wiltshire landyman

wiltshire landyman

I’m back
the 2x pc systems we use for the dj buissness use seagate barracuda internal sata drives

last week the main system drive failed and we had to use the backup system
someone has suggested the barrauda drives arnt really that good and are prone to failure?

so is there any decent internal drives that are better suited to life on the road and being in/out of the van and being knocked about a bit?
all kit is flightcased but were after a h/d that will possibly be a bit more stable so any suggestions pls:)
 
What about using solid state drives? They would survive the bumps a lot more, although does open a whole new can of worms with regards to write access life expectancy of solid state drives. Also, if you're running XP there can be minor issues with SSD and XP.

The alternative is using the removable drive bays in your computers and removing them and storing them in a separate anti-static flight case box when in transit? And having a few backups so when they do die you can just stick a new one in with the music on and just plan in to your budget replacing the hard drives every few years?
 
You are probably going to have more luck with the Western Digital hard drives or the hitachi enduro.

But the only real shock proof ones are solid state or lap top drives .
 
Ill try to find the proper name for them but I know there is a make/type of HDD that has a 'drop sesnor' built in so if it feels its being dropped, or knocked too much it automatically locks the drive up which prevents any damage. I believe they use them in the Toshiba Toughbook series.
 
I wouldn't worry too much about brand, they're all much of much. I see hundreds every day, and over the life of a drive, its just not enough in it to say "this is the best one" etc. Your best bet is strength in numbers. Back up on to an array of drives, and if one goes, your covered. Also keep master drives not in constant use, and make sure they're in different locations. Takes discipline to keep on top of it, but the only way to be safe. SSD's are good, but price is keeping them out of the reach of most. They're much better than than standard HDD's, but many prefer the cheap bulk of standard platter drives.
 
i use some external western digital drives as backups and they have been just taken in as backups but rarely used.

it will have to be internals for the constant use system as it keeps it neat all in one place.

the system is running xp
 
Bump said:
What about using solid state drives? They would survive the bumps a lot more, although does open a whole new can of worms with regards to write access life expectancy of solid state drives. Also, if you're running XP there can be minor issues with SSD and XP.

The alternative is using the removable drive bays in your computers and removing them and storing them in a separate anti-static flight case box when in transit? And having a few backups so when they do die you can just stick a new one in with the music on and just plan in to your budget replacing the hard drives every few years?
Click to expand...
removing and replacing would be a pita as its a rackount system along with mixers etc getting to and removing the lid to gain acess would mean partial dismantle everytime and we dont have time for that

this is the system

Photo0641-1.jpg
 
Last edited:
Can the system be linked to a network at all? If it does, you could just sync the drives with one at home, then that would keep them both current, and not require you to remove the drives every 5 min.
 
sirwingalot said:
Can the system be linked to a network at all? If it does, you could just sync the drives with one at home, then that would keep them both current, and not require you to remove the drives every 5 min.
Click to expand...
it can but we still need a stable hd to install initially

most updates are done via usb stick when we add music
 
There are a number of alternatives, it only depends on how much £££ you're willing to spend.

Sounds to me like a combination of a solid-state drive to run the operating system (perhaps an upgrade to Win7, too?) and a system of external drives for pure storage would pretty much solve your problems. These external drives could be carried in separate containers to avoid damage.

As you've pointed out, it's not easy to get to the internals so you'd have to use USB/eSATA external plug-n-play disk drives for the storage.
 
Costlyy said:
There are a number of alternatives, it only depends on how much £££ you're willing to spend.

Sounds to me like a combination of a solid-state drive to run the operating system (perhaps an upgrade to Win7, too?) and a system of external drives for pure storage would pretty much solve your problems. These external drives could be carried in separate containers to avoid damage.

