Which SSD to put in a PVR ?

[jkirkebo]

Hello,

I have a DVB-T PVR tuner with a 500GB WD Green HD in it. Our problem with the PVR is that it's noisy, hot and uses a lot of power. Quite a few drawbacks for a device that is on 24/7. I could do something about the noise by putting it in a cabinet, but that would only make the heat problem worse. The PVR has very bad ventilation

So, I want to put a SSD in it. The price of the SSD is not a problem, we need something in the 250GB range (today's 500GB drive is way overkill for our use). I imagine the SSD would fix all our present problems since most of the heat seems to come from the HD.

But I have a few concerns. Surely the PVR does not support TRIM so the drive needs to do all that on it's own. Idle time is non-existant as the drive either records (average about 3Mb/s) or is powered down (very rare). Will the drive be able to do it's garbage collection while writing 3Mb/s datastreams ? If not, will drive performance suffer too much in the end ? Sometimes the PVR might record two HD streams at once, doing maybe 15Mb/s. Other times it might only chug along at 2Mb/s while time-shifting a SD stream.

Lifetime: 3Mb/s continously will overwrite the whole drive (256GB) only 45 times a year, this does not seem problematic ?

Any recommendations on which SSD to get or good reasons to not get one at all ?

 

[Blain]

Ditch the Green drive and don't worry about a SSD...
Install a 500GB Seagate Momentus XT or WD Scorpio Black.

 

[jkirkebo]

Ditch the Green drive and don't worry about a SSD...
Install a 500GB Seagate Momentus XT or WD Scorpio Black.

That is the secondary solution if SSDs are totally unsuitable for the task, however I'd probably only get the 320GB versions as we don't need 500GB of storage.

But I'd prefer not to buy any more legacy equipment so suggestions for suitable SSDs are still wanted...

 

[aceO07]

A SSD that's at least 250GB will probably be around $400 or more.

Maybe you could consider a laptop HDD. It'll be quieter and not as hot. Also, much cheaper than SSD.

 

[God Mode]

Hello,

I have a DVB-T PVR tuner with a 500GB WD Green HD in it. Our problem with the PVR is that it's noisy, hot and uses a lot of power. Quite a few drawbacks for a device that is on 24/7. I could do something about the noise by putting it in a cabinet, but that would only make the heat problem worse. The PVR has very bad ventilation

I can imagine the pvr totally thrashing the SSD without hesitation since you state that the WD Green ran hot and loud. Also, you wouldn't save much power by changing a WD green HD to a SSD.

 

[snoturtle]

Not sure how much changing a green drive out for a ssd would help with large reductions in either power or heat
As the drive is probably not the largest producer of heat in the box

Would be quieter and maybe a few degrees cooler but is that worth 300-400?

Also read this article recently and was surprised to say the least
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/us/26cable.html?_r=3&hp

Talks about the large amount of power these things use

 

[jkirkebo]

A SSD that's at least 250GB will probably be around $400 or more.

Maybe you could consider a laptop HDD. It'll be quieter and not as hot. Also, much cheaper than SSD.

Cheaper doesn't concern me, but I might go for a laptop drive if I can't use a SSD.

 

[jkirkebo]

Not sure how much changing a green drive out for a ssd would help with large reductions in either power or heat
As the drive is probably not the largest producer of heat in the box

Would be quieter and maybe a few degrees cooler but is that worth 300-400?

I can only relate to my experience changing out the drive in my Lenovo X61s for a SSD. Before it was very hot in the area on top of the drive, after the SSD was installed it is completely cool in the same area. Noise is down a lot too, and the battery seems to last around 10% longer. Also, no more chance of a head crash

 

[imaheadcase]

The real question is why is the PVR getting so hot. It should not have this problem in the first place..its not a SSD or hardrive you need..

 

[jkirkebo]

The real question is why is the PVR getting so hot. It should not have this problem in the first place..its not a SSD or hardrive you need..

