Slim Devices an education

Brad · « **Reply #40 on:** 17 Aug 2005, 04:41 pm »

We're seeing about a 20% failure rate with Maxtors in our corporate PC's right now - hopefully just a bad batch. All covered under warranty, but a big pain.

We've been replacing them with Seagates at our own cost because the failure rate of the replacement Maxtors has been just as bad.

I agree - this seems to go in cycles. Western Digital used to be the bomb, then IBM, then .....

Josh - 300-320 does seem to be the sweet spot for price right now. A 4 channel SATA raid controller with 4 x 300Gb Seagate 8mb cache 7200 rpm in a striped config for 1.2T is pretty reasonable.....

chadh · « **Reply #41 on:** 17 Aug 2005, 04:47 pm »

How many FLAC encoded CDs can you squeeze into, say, 100GB?

Chad

blue · « **Reply #42 on:** 17 Aug 2005, 04:52 pm »

Maxtor's have been the only drives that have failed me personally -- I'm pretty harsh on my equipment. Maxtor does indeed have wonderfully smooth customer service. But overall, I'd rather not have to replace the drive in the 1st place.

I'm also interested in what volume of FLAC encoded CDs, on average, one can expect to fit into a 100gig space.

- blue

konut · « **Reply #43 on:** 17 Aug 2005, 05:05 pm »

Anyone have any experience with Plextor or Glyph?

Tirade · « **Reply #44 on:** 17 Aug 2005, 05:07 pm »

You can fit 10-15 FLAC encoded CD's on to a single DVD. If you do the math and and say that a DVD holds 4.7GB, you can fit roughly 21 DVD's on to a 100GB HD, or 210-315 CD's

Tim

jakepunk · « **Reply #45 on:** 17 Aug 2005, 05:09 pm »

All three of the Maxtor harddrives I have put into my Tivo have failed in succession. Maxtor has replaced each one for free under warranty, but it's a real drag. I will shy away from Maxtor in the future. IDE harddrives are so cheap now that I run RAID 1 whenever I can, preferably with different manufacturer's drives.

Carlman · « **Reply #46 on:** 17 Aug 2005, 05:10 pm »

Quote from: blue

Maxtor's have been the only drives that have failed me personally -- I'm pretty harsh on my equipment. Maxtor does indeed have wonderfully smooth customer service. But overall, I'd rather not have to replace the drive in the 1st place.

I'm also interested in what volume of FLAC encoded CDs, on average, one can expect to fit into a 100gig space.

- blue

Maxtor has consistently failed me. I won't buy them any more.. The last straw was when I bought one at CompUSA and it already had Windows on it from a previous install and return... and it had a problem with it... So I ended up having to return it also.. Way to go there, Maxtor..

I've had WD's get weird but not completely fail like Maxtor. I've had just about every brand of laptop HD fail, though.. Seems like they've all had a few bad batches. I've only had a few Seagate's but they never failed.

Anyway.. just wanted to rant about Maxtor.

Eli · « **Reply #47 on:** 17 Aug 2005, 05:15 pm »

Quote from: chadh

How many FLAC encoded CDs can you squeeze into, say, 100GB?

Looking at my own collection (which averages 0.294 GB per album) the number would be about 325-350 albums in 100GB. Maybe a bit less if you have a large number of multidisk sets.

Tirade · « **Reply #48 on:** 17 Aug 2005, 05:34 pm »

Quote from: Eli

Quote from: chadh
How many FLAC encoded CDs can you squeeze into, say, 100GB?

Looking at my own collection (which averages 0.294 GB per album) the number would be about 325-350 albums in 100GB. Maybe a bit less if you have a large number of multidisk sets.

I guess I forgot to mention that how many you can fit is also directly related to the amount of compression you use. I use the suggested level 5 compression, but if you use more than you can fit more on to a HD, but some people say anything over 5 isnt worth the time to compress them that extra little bit.

Tim

JoshK · « **Reply #49 on:** 17 Aug 2005, 06:12 pm »

Oh, and btw, heat is one of the biggest contributors to HD failure. This is how my last drive died. I overheated my computer (and drive area) and eventually my drive ceased spinning. Just something to be aware of, good cooling practices will elongate your life expectancy for your HD.

lonewolfny42 · « **Reply #50 on:** 18 Aug 2005, 03:44 am »

Spotted this setup...with the SB2, on the MLO's website...with picture's.

DSK · « **Reply #51 on:** 18 Aug 2005, 04:10 am »

Quote from: lonewolfny42

Spotted this setup...with the SB2, on the MLO's website...with picture's.

Interesting that he said ...

"On a whim, I tried a hardwire ethernet connection to the Squeezebox2 (vs. wireless), and WOW... what an improvement! Far better imaging, tighter bass, and shimmering highs. In retrospect, I never realized what I was missing. I'm not sure why there is such a difference, but I suspect it's related to the four 2.4 GHz wireless phones we have in the house"

but later ...

"Finally had time to conduct a true blinded test... created a playlist of three "revealing" tracks, listened for 10 trials, while somebody randomly switched Squeezebox2 between Wired vs. Wireless B. I scored only 40%, proving (to me) that there really is NO difference between the two."

Good news for those of us with room setups not easily hardwired.

lonewolfny42 · « **Reply #52 on:** 18 Aug 2005, 04:27 am »

I thought that thread would be interesting...and a mention of the 300GB Buffalo Linkstation. I really know nothing about this equipement...but I'm reading...

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sleepysurf · « **Reply #53 on:** 19 Aug 2005, 02:25 am »

Er, that would be MY system yer lookin' at! Actually, Buffalo Tech now offers Gigabit LinkStations, up to 400 GB capacity, and TeraStations, up to 1.6 TB... http://www.buffalotech.com/products/storage.php

I'm still thrilled with my setup, but will probably upgrade my SB2 with one of the mods now being offered, in lieu of buying a separate outboard DAC.
Also, I am switching to a wired network connection for SB2 playback, only because my 2.4 Ghz wireless phones and microwave keep causing temporary dropouts (but NO difference in fidelity, as previously reported <g>)

IMHO, if you are into high-end audio, the SB2 is absolutely the way to go.

lonewolfny42 · « **Reply #54 on:** 19 Aug 2005, 03:10 am »

sleepysurf :

Quote

Er, that would be MY system yer lookin' at!...

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