SPCR

I'm currently running a 160gig Samsung drive and I actually am getting a drive for another machine and was thinking of a 2.5" drive. How much of a performance hit do people notice when they switched? I guess I'm concerned about speed a bit, even though Mike says it's almost as fast.

Thanks,
Chris

I use a 2.5' for my fsbox, a flight simulator dedicated machine, with great success: no performance hit (the software is not using the hard drive except at initial loading) and no noise at all. As said it really depends what you're doing. If it is video editing then forget it [/i]

Well, I use this box for photoshop and some database work. But, I have 2gigs of RAM now so I think things usually end up in memory. Maybe I'll just still to a 3.5" for now....

Well, I am now using a Samsung 2.5" hdd in my A64 rig and also my single 5V 80mm Panaflo 80L Shuttle Zen system. The latter runs a P4-2.53 w/512mb RAM, and is the audio recording, processing and audio file storage machine for SPCR sound files. (See page 2 of the Nexus PHT-3600 reviewfor first results of this audio system). In neither machine do I ever get the feeling that the HDD is a bottleneck. I laready have hundreds of audio files in numerous folders in the notebook drive (in the Zen), and it's absolutely no problem to move/access them fast from any other PC on the network.

Suspend one of these drives and the noise is inaudible unless you get your head close enough to... uh... be intimate? -- I prefer animate things to be intimate with.

MikeC wrote:I prefer animate things to be intimate with.

A great relief for us all, Mike, to know that you are keeping your priorities in perspective!

What mounting brackets do you use in your Zen? I have a Samsung MP0402H that I was going to put in my Shuttle but the holes in the metal brackets that I got don't even match up with any of the holes in the Shuttle.

chero wrote:What mounting brackets do you use in your Zen? I have a Samsung MP0402H that I was going to put in my Shuttle but the holes in the metal brackets that I got don't even match up with any of the holes in the Shuttle.

He probably suspended them. There's lots of information throughout the SPCR site on the subject of suspending hard drives. The 2.5 drives are a "natural" for suspending in 5.25 drive slots. One might even be able to use the pre-existing mounting holes without doing any modding, Mike?

icancam wrote:

chero wrote:What mounting brackets do you use in your Zen? I have a Samsung MP0402H that I was going to put in my Shuttle but the holes in the metal brackets that I got don't even match up with any of the holes in the Shuttle.

He probably suspended them. There's lots of information throughout the SPCR site on the subject of suspending hard drives. The 2.5 drives are a "natural" for suspending in 5.25 drive slots. One might even be able to use the pre-existing mounting holes without doing any modding, Mike?

yes, I think that's what I did.

Guess that would have been cheaper than buying brackets also!

chero wrote:Guess that would have been cheaper than buying brackets also!

It's called a "win-win" situation. Enjoy!

Maybe I'll go for it then - what size drive do you have? I'd probably be looking at the 80gig. Thanks for the info Mike!

Chris

You could go for the Samsung MP0804H at 80GB.

I've only been running my MP0402H for about a day now, so I don't know if I can really comment on performance. If there is a difference, it is probably only a slight difference, and not very discernable. There is such a huge difference in noise (from high pitched to silent), that I think any slight performance hit is worth it.

A correction: I suspended the 2.5" Samsung in the 3.5" drive bay of the Zen. There's enough room. That way, I could keep the 5.25" bay free for an optical drive.

I think I also slipped some damping material between the 3.5" drive subassembly and the bigger drive cage that it clamps to in order to minimize aluminum vibrations. It's extremely low now but at first, even with the notebook drive suspended, I could still hear and feel some trace of that humminess.

What did you use to suspend your drive? At the moment I just have my drive sitting in the 3.5" bay ontop of the anti-static bag until I can figure out something.

I was thinking it would probably be pretty easy to make a custom bracket that was small enough to use rubber gromets between both the drive and bracket, as well as between the bracket and drive cage.

I found this by doing a quick google search:

http://www.mycableshop.ca/sku/BRACKET25P.htm

I imagine this provides a tight fit in between the drive cage and bracket, but it might be possible to use rubber gromets between the hard drive and bracket, considering the way the hard drive looks to be mounted?

The usual: About 50 cents worth of elastic from a sewing shop. I believe in consistency, practicality, efficiency and low cost. This stuff meets every criteria in most HDD decouple-mounting applications.

MikeC,

The Zen BIOS has read and write cacheing disabled by default. It makes a noticable difference when they are enabled. If you haven't enabled them it is worth a reboot even if you're happy with the results without them.