HDD for Media Server.

[Cornholio]

Running out of space on my 500gb sammy, need a new hdd to store all my blueray rips on. Currently running a 1tb sammy in my gaming rig (and a 322HJ as the OS drive), but im sure theres better/lower power stuff been released since i bought this.

What drive should i be looking at guys, 1 or 1.5TB ? As low power usage as possible please, aslong as it can cope with the streaming of 720-1080p films.

Andy.

[nightkhaos]

Samsung EcoDrive F2. 1.5TB of pure goodness. I have 5 of them myself.

[Cornholio]

Samsung EcoDrive F2. 1.5TB of pure goodness. I have 5 of them myself.

Excellent, was hoping it was a samsung tbh, never failed me in the past ! Why do you need 5 though ?

[nightkhaos]

Excellent, was hoping it was a samsung tbh, never failed me in the past ! Why do you need 5 though ?

You mean you don't need 8 TBs of storage (1.5 for the HTPC, 6.5 for Cy, see below)?!

[shaithis]

+1 on the F2. Got 2 in my HTPC and they are cool, quiet and fast. Exactly what you want for your media server

[Cornholio]

You mean you don't need 8 TBs of storage (1.5 for the HTPC, 6.5 for Cy, see below)?!

[nightkhaos]

It's not without my faults. I accidently hit the CMOS reset button on my PC one day and forgot to reenable RAID, USB legacy mode, before booting (I did remember my OC settings through!)... the result was one of the drives got "ejected" from the RAID5 so I had a fun filled 80 hours where I could barely use my D drive because it was being rebuilt.

Yes, 80... I couldn't work out how to tell Intel Matrix Storage Console that "I'm not using the drive, do your worst, I'll just play Crysis for the next 10 or so hours" (Which by the way if anyway knows how to do, please tell me.)

[jim]

Using a combination of Samsung drives here, all working well and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend, although I shifted mine from desktop to storage use, hence why many of them are 7200rpm - if I had bought them specifically for storage, then I'd only be looking at Eco drives - the HD154UI 1.5TB was my latest purchase.

[crazyfool]

I also have a 1.5tb samsung f2 in my htpc and it runs very cool, I use as storage and the os drive and it isn't noticably slower then my 7200rpm drives

[Cornholio]

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/15TB-...ache-89-ms-NCQ

Thats the badboy il buy on saturday.

Not sure if i should replace the drives on my HTPC's (one upstairs, one downstairs), the one upstairs is currently acting as the media server, with the 500gb sammy running win7 (i love it) and acting as the server.

The downstairs HTPC is my sisters pc recased, its only a 3800x2 am2, 3gb ram, and im not entirely sure if its powerful enough for 1080p streaming, it seems asthough the cpu usage hits 80% when streaming a 1080p film.

If i was to buy two new drives for the media pc's, as OS drives, what would you recommend ? (please dont say SSD's) The upstairs HTPC can continue to act as the server for the house until ive sorted the house out properly and will build a proper server.

[s3ds]

I have 3 just make sure you run samsungs es tools on the drive first

http://www.samsung.com/global/busine...s/ES_Tool.html

that just lets you know its ok b4 filling it

[jim]

If it's just for OS drives, I'd recommend some small, cheap laptop drives - low power consumption and low noise as well, a lot closer to an SSD in those regards than a 3.5" drive but without the expense.

[crazyfool]

I was just going to suggest a laptop drive for those very reasons, plus you would only need a small one for the os and a few apps so shouldn't be too expensive

[arthurleung]

It's not without my faults. I accidently hit the CMOS reset button on my PC one day and forgot to reenable RAID, USB legacy mode, before booting (I did remember my OC settings through!)... the result was one of the drives got "ejected" from the RAID5 so I had a fun filled 80 hours where I could barely use my D drive because it was being rebuilt.

Yes, 80... I couldn't work out how to tell Intel Matrix Storage Console that "I'm not using the drive, do your worst, I'll just play Crysis for the next 10 or so hours" (Which by the way if anyway knows how to do, please tell me.)

I had a 1.5T dropped off a RAID5 array on a PERC6/i, took 8 hours to rebuild. I would be scared of using Intel (or any other software) RAID because if it is not the BIOS but one of the disk really failed, 80 hours straining your other disks is a very very bad idea.

If you could barely use that drive it probably means it is already doing the rebuild at max speed. And overclocking certainly doesn't mix well with software RAID. One faulty bit written to the disk and you'll need to do that 80 hours.

[nightkhaos]

I had a 1.5T dropped off a RAID5 array on a PERC6/i, took 8 hours to rebuild. I would be scared of using Intel (or any other software) RAID because if it is not the BIOS but one of the disk really failed, 80 hours straining your other disks is a very very bad idea

.
The Intel RAID is part of the BIOS. ICH10R chipset if I recall. The Intel Matrix Storage Console is merely the software front end for the ICH10R chipset. And it was hardly straining the disks, it was rebuilding at 1.4 MB/s actually. I know because that is the I/O I was looking at from that particularly disk when rebuilding and doing nothing else. I hardly call that straining. Straining is running the disks at full I/O for 80 hours, which by the way would be an excellent stress test.

If you could barely use that drive it probably means it is already doing the rebuild at max speed. And overclocking certainly doesn't mix well with software RAID. One faulty bit written to the disk and you'll need to do that 80 hours.

Okay let me put it this way, by "barely useable" it I mean the read speeds were reduced to about 80 MB/s burst and 20 - 50 MB/s sustainied and the write was was 150 MB/s burst, 15 MB/s sustained. This is well below it's normal performance of 150MB/s burst, 85 MB/s sustained (write) and 300 MB/s burst, 210 MB/s sustained (read).

As I said, it isn't software RAID. So overclocking is a null issue. Look, the reason it took 80 hours to rebuild is because Intel have designed the disk to actually be usable for most purposes (of course, it wasn't enough for me because it would take a long time to copy files). What I was trying to say is "I don't care that the disk will be unuseable for the next 10 hours, I just want it fixed." and I couldn't work out a way to get the ICH10R chipset to do that through the Intel Matrix Storage Console, or any other software that can commicate with the chipset for that matter.

And finally, I always ensure that my overclocks are both prime stable, and if applicable, can pass memtest86. I don't like having a system that can fall over after a few hours under load. It means I can't get the magical 4GHz on this rig, but I don't care.

[Cornholio]

Right guys, quick reply needed so i can get to scan.

Which laptop hdd do i go for for the media pc's. sata 150-300, will it matter ? What cache, im clueless about laptop hdd's, normally ide hit a sata 300, 32mb cache drive but thats in 3.5" format.

Cheers guys !.