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Recommendation for silent Hard Drive, 2TB with esata, usb 2


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Firstly I am enjoying reading the site - getting plenty of info off it - so congratulations to Chris for it and despite not getting any reply to my first post/question I am more hopeful re this one.....so here goes.

 

I recently bought an Iomega EgO2 Hard Drive and up until recently it has performed well, even though there is not much music on it yet. The thing is I am quite intolerant to noise in my listening room and this drive while fairly quiet, is from time to time fairly noisy and due to the layout of my system I can't put it away where I won't hear it. So I was thinking of switching it to a back up drive and buying a Hard Drive that is pretty silent and reliable.

 

In looking around the net - not always a good idea as ignorance is sometimes bliss - I have read about reliability issues with Iomega's - is this true? - so I really need this new drive to be a reliable model.

 

The other thing I have become aware of is the possible superiority of esata as a connection - my Sony laptop, Windows 7 OS has one - so I thought that getting an HD with this connection would be a good idea as esata appears to be faster than USB2. I know there is a distance issue re esata cabling but if the drive is silent it can sit right beside my laptop so there is no issue there.

 

I would also prefer it not to require reformatting, so no FAT32 would be best as I can see me wanting to save bigger files than FAT32 allows.

 

So what do you guys and gals think re this, is esata better than USB2 and can anyone recommend a suitable HD available in the UK?

 

Thank you in advance for any help, which will be gratefully received.

Regards Neil

 

System Details: Fujitsu/Acer Notebook/Sony Vaio laptops + 2TB eGo HD, J River/Winamp, Belkin Gold USB cables, AMR DP777 DAC, BAT VK300 SE Integrated amplifier, Gallo Reference 3 SA amplifier , Moon Andromeda CD Player, Anthony Gallo Reference 3.1 speakers + much more.....

 

 

 

 

 

'Its only by asking questions that we can learn'

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Hi Dalek - Hopefully I can offer some assistance.

 

Your Iomega drive looks like it has a fanless enclosure and that's a good thing for noise. I'm guessing the noise that bothers you is the actual spinning drive. You could try looking for a new drive that spins slower as that may lower the drive noise. I can't think of any off the top of my head but will try. Maybe a "green" drive.

 

Iomega drives can be reliable. All drives use similar components (chipsets & drives).

 

I really like eSATA and highly recommend using it. A laptop with an eSATA port is rare but great. It's much faster than USB 2.0. Also, if you use a USB DAC you will want to avoid putting anything else like a drive on the USB bus. Go eSATA if possible.

 

I'm not sure about your comments related to reformatting. It's pretty simple to format the drive NTFS the first time you attach it. Once that's done you never have to do it again.

 

 

Keep asking questions until you get answers :~)

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Hi Dalek - Hopefully I can offer some assistance.

 

Your Iomega drive looks like it has a fanless enclosure and that's a good thing for noise. I'm guessing the noise that bothers you is the actual spinning drive. You could try looking for a new drive that spins slower as that may lower the drive noise. I can't think of any off the top of my head but will try. Maybe a "green" drive.

 

Iomega drives can be reliable. All drives use similar components (chipsets & drives).

 

I really like eSATA and highly recommend using it. A laptop with an eSATA port is rare but great. It's much faster than USB 2.0. Also, if you use a USB DAC you will want to avoid putting anything else like a drive on the USB bus. Go eSATA if possible.

 

I'm not sure about your comments related to reformatting. It's pretty simple to format the drive NTFS the first time you attach it. Once that's done you never have to do it again.

 

 

Keep asking questions until you get answers :~)

 

Firstly Chris thank you for the reply it is much appreciated.

 

Interesting you agree with what I have been reading re esata. Can you explain what this means...

 

'if you use a USB DAC you will want to avoid putting anything else like a drive on the USB bus. Go eSATA if possible.'

My computing knowledge is a bit limited - but I am learning - hence my comment re reformatting. everything is easy if you know how lol.

 

The DAC is an AMR DP777 with coax and usb but I am having issues with usb to coax conversion - see my post re the audiogd - so in the mean time its going to be mostly USB.

 

 

Regards Neil

Regards Neil

 

System Details: Fujitsu/Acer Notebook/Sony Vaio laptops + 2TB eGo HD, J River/Winamp, Belkin Gold USB cables, AMR DP777 DAC, BAT VK300 SE Integrated amplifier, Gallo Reference 3 SA amplifier , Moon Andromeda CD Player, Anthony Gallo Reference 3.1 speakers + much more.....

