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Topic: usb hard drive characteristics for audio + video (Read 6141 times) previous topic - next topic
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usb hard drive characteristics for audio + video

I apologize if I am posting in the wrong sub-forum, but this is the closest hardware matching forum I found.

I plan on buying a Seagate Momentus 2.5" internal hard disk drive in either a 40 GB or a 100 GB version. Though I will not be using this as an internal drive, the sole purpose is in using it via a USB interface (for portability reasons) by putting it into a USB compliant casing. The reason I choose to go this route is because I get a 5 year warranty on the hard drive :-)

I will be storing music and movies on it, and will be using the drive to load playlists in foobar to play the music. While for movies, I would want to play them in the vlc media player.

I am not really concerned with the speed or the rate of data transfer at all. My only concern is whether I can load multiple playlists which possibly have 200 songs each, and be able to access and play them all. 

So given the above, should I go in for the 4200 or the 5400 or the 7200 rpm series?  I understand that the USB 2.0 interface puts a limit on performance, but I guess performance as in an "application performance" is not the issue here.

~cheers!

usb hard drive characteristics for audio + video

Reply #1 –
Quote from: aria on
I plan on buying a Seagate Momentus 2.5" internal hard disk drive in either a 40 GB or a 100 GB version. Though I will not be using this as an internal drive, the sole purpose is in using it via a USB interface (for portability reasons) by putting it into a USB compliant casing. The reason I choose to go this route is because I get a 5 year warranty on the hard drive :-)

You should look for "Portable Drives", not hdd+external case, they do greatly differ for portable use. As of my experience I can point you at WD Passport mobile drive.

Also take a note on this "5-year warranty" you were tempted: this is a manufacturer's warranty, and to get your drive repaired during this period you would need to send it back to the manufacturer. Your local store apparently provides shorter warranty period.

usb hard drive characteristics for audio + video

Reply #2 –
The faster drives are likely to produce more acoustical noise. While that can be attenuated with the proper enclosure, you should be aware of it if it might be an issue. As far as performance differences, you might want to read this
http://www.audiomastersforum.org/amforum/v...opic.php?t=5191

usb hard drive characteristics for audio + video

Reply #3 –
short story: Egor, i just got a 60 gigs version of WD few weeks ago, it does work great so far (seems completely quiet), cons: it is pretty ugly.

long story: my 1st pick was a prestigio case with samsung drive, but after trying to get the files on the drive most just couldnt do a md5sum match..., thought my guess is (after working with WD) that prestigio simply comes with an overlong usb cable.
PANIC: CPU 1: Cache Error (unrecoverable - dcache data) Eframe = 0x90000000208cf3b8
NOTICE - cpu 0 didn't dump TLB, may be hung
 

usb hard drive characteristics for audio + video

Reply #4 –
Having 5 external harddrives myself, there are no issues with long playlists in foobar. I have a 500GB external Seagate drive, 2x300 Maxtors and 2x250 other older ones.  I have a playlist of about 15.000 songs, and it works fine. 

The only think Id recommend is that you assign a locked drive letter to the drive, so that your playlist will access the same drive letter with the files should you de-attatch/remove your drive and plug it back in.

Also, get a 7200RPM drive, as it will help your speed and access to the files.

usb hard drive characteristics for audio + video

Reply #5 –
Hey Egor, the assembled solutions put out by Seagate do the same thing of putting in their laptop hard drives inside an enclosure. So I dont see any difference. I get a 5 year warranty versus a 1 year warranty for the assembled piece. I dont mind sending it to the manufacturer if future defects arise, because I will always have the data backed up on good old cd's.

If you think there are significant differences when you write "You should look for "Portable Drives", not hdd+external case, they do greatly differ for portable use." --- can you please elaborate or provide some links ?

Finally I had another question - does the size of the buffer matter? Because Seagate has buffer sizes ranging from 2 MB to 8 MB for all their drives.

Please take a look at this neat article that I found which compares various Seagate models -
http://www.linuxhardware.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/22/1331249

@sizetwo
How do I assign a locked drive letter to the drive ?

~cheers!

usb hard drive characteristics for audio + video

Reply #6 –
In Disk Management in XP.

Also: If you've got multiple drives, I highly recommend using NTFS mount points to avoid a big mess of drive letters. Simply create some extra empty folders (say, C:\Music\ExtDrive1, \ExtDrive2) and in Disk Management assign the drives to these folders. This way, the root of the external drive is mapped to C:\Music\Drive1, etc. This also makes network sharing privileges a *lot* easier.

usb hard drive characteristics for audio + video

Reply #7 –
Quote from: aria on
If you think there are significant differences when you write "You should look for "Portable Drives", not hdd+external case, they do greatly differ for portable use." --- can you please elaborate or provide some links ?

Mobile drives are equipped with a durable shock-absorbing protective case, shock-tolerant hard drive and thought-out cooling mechanism. By putting a notebook drive into some case you may or most likely may not achieve such level of protection. External usb cases usually intended to transform an internal drive into an external drive which is to be placed in a safe place near your computer, not in your pocket.

