need tech help re harddrive, power supply and fan capacity

Nick B · « **on:** 20 Dec 2005, 05:16 pm »

I now have enough information and understanding to add 1 internal and 1 external harddrive to my pc to prep for SB2. I want to make sure that my power supply and fan are adequate. Do I I look for the power consumption rating on the harddrives and make sure my current power supply rating exceeds that by a sufficient margin? Do the HD's usually get plugged into the motherboard? How would I know if my fan is adequate for the extra heat? Is there an RPM or other measurement? Should I just add an extra fan if there is a slot for it? I have a cabinet that is enclosed on 3 sides and open in the rear. Thanks

F-100 · « **Reply #1 on:** 20 Dec 2005, 05:48 pm »

What kind of computer do you have? Dell, HP, Gateway, DIY, etc... ???

Folsom · « **Reply #2 on:** 20 Dec 2005, 05:51 pm »

All of which is hard to say..... Please give a description of your computer, the case, and current fans.

Yes the interneal harddrive will plug into the motherboard via IDE or maybe the new SATA. The power plug is from the powersupply however.

Also, any kind of equation is imaginary for the most part. I suppose you could figure out how much heat is released from how many watts of power based on individual componets, then how much airflow based on case volume and fan placement blah blah blah. I think me or others here are better suited to just say yes and no to what a person would need then go on a trip to the moon and back to make a formula.

An external harddrive can be quiet big, how much music do you plan on putting on the computer?

Nick B · « **Reply #3 on:** 20 Dec 2005, 06:26 pm »

It is a DIY pc built upgraded by the local college support tech. AMD Athlon XP 2600+ with Asus A7V600X motherboard. I can't find any receipts for the power supply and fan, but requested larger than average capability on both due to prior fried power suplly and motherboards. Will have to disconnect and open the case and report further info via my wife's mac. I have 350 CD's and will use FLAC with EAC as recommended by other AC members.

ctviggen · « **Reply #4 on:** 20 Dec 2005, 07:02 pm »

The external drive won't have its own power supply?

zybar · « **Reply #5 on:** 20 Dec 2005, 07:45 pm »

Quote from: Nick B

I now have enough information and understanding to add 1 internal and 1 external harddrive to my pc to prep for SB2. I want to make sure that my power supply and fan are adequate. Do I I look for the power consumption rating on the harddrives and make sure my current power supply rating exceeds that by a sufficient margin? Do the HD's usually get plugged into the motherboard? How would I know if my fan is adequate for the extra heat? Is there an RPM or other measurement? Should I just add an extra fan if th ...

Adding a second internal HD and an external one (which will have its own PS that needs to be plugged into an outlet, not run off the computer's PS) will not be an issue for ANY modern computer.

Fan noise is a different story and really is up to you in terms of what is too loud.

For my two channel system, ANY fan noise is too loud. Yet I am fine with having a pj mounted above my chair in the HT.

George

Nick B · « **Reply #6 on:** 20 Dec 2005, 09:35 pm »

External drive will be fan cooled and presumably have it's own power supply. I will make sure of that. Neither the pc nor the external drive will be near the music, but I'll still try to keep the noise to a minimum with any new fans. So it looks like I'm ready to buy. I'll stick with the main manufacturers like Seagate, Maxtor etc. Thanks for the feedback.

Folsom · « **Reply #7 on:** 20 Dec 2005, 11:25 pm »

Western Digital is who I would choose a drive from right now.

I was thinking maybe your PC does not cool well now, so you where looking at preperations for making it even worse with another harddrive.

I also doupt you will have any problems. Just remmeber to put the new harddrive on the grey plug of the ribbon cable, and on the one with the CD-drive. Putting two harddrive's on the same IDE cable is a bad idea. I would make the harddrive master if it is going to be in use the most.

Nick B · « **Reply #8 on:** 21 Dec 2005, 12:19 am »

I have a program called Sisoftware Sandra that gives me a current board temp of 120F and CPU of 98F. The only problem I occasionally have is an error re CPU speed as I recall and I'll have a tech look at that soon. When that happens, I need to do a reboot. I made a note regarding connecting the new internal HD.

ctviggen · « **Reply #9 on:** 21 Dec 2005, 01:21 am »

Why is putting two hard drives on the same IDE cable a bad idea? Every computer I've had for the last about 10 years has had two hard drives on the same IDE cable.

jermmd · « **Reply #10 on:** 21 Dec 2005, 01:30 am »

Like other people have said, it is very unlikely that your cooling or power will be a problem for 2 more drives. If your power supply has open plugs for the drives, it will surely be enough. And you can definitely run 2 drives to a single IDE input on the motherboard.