 

 

 

 

 

'Its only by asking questions that we can learn'

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Would you be comfortable using a small NAS drive that you could place outside the listening area? This would work excellent as long as you have wired ethernet to your music server.

 

I sort of want to keep this hairshirt in that I feel simple is best, so the computer audio set up sits separate: spare laptop not connected to the net unless it needs to be - fidelizer installed to keep laptop working at a minimum thus prioritising audio, external HD connected via a 1.5 m USB (as shorter seems best), laptop via USB (again 1.5m) to DAC.

 

I plan on upgrading the USBs soon as well from Belkin to possibly the entry level Wireworld Starlight red cable. If I wasn't exploring the idea of esata I would get two 1m Starlights one from HD to pc and one from pc to DAC. I have yet to read about anyone doing this but it seems logical to keep the cables the same. Any ideas re that Chris?

 

Unfortunately due to the layout of the house it would be difficult to use a NAS setup in another room (ideal re noise) and I won't have wifi in the house everything is hard wired, no kids means I can keep the computer to one part of the house only.

 

 

Regards Neil

Regards Neil

 

System Details: Fujitsu/Acer Notebook/Sony Vaio laptops + 2TB eGo HD, J River/Winamp, Belkin Gold USB cables, AMR DP777 DAC, BAT VK300 SE Integrated amplifier, Gallo Reference 3 SA amplifier , Moon Andromeda CD Player, Anthony Gallo Reference 3.1 speakers + much more.....

 

 

 

 

 

'Its only by asking questions that we can learn'

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Would you be comfortable using a small NAS drive that you could place outside the listening area? This would work excellent as long as you have wired ethernet to your music server.

 

Which one do you recommend now? This is something that I've been considering. I just need to get the Cat5e run.

W10 NUC i7 (Gen 10) > Roon (Audiolense FIR) > Motu UltraLite mk5 > (4) Hypex NCore NC502MP > JBL M2 Master Reference +4 subs

 

Watch my Podcast https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXMw_bZWBMtRWNJQfTJ38kA/videos

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Nowadays it looks like eSATA has been phased out thanks to USB 3.0 but there's also eSATA 6G and Thunderbolt slowly entering the picture. All that you basically need to move the external harddrives away from listening position is a separate computer (or a NAS, but I am not going into that debate again...), and a LAN, preferrably a wired LAN, that is.

If you had the memory of a goldfish, maybe it would work.
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Nowadays it looks like eSATA has been phased out thanks to USB 3.0 but there's also eSATA 6G and Thunderbolt slowly entering the picture. All that you basically need to move the external harddrives away from listening position is a separate computer (or a NAS, but I am not going into that debate again...), and a LAN, preferrably a wired LAN, that is.

 

I have been on a very steep learning curve with all of this recently - think vertical cliff - and I have come across this information re esata being phased out, however as I don't have a USB3 equipped computer - one year old Sony - so I want to maximise the quality of what I have; hence the wanting to try esata as in the balance/round it seems to be better than USB2.

 

I would entertain, if my domestic set up permitted it, moving the drive/drives out of the room but I can't, so a silent or pretty silent HD with esata is what I think is required. However I am open to suggestions otherwise.

Regards Neil

 

System Details: Fujitsu/Acer Notebook/Sony Vaio laptops + 2TB eGo HD, J River/Winamp, Belkin Gold USB cables, AMR DP777 DAC, BAT VK300 SE Integrated amplifier, Gallo Reference 3 SA amplifier , Moon Andromeda CD Player, Anthony Gallo Reference 3.1 speakers + much more.....

 

 

 

 

 

'Its only by asking questions that we can learn'

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Nowadays it looks like eSATA has been phased out thanks to USB 3.0 but there's also eSATA 6G and Thunderbolt slowly entering the picture. All that you basically need to move the external harddrives away from listening position is a separate computer (or a NAS, but I am not going into that debate again...), and a LAN, preferrably a wired LAN, that is.

 

Do you recommend Modem > Router (Airport Extreme in my case) > Gig Switch > HD's > Ethernet to Mac Mini

 

Is this correct? Of course NAS could be inserted instead of standalone HD's.

 

I'm looking for the "best" solution but am still unsure which way to go. Ideally I want to be setup for future use. I'd like to upload (rip) Cd's using my Mac but be able to play from another system. Also, can I rip upload using my mac to NTFS formatted drives this way a Windows system could use that? Also, I could still use SuperDuper! to back up to a stand alone drive so the Mac OS could be backed up too.

