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Internal vs external drive in terms of sound quality


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I have a related question, and do not want to start a new thread for it.

I have a Mac Mini 2011 and do not plan to switch the internal 500GB hard drive for a SSD. My entire music collection is less than 200GB (the internal drive has plenty of free space left). Would it still make sense to put my music on an external drive (i.e., better audio quality), or leave the music in the internal drive?

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I have recently upgraded my Macmini3,1 with a 120GB SSD from OWC, up my RAM to 8GB and connect an external Oyen 2TB (WD Green) for my tunes. Its worth every penny and you can definitely hear the improvements.

 

I went further and this time I pulled out the Optical drive and installed a 1TB (WD Blue) using OWC doubler. It sounds better versus an external drive and much faster in loading tracks particularly on high resolution files. The WD Blue 1TB doesn't consume much power versus the Green either and performs better especially in Read speed. I now use the Oyen 2TB Green for backup purposes only and I am very happy with what I heard as well as how quick the system now performs with very little noise - I can't hear anything at all versus the external drive I can still hear the drive at close proximity.

 

Ideally is to have both internal drives SSD if there are no constraints on cost.

 

Hope the above experience helps.

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The attached link may be of interest to some.

I wonder if an SSD needs so much waveform correction?

 

Hard disk drive read channels " a must for perpendicular recording

 

How a Digital Audio file sounds, or a Digital Video file looks, is governed to a large extent by the Power Supply area. All that Identical Checksums gives is the possibility of REGENERATING the file to close to that of the original file.

PROFILE UPDATED 13-11-2020

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I would be interested as well as I am considering a new Mac Mini with Fusion drive.

 

Before I did my upgrades on my MacMini3,1 I did considered the latest MM with Fusion drive. Since I prefer SL OS I stick with my MacMini3,1 and did the upgrades but if I go with the latest I would have pick one with 1TB HDD and purchase my own SSD for OS installation e.g. https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/OWC/ as a duel drives MM - one for OSX and one for Tunes.

 

This way you have full control what softwares are run through your SSD and not for OSX to decide.

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I ended purchasing a 2012 Mac mini, went with mid tier one with base HD, purchased a Samsung SSD drive and memory separately. Not sure if I will make it into a Fusion drive or not, still waiting for the Mac mini to arrive from China.

Silver Circle Audio | Roon | Devialet | Synology | Vivid Audio | Stillpoint Aperture | Auralic | DH Labs

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I ended purchasing a 2012 Mac mini, went with mid tier one with base HD, purchased a Samsung SSD drive and memory separately. Not sure if I will make it into a Fusion drive or not, still waiting for the Mac mini to arrive from China.

 

Good choice...

 

Get a Linear PSU and you are pretty much there :)

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  • 4 months later...

I'm looking to buy a made up PC to use as a music server - it will be pretty similar to a CAPS v3 Zuma - and this question of internal or external HD has arisen.

 

I currently use an external HD with USB through an old Vista laptop. This was just to get the feel of computer audio. I could still use the HD of course with the new PC but I was wondering if thoughts on internal HDs have changed. I appreciate the theoretical problems - electromagnetic radiation (EM), heat, noise - but the last two seem to be pretty well covered with a decent build of PC.

 

That leaves EM. Does the SoTM HD noise filter deal fully with this problem?

 

If it does, does that open the way for internal HD use without damage to the sound quality. If it does, what would be the factors to look out for in an internal HD (1TB in my case - a pun intended!).

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  • 3 weeks later...

I have recently purchased two ssd units 64gb for os and a 256gb for internal file storage mainly due to the current ssd costs, the storage drive will be upgraded when prices come down. There was a time when 4mb of ram was priced at £25!

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I prefer an internal drive for storage in my music server. Less boxes, more fun for me. But this is not in an Apple consumer style computer, I like dedicated music server builds, running linux mpd variants. The OS runs on a small plug in flash drive, and then use a WD Green series drive for storage, I do not need huge storage, so in my new server build I am going for a 1.5 TB laptop drive. The laptop drive consumes <1/3 the power of the full size drives, and as such produces less electrical noise. Being connected by SATA, the read speed is very, very good. I am not all that concerned about noise (EMI) produced by the onboard drive, after all, an external drive will produce just as much noise, and since it is connected by a wire, that noise will still make it inside the server/computer. But, I do use an SOtM filter, and a SOtM USB output card powered by an isolated supply, so there is some noise mitigation (of noise transported to the DAC over the uSB connection) going on in the server. And the internal space in my server chassis does allow for decent spacing of the components, unlike the interior of a Mac Mini.

Some seem concerned about the mechanical noise of the HDD, I cannot hear it, even late at night, from the listening position about ten feet away from the server; it is very quiet in my rural home at 9,300' in the mountains. I tend to damp the server chassis if necessary to keep any mechanical vibrations from setting off a resonance which might have a chance to be heard. I also may experiment with EM damping materials, if feel the need, but I doubt I will...

SO/ROON/HQPe: DSD 512-Sonore opticalModuleDeluxe-Signature Rendu optical with Well Tempered Clock--DIY DSC-2 DAC with SC Pure Clock--DIY Purifi Amplifier-Focus Audio FS888 speakers-JL E 112 sub-Nordost Tyr USB, DIY EventHorizon AC cables, Iconoclast XLR & speaker cables, Synergistic Purple Fuses, Spacetime system clarifiers.  ISOAcoustics Oreas footers.                                                       

                                                                                           SONORE computer audio

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Hi Barrows

Have you tried using the shortest possible SATA 3 cables ? Unlike the generic SATA cables which appear to be 7 wires side by side in a sheath, the one I just tried between a SATA 3 port and my internal LG BR writer has 2 separate screened cables with 2 wires inside each, and a space between them.

There are reports that expensive boutique SATA cables from the likes of Paul Pang ($300 each !!) actually sound better.

The guys from jPlay believe so too, and will be selling them.

 

Regards

Alex

 

How a Digital Audio file sounds, or a Digital Video file looks, is governed to a large extent by the Power Supply area. All that Identical Checksums gives is the possibility of REGENERATING the file to close to that of the original file.

PROFILE UPDATED 13-11-2020

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I have recently purchased two ssd units 64gb for os and a 256gb for internal file storage mainly due to the current ssd costs, the storage drive will be upgraded when prices come down. There was a time when 4mb of ram was priced at £25!

 

Your post made me laugh. My first Mac, a IIVX, was equipped with 4mb of RAM. An additional 16mb RAM upgrade was $799 !!! And that was real money twenty years ago...

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(grin) I paid something like $480 to take my first Mac to 512k... and that was a huge bargain at the time in the 80's. (/grin)

 

-Paul

 

Your post made me laugh. My first Mac, a IIVX, was equipped with 4mb of RAM. An additional 16mb RAM upgrade was $799 !!! And that was real money twenty years ago...

Anyone who considers protocol unimportant has never dealt with a cat DAC.

Robert A. Heinlein

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Your post made me laugh. My first Mac, a IIVX, was equipped with 4mb of RAM. An additional 16mb RAM upgrade was $799 !!! And that was real money twenty years ago...

And now a new Windows Server that (should have been) delivered today has 256GB of RAM!!

 

Eloise

Eloise

---

...in my opinion / experience...

While I agree "Everything may matter" working out what actually affects the sound is a trickier thing.

And I agree "Trust your ears" but equally don't allow them to fool you - trust them with a bit of skepticism.

keep your mind open... But mind your brain doesn't fall out.

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