[bpape]

Looks like a winner.  Does RAID 1, has the fan (don't know how quiet but has a switch to turn it off if you need to), etc.

"Push the button Max!"

Bryan

[Bob in St. Louis]

"Push the button Max!"

DONE........$296 grand total with shipping.

Regarding the noise, I'll be building a new PC desk with a 'hush box' the PC and external drive will be stored in anyway. Lined with acoustic goodies and it's own ventilation, should be quiet 'enough'.

Bryan, thank again Sir! 

Jim, what's your position?

Bob

[JimJ]

Jim, what's your position?

Looks good to me, I haven't yet filled up my 250GB internal yet so I'm holding off on the bigger drive for now, but when I do it's probably going to be an external w/ RAID like that.

As Seagate & WD get all the kinks worked out of perpendicular drives I think we're going to see 1TB get cheaper and cheaper faster

[Bob in St. Louis]

Jim - 250GB is lots of tunes for the average guy that hasn't been collecting CD's for an eternity, that's for sure.

Now that I've got (almost) all the pieces to the hardware puzzle, I'll be spending more $$$$ on music, and MUCH less on equipment.

Bryan, one last question and I think I'm "off to the races":
I've got the enclosure and drives installed. Both drives (seem to be) formatted. I've changed the "save" directory of EAC to the new drive (F:), and have ripped a few CD's.
My question is; I've not found a place in Windows that recognizes the unit as a RAID1 drive. Everywhere I check says it's 500MG. Remember, I've got two 500GB drives with redundancy, so essentially I've only GOT 500GB of storage space. But I thought somewhere it would be recognized as a 1TB drive with redundancy. Windows recognizes this as one drive, not two. I assume this is correct since it kinda IS one drive? Now, the only thing that's happening that leads me to believe that the second drive (the "copy/safe" drive) is working, is that when I rip a CD both drive lights on the enclosure blink simultaneously giving me the impression that they're both being written to.
Is it safe to say I'm getting "two copies" of what I rip based on the lights? Or is there some way I can verify both external drives have the same information?

By the way -- The enclosure seems to be well built, very sturdy. The fan is 'a little' on the loud side. With a little bit of creative locating of the device, it could be considered quiet enough for a listening room. After running for a few hours, the aluminum case is slightly warmer than the air exiting from the fan exhaust area but neither are warm enough to be even close to be concerning. Overall, I'm very happy with my cheapo purchase.
The only caution I would give to somebody looking to buy one like has to do with the LED lights on the front of the case. 
I mistakenly had the front of the unit sitting on my PC desk, aimmed squarely at the right side of my face. Upon turning the unit on for the first time, I can say these are the brightest LED's I've ever seen. I think in a day or two the spots I'm seeing from the right side of my peripheral vision may subside. I'm NOT joking, I really do see spots. The unit is still on the desk, now pointed away from me (duh). It's five feet away from the wall behind me. The blue power light is shinning brightly against the dark gray wall of my home theater room. The light is indeed bright enough that I could could perform a shadow puppet show on the wall behind me. If only the light bulb in my Sanyo projector was as bright as this one......
Why is this necessary. Nevermind, no need to answer that. I'm just ranting.

Thanks!
Bob

[JimJ]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148306

Now that's hot.

[Bob in St. Louis]

Essentially the same thing I just bought storage wise, for about the same price.
Six to one... half dozen to the other.  "Toe-matato" .... "Ta-mato" I suppose. 
It's all in what you're looking for. But a good price none-the-less jim.

Bob

[bpape]

Hi Bob.

The only time you'll see that you have 2 drives MAY be during boot.  Windows truly may not even know.  Since the RAID controller is in the external case, the PC may truly just see it as a single drive and the enclosure does all the work.  I suspect that's what's happening and that's OK. 

Even with my internal RAID, the only time I see it as more than 1 disk is during boot time.  My home box with 2 in RAID 1 and the music server with 4 drives in RAID 5 both act that way. 

Bryan

[Bob in St. Louis]

Ok COOL Bryan..........THANK YOU

Let the rippin' begin!............ aa

Bob

[bpape]

Yeah - but you forgot a smiley   

Bryan

[Bob in St. Louis]

I'll see if I can get Chris (wolf) to find me some more smiles. 

Ok...One (more) question.  Sorry.

Now that I've got a few discs on the new drive, I've been trying to find where on slimserver to change the directory it gathers the tunes from. I found one place in:
"Home" -- "Server Setting" -- "Basic Setting"
But nothing happens when I click 'Change". The screen blinks, but there's no "browse" button?

Darn it.......(Not my first choice of words) 

Bob

[Bob in St. Louis]

Nevermind.....
Here's what slimserver says:

"The change button is used to accept a change that you've typed in manually.  It's not intended to browse your hard disk.  The reason for this is because you can access SlimServer remotely, and it would be problematic to show the hard disk of a different computer rather than just specify the path manually."

Well. Ok then. How lazy we get with technology nowdays. 

[GregN]

The only caution I would give to somebody looking to buy one like has to do with the LED lights on the front of the case. 
I mistakenly had the front of the unit sitting on my PC desk, aimmed squarely at the right side of my face....

I had a similar problem with an outrageously bright eMachines computer logo light. Unbelievable. I finally opened the case and slid a piece of paper in between the light and the logo, which significantly cut down on the brightness. You might try to open yours and rig up something similar, if it's physically possible.

[Bob in St. Louis]

Good idea Greg.
The "cartridge" the two harddrives are bolted to contain the LED's. Inside the box/case is the little "Christmas tree" piece of clear plastic we're all familiar with that helps direct the light from the LED through the front of the case. So it'll be pretty easy to diminish the laser like effects. Although the piece of paper you refer to may have to be folded over a few times first. 

Bob

[bpape]

Black electrical tape does a great job over the fron of the LED....   I have guys do that all the time after they ignore the advice not to put their equipment in the front of the room.   

Bryan

[GregN]

Although the piece of paper you refer to may have to be folded over a few times first. 

Bob

Yep. Exactly what I had to do, fold it two or a few times, before I got enough light reduction. If you would prefer zero light being emitted,  the previous electrical tape suggestion would be best.