Make sure you'll be able to reproduce the protective features of mobile drives listed here and there. To be on the safe side, for portable use you should buy a dedicated mobile drive.

usb hard drive characteristics for audio + video

Reply #8 –
Ok, gotcha!!  well, I will keep those points in mind. Thanks for pointing them out. I always make sure to handle portable electronics with great care, and I'll probably even wrap the hard drive in a bubble-wrap while travelling  (I'm quite serious about that)

I'll tell you the reason why I am still gonna buy the internal drive. Its because I dont have money at the moment, so this is a kind of a standby until I can save enough and get a really good drive in a year or two from now. Perpendicular hard drives (from Seagate) are still in their infancy, so I am following their development with keen interest to see whether they will actually deliver the goods as time goes by.

Thanks again for all your advice and I appreciate your comments!

@eofor
I use windows 2000 professional version, I'm never gonna use xp for a variety of reasons.
So please let me know how I would go about it on win2k!

usb hard drive characteristics for audio + video

Reply #9 –
Quote from: aria on
I use windows 2000 professional version, I'm never gonna use xp for a variety of reasons.
So please let me know how I would go about it on win2k!

As administrator run "diskmgmt.msc", then click Action->Help, and read "Assign, change or remove a drive letter" topic, skim through other topics as well.

usb hard drive characteristics for audio + video

Reply #10 –
Quote from: aria on
this is a kind of a standby until I can save enough and get a really good drive in a year or two from now


famous last words

usb hard drive characteristics for audio + video

Reply #11 –
I just got the 60 GB version and problems are already cropping up.
Everytime I try to format the drive, it keeps getting unplugged on its own after 10% formatting (the hardware  unsafe unplugged/ejected dialog pops up) I wonder if this is because of a faulty enclosure or the disk itself.

I should have listened to Egor huh  Does anyone know why?

I hope this problem is not going out of scope of the original intent of the thread. If so, sorry about that.

usb hard drive characteristics for audio + video

Reply #12 –
Hi,

Is your drive a 2.5'' or 3.5'' model ?

Here's the possible problems you have:

(1) Insufficient power supply

If it's 2.5'' and you're running it as self-powered through the USB cable, try pluggin in the second cable (for power supply) into another USB port.

Personally, if I don't plug the power supply cable, the drive will have power problems from time to time, and reset itself (which is dangerous for data integrity).

(2) Unreliable USB controller and/or drivers

Some early USB host controllers can be very unreliable. Maybe try the external drive on another machine. If it's still not stable, try with an OS which has a reliable USB stack implementation, such as Linux.

usb hard drive characteristics for audio + video

Reply #13 –
Hi there, I have already used a 1 GB flash drive from Sandisk on the machine. And there were absolutely no problems with the plug and play detection with that.

This drive is a 2.5" Seagate momentus drive (60 GB, 5400 rpm)
You are right, I did need to connect the power supply too. But this did not solve the problem.

I forgot to add the Windows event log for the above ---
The errors were of 4 kinds ---

****
Event ID = 11
The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk1\DR19.
****
Event ID = 51
An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk1\DR11 during a paging operation.
****
Event ID = 31
dmio: Harddisk1 write error at block 117210048 due to disk removal
****
Event ID = 30
dmio: Harddisk1 write error at block 117210239: status 0xc0000185
****

Does this help indicate what the problem is ? Thanks for your help!

usb hard drive characteristics for audio + video

Reply #14 –
Try in this order (if doesn't help, try the next step):
- replace the usb cable with a short good one
- go to BIOS setup menu and change usb mode from Hi-Speed to Full Speed
- replace the usb enclosure
- get a new pci usb controller
- replace the drive
- get a dedicated mobile drive, hehe  .

usb hard drive characteristics for audio + video

Reply #15 –
Guess what, I tried formatting it on a laptop running XP.
And now it runs like a charm. I just did a test copy of 1.5 GB, and it takes like a minute for the transfer

But of course I will remember all your tips for the future.
I still dont trust this or any other hard drive, so I will always make backups to good old cds'.

Thanks to everyone for their help!

usb hard drive characteristics for audio + video

Reply #16 –
Quote from: aria on
****
Event ID = 11
The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk1\DR19.
****
Event ID = 51
An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk1\DR11 during a paging operation.
****
Event ID = 31
dmio: Harddisk1 write error at block 117210048 due to disk removal
****
Event ID = 30
dmio: Harddisk1 write error at block 117210239: status 0xc0000185
****

Does this help indicate what the problem is ? Thanks for your help!

OK, the problem is quite clear:  your partition was badly created (due to a bug), and went a bit beyond the end of the disk. Then, in its infinite wisdom, Windows tried to write past the end of the disk, not even bothering to check the sector count:

117210048 * 512 = 60,011,544,576  which is a bit above 60GB...

Most probably, this partitioning bug was fixed for Windows XP only (since Microsoft doesn't care about anything older) so therefore, re-formatting it under XP has solved your problem 

usb hard drive characteristics for audio + video

Reply #17 –
That's quite interesting, thanks for the explanation.
Microsoft is weird, I guess. But then, gotta stick with it - one of the finest examples being foobar! :-)
I hope Windows 2000 is supported for atleast the next decade or two in terms of software that is being developed.
I am never moving on to XP or Vista unless forced to hehe

usb hard drive characteristics for audio + video

Reply #18 –
There's nothing wrong with XP.  Especially if you strip things down with nLite.

usb hard drive characteristics for audio + video

Reply #19 –
There's nothing wrong with XP, but on the other hand, it brings nothing new to Windows 2000 except for a faster boot