As I said, it has bad ventilation. It is a known problem with this type. I already had one PVR replaced within warranty because the disk failed after a year. The heat from the power supply and hard drive doesn't dissipate well enough. Removing one of the heat sources should help the problem.

 

[wirednuts]

its because cable companies source out the manufacturing of their cable boxes to the lowest bidder, and that bidder uses the cheapest, shittiest parts they can get. that means no mind on power consumption, and who cares about how hot they get.

which is another prime reason to build your own pvr with a windows computer. build a zacate machine that runs on less power then cable boxes sleep on..............

 

[exdeath]

PVR is one of the few things left that a spindle drive is actually acceptable for. Large linear files, high capacity, sequential speed, low streaming requirements, no constant writing, no random access, no fragmentation, etc.

 

[taltamir]

can't you replace the case or upgrade its ventilation?

 

[jkirkebo]

can't you replace the case or upgrade its ventilation?

Nope, not possible to exchange the case and probably difficult to get power to a fan. Also fans would make the noise even worse so i't not an option.

Since no-one seems to have any idea on which SSD would be most suitable I'm just gonna order one that seems ok and try. If it doesn't work out I can just put it in my desktop.

 

[taltamir]

Also fans would make the noise even worse so i't not an option.

that is not true.
Crappy fans are noisy, small fans working at ridiculously high RPMs are noisy. Multiple large fans working at low RPM and made by a quality company to be "silent" are actually silent.

To make it silent is to make it inaudible to humans, not to make it have no airflow. Airflow is GOOD. Even watercoolers use fans to cool their radiator and people who are silence freaks use multiple large low RPM fans.

Since no-one seems to have any idea on which SSD would be most suitable

HDD account for far too little heat for an SSD to solve your problem.
SSDs are awesomely fast, they are utterly silent, resistant to vibration, durable, can tolerate wide differences in heat, and lower power consumption (good for laptop battery life)... but power consumption on regular drives is so low anyways that they are not a solution to overheating. Only better cooling is.

 

[jkirkebo]

that is not true.
Crappy fans are noisy, small fans working at ridiculously high RPMs are noisy. Multiple large fans working at low RPM and made by a quality company to be "silent" are actually silent.

To make it silent is to make it inaudible to humans, not to make it have no airflow. Airflow is GOOD. Even watercoolers use fans to cool their radiator and people who are silence freaks use multiple large low RPM fans.


HDD account for far too little heat for an SSD to solve your problem.
SSDs are awesomely fast, they are utterly silent, resistant to vibration, durable, can tolerate wide differences in heat, and lower power consumption (good for laptop battery life)... but power consumption on regular drives is so low anyways that they are not a solution to overheating. Only better cooling is.

There is no place for large fans in the housing, there might be possible to mount one or two very small ones. Which then would need to run at a high rpm to move any usable amount of air...

Regarding HDD heat the HDD that is there now gets VERY hot, very uncomfortable to the touch. It's my experience that HDs don't like heat and tend to fail prematurely when used in a hot environment. I suspect that SSDs are not that vulnerable to heat.

From what I can find it seems typical 3.5" HDs use in the neighbourhood of 6-7 watts. This is about a third of the PVRs 20W draw. SSDs seem to use about 2 watts, so a 5W drop seems possible, amounting to about 44kWh per year. Also there should be 25% less heat to dissipate.

 

[Rifter]

My PVR hammers the HDD constantly, if you put a SSD in there it will degrade very quickly with the amount of reads/writes most PVR's will subject it to.

 

[Blain]

From what I can find it seems typical 3.5" HDs use in the neighbourhood of 6-7 watts. This is about a third of the PVRs 20W draw. SSDs seem to use about 2 watts, so a 5W drop seems possible, amounting to about 44kWh per year. Also there should be 25% less heat to dissipate.

Laptop HDs use a bit more than SSDs but not as much as 3.5" drives.
A 7200rpm, single platter laptop drive is what you should be looking at, given your criteria.