Hard Drive help

[iain]

Hi

My first post here. I joined after spending time with Sligolad and Tony at the Scalford Hifi show. My friend and I thought there room was a step ahead of all the others and enjoyed a good time listening to a lot of tunes.

Tony mention this forum and I am now looking for some advice please?

My plan is to build a dedicated Audio computer as funds become available. I intend to have 2 storage HDs (1 will be the back up) and another HD for the OS. I want to start by transferring my digital files onto the first storage HD now.

I am looking at 1TB SSD and wondering if anyone has any views, for now I will connect as a USB device and copy from my current HD. I am presuming SSD is the way to go?

Considering the Samsung EVO or Pro, but welcome any opinions.

Thanks

Iain

[Aleg]

I wouldn't put my music collection on SSD as permanent storage.
SSD is fine OS or for temporary storage of music files just before playback.

I myself use a home built NAS with HDD especially built for NAS use (i.e. Capable of running 24/7 with high reliability). And my OS for the NAS has inbuilt redundancy and error correction, so it is most safe IMHO.

HDD is more 'reliable' than SSD as they 'give' advance warnings when they start to go bad and only small parts will become unreadable at first if you leave it too long before replacement.

SSD will fail completely suddenly at once when they die.

I would recommend to build an audioPC just for playback and to store music on a different machine, preferably a NAS-type of machine.
The SSD of the audioPC can be small(ish). I only use SSDs of 64GB and 128GB on my two audioPCs.

I think the choice of MoBo, CPU and USB-card is more important for an audioPC when you do storage on a different machine.

There is a lot to think about when starting from afresh, but take it in small steps.

I know others will put in their recommendations too.

Cheers

[tony]

Hello again Iain, Pearse's room! in Scalford, The Big7 and his much optimized pc did the trick. The 63's were mine by default as Pearse picked them up for me on route. That room had dodgy bass issues but no doubt Pearse's system sounded very nice. We have a thread on Scalford and there was a number of other nice systems there.

Great that you found your way here and welcome. I see Aleg has made suggestions above and I would concur. I know Pearse has a large SSD in his machine and if funds allow sure why not the SSD is the best route to take but I would be putting your money into an audio pc first and get a 2tb hdd for music.

Starting off you can use a Sandisk Extreme Pro USB stick for your operating system. 16gb is fine. You will always have use for one of these anyway and check out ebay and some of the sellers on the net you can find them for £16-25. A small SSD will do also for the operating system.
Really what you end up with first of all really depends on your budget.

If you want a decent case a streacom fc5evo is going to cost lots. But you can get an MSI mobo and I3 Haswell for circa £160. Pico supply I think £35-40. Maplin XM21 supply for £54 and away you go. As per any part of this hobby the sky is the limit after that. You can get rid of the pico by following the various instructions here but you need to be comfortable with a soldering iron. Hifidelit and Itemaudio(Mark) if you want a ready built unit. They both seem very clued in and will build to whatever your pocket will stretch to. Obviously if you go DIY you will save substantially but if you are experimental like Pearse and Nigel expect smoke at certain points!

Easy option is the one suggested above and it can all be reused(Except Pico unit) further down the road if you decide to travel.

[nige2000]

Practicality might be the key
having a data backup is essential
The sq difference is smallish and using ssd over spinning drives is well down the list on computer audio priority

[iain]

Thanks for the really quick responses.

Tony: Yes was very impressed at Scalford and now need to find a friendly lamp owner in or near the Midlands to hear in a different system, particularly want to check the suggestion that it is not at its best with rock.

But anyway, this is very useful feedback. So a spinning hard drive connected externally to a PC with a small HD for the OS and one for converted files to play sounds like the best way to go.

treacom fc5evo based idea looks good to me. I do have moderate skill with a soldering iron and like the idea of powering sections separately later on.

However I want to get the DAC first and will build the PC as further funds come about, probably using the HD with a lap top in the interim.


I will be back!

Thanks

Iain

[tony]

Tony: Yes was very impressed at Scalford and now need to find a friendly lamp owner in or near the Midlands to hear in a different system, particularly want to check the suggestion that it is not at its best with rock.

But anyway, this is very useful feedback. So a spinning hard drive connected externally to a PC with a small HD for the OS and one for converted files to play sounds like the best way to go.

treacom fc5evo based idea looks good to me. I do have moderate skill with a soldering iron and like the idea of powering sections separately later on.

However I want to get the DAC first and will build the PC as further funds come about, probably using the HD with a lap top in the interim.


I will be back!

Thanks

Iain

I wouldn't pay any heed to that view re the Lamp. I have lots of AC/DC, Led Zeppelin a bit of Rory Gallagher and if there is any musical quality in the recording the Lampizator and a good PC source brings it out. You actually get to hear everything on the recording and that is what it should be all about.

The nice thing about the route you are taking is as you improve your source it will seem like a major upgrade each time. If you bore yourself enough on the old threads you will see at one point a laptop streaming to another laptop was nirvana.