Need help completing my first budget build - $500

[tinpanalley]

Problem:
Is there any reason anyone can think of why an external EIDE harddrive I was using in a USB enclosure with my old computer isn't working? I hear the sound for a device being plugged in and the hard drive is spinning but Windows doesn't wanna recognize it. Do you think it has something to do with drivers??

This is reeeeeeeeally bad if the drive can't be read.

 

[tinpanalley]

UPDATE:
Ok, the drive WAS readable when I plugged it into my laptop via a USB dock. So, there must be something with my new build that doesn't wanna read EIDE drives.
So... 2 questions:
1. How do I get my new build to read EIDE drives?
2. How do I go about choosing a SSD drive? What brands are crap? Do brands matter? Is there some kind of "speed" to look for? I only need 64-80 GB. Seriously, it's just for this one project and right now there's only 32GB of data in the whole project.

I've had about 5 major issues with hard drives and this film. I've already had to re-edit it once before from scratch when the first hard drive died a year ago. I can't afford to lose this stuff again. I'm currently burning the 36 GB to DVDRs now that I got my laptop to recognize the drive. But I need a better solution obviously from now on. Maybe EIDE on the new build isn't wise anyway. Thoughts, suggestions, wisdom, advice??? What exactly is the safest drive to keep audio and video files on a computer?

 

[mfenn]

Are you using the IDE drive natively or through the USB dock? If you're using it natively, then the two things to check are (a) is the IDE controller enabled in the BIOS, and (b) are the IDE controller drivers loaded.

The safest way to store data is to keep it in multiple places. You can get two 320GB drives for $80 total and be far safer (statistically speaking) than keeping them on a single SSD.

 

[tinpanalley]

I had the drive in a IDE enclosure, connected via USB. Weird that it wouldnt read, no? The dock is another device that I have that takes SATA or IDE without an enclosure, they just plug in. But that was on my laptop.

So are ssds more secure? Or is that really just a myth? I would imagine with no platters it probably is less prone to damage. It seems all the hdds Ive had die have been older ide drives. I just want to be safe and not have another crash.

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[ElFenix]

SSDs are less secure from a data backup perspective. i barely trust my windows install to one, let alone something that really matters.


when you have the drive plugged in via USB, go to My Computer > Manage > Disk Management and see if the drive shows up in the lower box. the computer may be seeing it but not assigning a drive letter.

 

[tinpanalley]

Three questions...
1. Is it best if I copy over to a sata drive then?
2. Is it basically starting a war to ask which hard drive brand is best?
3. Should I get the highest cache possible?

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[mvbighead]

Personally on SSDs, I'd lean towards Crucial or Intel. There just seems to be too much work in OCZ or Corsair or what have you, whereas the others are pretty much solid from day 1.

This here would provide you with excellent read speeds:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820148441

 

[mfenn]

Three questions...
1. Is it best if I copy over to a sata drive then?
2. Is it basically starting a war to ask which hard drive brand is best?
3. Should I get the highest cache possible?

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1. Yes, you should probably copy the data over to a newer drive (which implies SATA these days).
2. No, not really. According to the statistics, WB Greens, Blues, and Blacks along with Samsung F3s are the most reliable.
3. Doesn't really matter for a storage drive. You'd be hard pressed to tell a difference between 16MB and above.

 

[tinpanalley]

Doesn't really matter for a storage drive. You'd be hard pressed to tell a difference between 16MB and above.

But, even if I'm working from that storage drive? It wouldnt just be to save footage and never use it again, I'd be going back to it often. The other thing that I've been trying to learn about is whether important media on a hdd is best left inside a tower constantly powered or in a high quality enclosure only powered when necessary.

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[mvbighead]

The cache is essentially just a buffer. A certain amount can help a good deal, but it can be excessive at points also. If you go back to it often is really of no consequence. What really matters is how the disk compares in terms of read/write speeds. The F3s score really high there for spindle based disks. The next chance for improved access times is SSD, and the storage space comes at a premium price.

 

[mfenn]

The cache is essentially just a buffer. A certain amount can help a good deal, but it can be excessive at points also. If you go back to it often is really of no consequence. What really matters is how the disk compares in terms of read/write speeds. The F3s score really high there for spindle based disks. The next chance for improved access times is SSD, and the storage space comes at a premium price.

