[mythtv-users] Hard Drive Question

Andy Long andymyth at gmail.com
Mon Jan 31 02:12:13 EST 2005


I'm not really sure you would gain much in terms of quiet or a cool
drive.  Many laptop drives I've used - specifically Hitachi/IBM
travelstar drives - are actually quite noisy.  You'd get a lot more
bang for your buck by buying a seagate, which are very quiet.  Also,
laptop drives get hot, especially when you run them under full load
like you would with myth.

Another consideration is drive speed.  I'm not sure what seek times
are, but they generally only go at 4200 RPM (though I have seen some
5400rpm ones as I recall).  At that rate though, you might get a lot
of prebuffering pauses (and thus jerkiness in playback) due to the
slow RPMs.

Also, the cost per GB is exorbantly high in a laptop drive as compared
to a desktop drive.  You can likely get a 160GB-200GB Seagate
(especially after rebates) for what you'd pay for a 60-80GB laptop
drive.  Bottom line is a desktop drive will be much better suited in a
desktop machine than a laptop drive.


On Mon, 31 Jan 2005 16:48:42 +1000, David Whyte <david.whyte at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think the problem with most laptop drives is they are slow.  They
> run at around 4200rpm to save power.  I don't know if this would be
> considered slow, I think it would, but how it impacts myth, I don't
> know.
> 
> Whytey
> 
> 
> On Mon, 31 Jan 2005 01:13:10 -0500, Maverick <mavantix at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hey all,
> >
> >   I've had a myth box for a couple weeks running KnoppMyth v4r5 and
> > have enjoyed it alot. Unfortunatly, the drive I used is getting more
> > and more bad blocks, and now they're starting to cause kernel panics
> > when mythbackend trys to commercial detect and watch live tv, etc. It
> > was a "bad" drive to begin with, but it's what I had to build myself a
> > proof of concept box. Of course, I fell in love w/ myth and moved all
> > my recordings from my ReplayTV to it. DOH! Anyway...
> >
> > Question is: Can I buy a 2.5" Laptop IDE drive and use it in my
> > (normal desktop) system? I've never used small HD's in non-laptop
> > systems before, anyone have any advice, pages to read, etc? My main
> > motive is sound, and I'm also packed into a small case, so I figure a
> > small HD would be better cooled and much quieter. Is it worth the
> > extra $$ for the small drive?
> >
> > Any experience / suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!
> >
> > -Kenneth
> >
> > 
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> >
> >
> >
> 
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