As you've pointed out, it's not easy to get to the internals so you'd have to use USB/eSATA external plug-n-play disk drives for the storage.
Click to expand...
was thinking of windows 7 but tbh we couldnt see the benefits?

we dont use tinterweb etc its purely for playing music

theres currently 2x250gb hard drives for the running system and 2x1tb hard drives for storeing music on one and karaoke on the other

the music n karaoke drives have never failed its only the system drive that failed.

the only downside to external drives is having leads n power supplys something we try to minimize as we used to use externals but then swapped to the internals
 
Actually from my experience the WD drives have more failures where I used to work as an PC engineer. I favour Segates above WD any day. My WD usb drive actually smashed the platters when dropped 12 inches to the floor.
For resilience you could go with a couple of decent high speed SCSI drives and set up RAID. You'd need a SCSI card though.
 
wiltshire landyman said:
the only downside to external drives is having leads n power supplys something we try to minimize as we used to use externals but then swapped to the internals
Click to expand...

Swings and roundabouts. The benefit of an external storage entity is that you can connect any machine to it; updating music libraries can be done on different machines etc.

If you're up for the task, you could put several disk drives into a storage box that distributes power and connectivity. This may then only require a single power lead to power all of them and it can be transported as a single unit.

In relation to HDD quality and what brands to get, it seems quite subjective. I'm sure HDDs are not the only thing that it applies to, however.

Jezebel said:
There is nothing wrong with XP. We have 500'000 users on the contract I work on.
Click to expand...

There's a lot wrong with Windows XP but that argument is for another day.
 
Costlyy said:
Swings and roundabouts. The benefit of an external storage entity is that you can connect any machine to it; updating music libraries can be done on different machines etc.

If you're up for the task, you could put several disk drives into a storage box that distributes power and connectivity. This may then only require a single power lead to power all of them and it can be transported as a single unit.

In relation to HDD quality and what brands to get, it seems quite subjective. I'm sure HDDs are not the only thing that it applies to, however.



There's a lot wrong with Windows XP but that argument is for another day.
Click to expand...
tbf been runnin xp for 6 years with no issues on both machines
 
wiltshire landyman said:
tbf been runnin xp for 6 years with no issues on both machines
Click to expand...

Yeah, I meant in a more abstract way. XP is fine for most home users but it has massive security gaps.

Win7 is the evolution of XP. After using Win7 for 3 years, I don't want to touch XP again but that is most likely due to the different requirements we have for our computers.

Windows XP is like a landy, maintenance and TLC will see it through till old age.
 
Jezebel said:
There is nothing wrong with XP. We have 500'000 users on the contract I work on.
Click to expand...

I can 100% guarantee you there is when it comes to interfacing with solid state drives, however, not in the way your average person will ever find out, we are actually about to start a program to swap out all our SSD drives with normal HD's - but - this is really for specialist systems which aren't anything like what we're talking about here.


I would suggest trying a SSD drive to boot off and having your normal drives for the music

Just, be aware that your SSD drive will most likely die after 5 years of use.
 
Several points here, but it depends on why your drives are failing? If it is physical abuse then modifying your rack to take a removable hdd carrier mite be something to think about, otherwise as suggested above, 2.5" notebook drives tend to more rugged, as they have a smaller mass. But they do tend to be more expensive.
I think yu need to consider which is best. Reliability of a fixed internal system, ease of swapping out suspect drives or connectivity of external devices.
 
I use a free product called SynchToy - it allows easy back up to an external drive in a number of ways - the most used is Echo which replicates your PCM drive folders exactly on a USB hard drive.

The beauty is that is is exactly the same so when you plug in it looks like your PC folders. Also if you do it often then it simply looks for changes made on your pc and just changes the HD - makes it quick and easy to back up.

I do this on two external drives to make sure.
 
Tbf,

I'd go for a plain sata RAID 5. Put a small partition on for the os / apps and the rest for music / videos.

Most motherboards give you 4 raid ports.

Raid 5 gives you n+1 redundancy. Meaning should one drive go pop, you just replace it and it will resync it's data from the rest of the array.

No downtime if a drive dies. Replace at your leisure (obviously not too long as you are running with no spare!)
 
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