W10 NUC i7 (Gen 10) > Roon (Audiolense FIR) > Motu UltraLite mk5 > (4) Hypex NCore NC502MP > JBL M2 Master Reference +4 subs

 

Watch my Podcast https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXMw_bZWBMtRWNJQfTJ38kA/videos

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I would entertain, if my domestic set up permitted it, moving the drive/drives out of the room but I can't, so a silent or pretty silent HD with esata is what I think is required. However I am open to suggestions otherwise.

 

I have the same issues with noisy HDs. Usually HDs are never silent. As Chris mentioned you could look at slower spinning HDs e.g. 5400 rpm but they get louder the older they get and I am talking about 6 month old. I would suggest to get a SSD drive. They come with esata connection already. With that you keep it simple and you get rid of noise issue, use esata instead of USB connection and can use your Iomega drive as backup drive. I wouldn't buy another HD if I were you.

@Home: AIFF > LaCie Rikiki 2.5" USB3 > MBP 15" 8GB RAM / Audirvana Plus > ifi iUSBPower > Bel Canto mLink > Bel Canto e.One DAC2.5 > Wyred 4 SX-1000 > Wilson Audio Sophia II

@Work: ALAC > LaCie Rikiki 2.5" > DELL laptop > JDS LABS OBJECTIVEDAC (ODAC) > JDS LABS C421 > Sennheiser Momentum or Sennheiser HD650 or Sennheiser HD25

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  • 2 weeks later...

While SSD drives are the only truly silent drives cost for something with decent capacity is well pretty high. I use OWC SSD drives for my operating system but to use them for music storage I would need two 960GB drives at over $1100 each, um no thanks.

As far as standard HD drives, you will generally find mobile HD's quieter than their desktop counterparts, but as with all of the spinning platters they make noise. Fanless are quieter but in my experience they also reduce the life of the HD though heat issues.

 

Iomega have never had a great reputation as being reliable backup, not sure what HD's they use. I also hate with a passion LaCie, the only one I bought had a Samsung drive and it failed within 6 months. I use Hitach drives now with no problems, although I state I do use their ommercial drives not their standard ones, these have a 5 year warranty and I have never had a failure....Yet lol

 

The G-Technology external drives are Hitachi but these are preformatted for Mac so you would need to reformat for Windows, a 30 sec job.

 

Oh course this is my experience only :)

Headphone System | HAckingTosh | Audirvana Plus | Eastern Electric MiniMax Plus | Woo Audio WA6 | AKG 701's

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While SSD drives are the only truly silent drives cost for something with decent capacity is well pretty high. I use OWC SSD drives for my operating system but to use them for music storage I would need two 960GB drives at over $1100 each, um no thanks.

As far as standard HD drives, you will generally find mobile HD's quieter than their desktop counterparts, but as with all of the spinning platters they make noise. Fanless are quieter but in my experience they also reduce the life of the HD though heat issues.

 

Iomega have never had a great reputation as being reliable backup, not sure what HD's they use. I also hate with a passion LaCie, the only one I bought had a Samsung drive and it failed within 6 months. I use Hitach drives now with no problems, although I state I do use their ommercial drives not their standard ones, these have a 5 year warranty and I have never had a failure....Yet lol

 

The G-Technology external drives are Hitachi but these are preformatted for Mac so you would need to reformat for Windows, a 30 sec job.

 

Oh course this is my experience only :)

 

 

Thank you for the reply.

 

Iomega, looking round the net, at least at one time - not sure about now - use/used Samsung HD's

 

I ended up buying a 2TB Freecom HD with esata, USB3, and two flavours of Firewire. As I haven't had it long or put much music on it I can't say much about it yet though it is silent - at the minute. Good reviews online re reliability and suitability for music use as it is generally felt to be pretty silent even after long term use. As they say time will tell.

 

Re SSD role on cheaper larger storage.

Regards Neil

 

System Details: Fujitsu/Acer Notebook/Sony Vaio laptops + 2TB eGo HD, J River/Winamp, Belkin Gold USB cables, AMR DP777 DAC, BAT VK300 SE Integrated amplifier, Gallo Reference 3 SA amplifier , Moon Andromeda CD Player, Anthony Gallo Reference 3.1 speakers + much more.....

 

 

 

 

 

'Its only by asking questions that we can learn'

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