Folsom · « **Reply #11 on:** 21 Dec 2005, 04:47 am »

Quote from: ctviggen

Why is putting two hard drives on the same IDE cable a bad idea? Every computer I've had for the last about 10 years has had two hard drives on the same IDE cable.

Just an optimal choice. If you are transferring between the two, it will be much faster not on the same IDE cable. Also if one drive is slower then the other they will both run at the slower speed. Also, while arguments go both ways, my manuals have always stated the grey connector as being ATA/100 and the black being ATA/66. The ATA/100 would be faster in that case.

Information on this is finicky, but I have been building computers for awhile and based on the manuals, they have always been running great.

I would put the CD-rom on master most likely as any EAC rips are intense. Also the rate of transfer from the harddrive is not that great most of the time. I was just thinking heavy music server, but I doupt it will be cycled non stop like if it provided music for a few buisnesses playing different songs from FLACs.

shokunin · « **Reply #12 on:** 21 Dec 2005, 07:10 am »

Quote from: ctviggen

Why is putting two hard drives on the same IDE cable a bad idea? Every computer I've had for the last about 10 years has had two hard drives on the same IDE cable.

It's not really a bad idea, but it does affect performance. Only one device can be used at a time and having 2 drives means that one talks, the other has to stop and vice versa. That is why putting a DVD burner and the hard drive on the same IDE cable/channel is typically a bad idea. Too much chattering between master/slave. Copying between a master and slave is slower than copying between two different ATA channels.

On a raid sub-system, if you put 2 hard drives on one ATA cable, if that channel goes bad or the cable goes bad, then both drives could go offline, which mean the array is completely toast (unless you're running Raid 6).

shokunin · « **Reply #13 on:** 21 Dec 2005, 07:19 am »

Quote from: Nick B

I now have enough information and understanding to add 1 internal and 1 external harddrive to my pc to prep for SB2. I want to make sure that my power supply and fan are adequate. Do I I look for the power consumption rating on the harddrives and make sure my current power supply rating exceeds that by a sufficient margin? Do the HD's usually get plugged into the motherboard? How would I know if my fan is adequate for the extra heat? Is there an RPM or other measurement? Should I just add an extra fan if th ...

You really shouldn't have an issue adding another internal hard drive assuming you aren't running half a dozen or more already. Any decent power supply should be able to power your Socket-A system with serveral hard drives. Cooling on the hand is what you'll have to evaluate. There are online tools that can read the SMART values on the hard drive and report back the what the drives internal temps are. IMO, heat is the no. 1 killer of hard drives so make sure the drive isn't sandwiched between something with little room for airflow.

If you're going to use the external as a backup, keep it offline (eg, don't leave it on and connected all the time). Occassionally sync up the files on your internal drive with the external drive. You can use Microsoft's robocopy to sync the two folders. Robocopy can be used to only copy over what has changed or what is new versus copying over everything.

Folsom · « **Reply #14 on:** 21 Dec 2005, 09:04 am »

Quote from: shokunin

It's not really a bad idea, but it does affect performance. Only one device can be used at a time and having 2 drives means that one talks, the other has to stop and vice versa. That is why putting a DVD burner and the hard drive on the same IDE cable/channel is typically a bad idea. Too much chattering between master/slave. Copying between a master and slave is slower than copying between two different ATA channels.

On a raid sub-system, if you put 2 hard drives on one ATA cable, if that channel g ...

Well always put your DVD/CD drive on the other IDE cable then primary hard drive if you only have the two.

DVD/CD and hard drives seem to function better, in my experience, doing burst modes while on the same IDE cable, as opposed to two hard drives on the same one. (do not worry about this, they will do it on their own when they can, when possible)

If you want to just go straight to no problems grab an IDE PCI controller card for $30 or less!

I have to say though.... Unless you have a lot of transferring to do at any one time, you could go just external. Seems like a logical choice to go just external as USB 2.0 is quick and does not suffer from faults of IDE cabling and chipset control. You can get some awfully big externals, I think 500 GB? You know one 500 GB should hold around, with high compression FLAC's, close to a thousand or even a few more CD's.

Nick B · « **Reply #15 on:** 21 Dec 2005, 10:40 pm »

I went to Best Buy and a couple of shops to look at the internal and external drives. I couldn't find any info on fan cooling on any of the externals. There were just references to being quiet and cool via venting through the enclosure. Is fanless standard for the new external harddrives? All the drives had 7200rpm and I'm only looking for 8MB cache. Also, a couple of the externals have "one-button" backup...ie just push a button on the enclosure? Seems useful to me, but I guess I could do that via other software as well. Thanks