Agree. The cache on a disk is only there to help organize read/write operations on a millisecond by millisecond basis. It does nothing for you at human time scales (10s of seconds, minutes).

 

[tinpanalley]

Question about adding new devices:
Is there a calculation I can make to figure out how many more devices my power supply can handle? There's gotta be a limit at some point right? I don't wanna start hearing my fan the way I used to on my old tower.

 

[fffblackmage]

You could probably pick up something like a Kill-A-Watt meter for maybe $20-ish? That would tell you your PC's total power consumption from the wall. It won't tell you your computer's actual power consumption, but I still find it quite useful and fun to use.

Still, if you have a 650W PSU, it's rather unlikely you'll hit the limit, as long as you're not doing SLI/CFX.

 

[mfenn]

You could probably pick up something like a Kill-A-Watt meter for maybe $20-ish? That would tell you your PC's total power consumption from the wall. It won't tell you your computer's actual power consumption, but I still find it quite useful and fun to use.

Yep, one of these will work nicely. The readout it gives you will be at least 10% greater than the actual consumption of your components, but that gives you a good safety margin.

 

[tinpanalley]

Wow...

That doesn't look safe at ALL.

 

[mfenn]

Wow...

That doesn't look safe at ALL.

Lol, nice! Power strip anyone?

 

[tinpanalley]

I love that whoever took that picture actually put it up on Amazon. Like that's gonna help sell the device. Hahahaha :biggrin::biggrin:

 

[T_Yamamoto]

hahaha, safety last?

 

[tinpanalley]

Hey guys,
Everything's been running awesome. Can't thank you all enough.

New Question: what can I do with my old PC tower? Is it reasonable to think that since it has a mother board, and can run hard drives just fine that I could potentially use it as a media server?? It's so small and condensed it seems a shame to just let it go.

Thanks guys for any ideas. Well, not ANY ideas, I don't need a planter for example.

 

[mfenn]

Glad everything is working out for you!

Building a NAS box is a popular thing to do with an old PC because those don't need much CPU power. Check out FreeNAS.

The only real limiting factor is how many SATA ports an old motherboard has.

 

[tinpanalley]

Thanks, but I had to chuck it. No SATA, no power supply, not enough hdd bays. Not worth it.

But what are the CHEAPEST options for a NAS box? Is it better to just use a dock with three drive bays or something?

 

[mfenn]

Well, a 3 bay external enclosure would be your cheapest option, but that's not really a NAS per se. Check out the just published File Server buyers guide over on the main site to get an idea of what's good.

 

[tinpanalley]

...the two things to check are (a) is the IDE controller enabled in the BIOS, and (b) are the IDE controller drivers loaded.

The IDE controller appears to be enabled. Where would I get the drivers from? Still can't plug any USB EIDE enclosures into my computer and have them be recognized. Disk Management sees it but won't let me access it.


Hmm... is it possible that my motherboard can't communicate with EIDE hard drives?
http://www.gigabyte.us/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3863&dl=1#dl

 

[mfenn]

The IDE controller appears to be enabled. Where would I get the drivers from? Still can't plug any USB EIDE enclosures into my computer and have them be recognized. Disk Management sees it but won't let me access it.


Hmm... is it possible that my motherboard can't communicate with EIDE hard drives?
http://www.gigabyte.us/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3863&dl=1#dl

You missed the important first part of my question. After further research, your motherboard doesn't have an IDE port, so there would be no need for it to have an IDE controller. However, that doesn't mean that you can't hook up an IDE drive via USB.

If you are using the drive through a USB dock, the controller on the motherboard has nothing to do with whether or not the drives are connected. The USB dock has its own IDE controller which communicates with the drive and presents it as a normal USB mass storage device.

Most likely, the problem has nothing to do with the drive itself, but whether or not the proper drivers for the USB dock are being loaded.

 

[tinpanalley]

Ok then maybe I'll see if I can get drivers from the manufacturer of the dock. Because right now it's not seeing anything IDE. Probably not working with generic usb drivers from Windows.