External Hard Drives...

[robhix]

Hey all,

I am about to buy a dedicated hard drive for STV. I love the evaluation and will be buying the software soon. I realize I am running low on hard drive space for my PVR and podcasts. I recently had a hard drive overheat and fail in my PC case, and I want to avoid that again. I have been purchasing external hard drives for my other data. I was wondering if anyone else was using USB2.0 drives for their STV files?

Do you think external drives are just as good as internal for this application?

Thanks for your input,
Rob Hix

[MeInMaui]

I don't own an external drive, so don't take this too seriously. I've heard that external drives are notoriosly hot because of inadequate ventiliaton in the external enclosures. This is born out by the short warranties (1 yr) that external drives have as compared to internal drives (3-5 yrs).

I would stick with internal drives and provide some direct forced airflow over the drives to keep the temperatures in check.

Aloha,
Mike

[NEOSG]

You could buy an internal drive and put it in a $35 external enclosure. I now leave half of the enclosure off to allow for better breathing. YMMV, but before doing that I had a couple die over a 2 or 3 year span. I do this for all of my add-on space. I have about 7 or 8 drives externally now.

I always buy seagate, as they have a 5 year warranty, and have been great to deal with on warranty coverage.

[Fluffdaddy]

I would love to get this. My 3 external enclosure look so unseemly


http://www.buy.com/retail/product.as...=0&dcaid=15891



Can be found cheaper

[matt91]

Similiar to this... are there enclosures that hold multiple drives? It would seem to make sense to me that it could have one power source, even if each drive uses its own firewire/USB connection to the computer. Would save on space, could allow for a fan to keep 'em cool, and reduce the number of outlets I have to find to plug things into.

Matt

Originally Posted by Fluffdaddy

I would love to get this. My 3 external enclosure look so unseemly


http://www.buy.com/retail/product.as...=0&dcaid=15891



Can be found cheaper

[Fluffdaddy]

Originally Posted by matt91

Would save on space, could allow for a fan to keep 'em cool, and reduce the number of outlets I have to find to plug things into.

Matt

All the things I am hoping for, but when it comes right down to it I don't have the funds right now

[Sam]

Originally Posted by matt91

are there enclosures that hold multiple drives?

Yes. I use an external 9-bay tower with its own 300W power supply and multiple fans. My configuration uses four USB 2.0 controllers, each of which support two drives. I leave the middle bay empty for some extra airflow space.

I currently have over 3TB in that tower, plus about 1.5TB of internal drives in the computer itself.

I connect the four USB controllers to a PCI card with four external USB 2.0 ports, to avoid the use of a hub which I understand can cause extra overhead or latency.

I haven't measured throughput, but I don't have any problems with them keeping up with my HD homerun plus analog tuner. It probably isn't as good as internal or even external firewire, but it seems to be good enough.

And my PC tower didn't have enough room left, since it already has two dual layer DVD burners plus four internal disk drives.

I bought it off eBay. The seller had many configurations available, including USB or Firewire (or both), removeable locking bays which can be hot swapped for exchanging which drives are available in the system, versions which did JBOD, etc.

[sunray]

Originally Posted by matt91

Similiar to this... are there enclosures that hold multiple drives? It would seem to make sense to me that it could have one power source, even if each drive uses its own firewire/USB connection to the computer. Would save on space, could allow for a fan to keep 'em cool, and reduce the number of outlets I have to find to plug things into.

Matt

External cases that support anywhere from 2 to 7 or more drives are available. I have one that holds 2 drives and and has Firewire 800 support. I use it on my media server with a Adaptec Firewire 400 card via a Firewire 800 to 400 adaptor cable. It has a 80mm exhaust fan that acts to cool the two drives and PSU. You can get them with Firewire 400/800, SCSI, USB2 or Esata interfaces. A lot of online stores that cater to the Macintosh or video production carry multidrive cases. And of course there's EBay which is where I got my case.

Most of the multidrive external cases use adaptors called bridgeboards that contain the interface (Firewire, USB2, etc). You can buy the bridgeboard separately but I wouldnt recommend it. The bridgeboards have the same form factor as the old 50 pin Centronics SCSI connector to make it easier to switch over from SCSI which used to be the standard interface for connecting external hard drives. Very few PC cases have a cutout of the right form factor.

One last thing, these multidrive external cases are expensive by PC case standards. Low production volume and a niche market (video and film production mostly) that isnt that concerned about price keeps prices high. Here's one vendor http://www.cooldrives.com. I've never dealt with them and their ratings and comments on www.resellerratings.com scared me off but its a good place to look to see what's available.

[Fluffdaddy]

Thanks for the input

[stevech]

I have two $25 USB2 external drive cases with on-sale drives. Works fine. I would not choose to use these but the PC I use is a (quiet) laptop. Reason: transfer rates are far higher with EIDE or SATA. But these USB2 drives seem fast enough for Standard Def TV; not sure about HD - I don't have it.

[stevech]

Originally Posted by Fluffdaddy

I would love to get this. My 3 external enclosure look so unseemly


http://www.buy.com/retail/product.as...=0&dcaid=15891



Can be found cheaper

Seems to me that at 3+ drives, one should go RAID-5 because certainly a drive will fail at some point and you'll lose all your recordings. RAID-1 for 2 drives, but you can't expand RAID-1 to 3 drives.

[mightyt]

Originally Posted by Fluffdaddy

I would love to get this. My 3 external enclosure look so unseemly


http://www.buy.com/retail/product.as...=0&dcaid=15891



Can be found cheaper

Now I got this one ...

http://www.infrant.com/download/ReadyNAS_NV+.pdf

http://www.amazon.com/ReadyNAS-RNV2-...&s=electronics

Yes, also costs a bit, but Very Cool ... Very Clean ... Really like X-RAID ... Basically a proprietary on the fly expandable RAID5!

Testing it with GigE and Sage works just great with it (other than the imported Videos problem in 6.0.19 that is supposed to be fixed in 6.1). But, recorded Shows, Pix and Music work as expected.

T.

[matt91]

Originally Posted by Fluffdaddy

Thanks for the input

Me too. thanks.
Matt

[stevech]

Originally Posted by mightyt

Now I got this one ...

http://www.infrant.com/download/ReadyNAS_NV+.pdf

http://www.amazon.com/ReadyNAS-RNV2-...&s=electronics

Yes, also costs a bit, but Very Cool ... Very Clean ... Really like X-RAID ... Basically a proprietary on the fly expandable RAID5!

Testing it with GigE and Sage works just great with it (other than the imported Videos problem in 6.0.19 that is supposed to be fixed in 6.1). But, recorded Shows, Pix and Music work as expected.

T.

I can't rationalize one of those $800-$1000+ NAS - I can rationalize a $100 or so RAID-5 PCI card and 3+ new or re-purposed drives, in slots in my PC tower case. Card Suggestions?