much has been said about external hard drives regarding reliability, ease of use, security of data, noise, etc., but I'm not sure much has been said about sound quality. I have four external hard drives. They all sound different. I have done repeated comparisons using the same music files through the same computer and DAC. The differences are not subtle. Best results are with a network drive connected, not by its ethernet connection and a router, but directly via USB 2.0 (but still functioning as a network drive and still requiring log on). Why there is a difference I do not know. Is it the connections in the drive's enclosure? Is it the processor of the device? I would like someone to explain this. Better still I would like someone to produce an external drive that takes all the variables in to account to achieve the best sound quality.

 

[Mahesh]

Having some knowledge of how a computer works internally, I can't think of any reason for different drives sounding differently. In fact, everything I know tells me that there shouldn't be any differences in sound quality between drives. But my knowledge might be limited, so I would sure like to hear someone explaining this phenomenon.

 

Mahesh