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Best Hard Drive and Enclosure for Music Server

I'm going through the muck dealing with a faulty OWC miniStack. It's a great idea since it fits perfectly under a Mac Mini. But I had lots of problems with its connection to the computer dropping. I returned it for repair, they said the controller board failed its tests, replaced it and sent it back. Now the thing is giving me trouble again. The drive just disconnects.

Also just bought a Western Digital 1.5TB Green Caviar drive that's supposed to be really quiet. So far it's so-so. On idle it sometimes has a high pitch that goes away once it's accessing the disc.

Looking for a relatively rock solid solution that's not too noisy. Any suggestions or experiences to share?
cutterfilm
macdadtexas
1,794 posts
 
Drobo with Droboshare. Not the cheapest, but to me the absolute easiest, safest and pretty much infinite expandablity.

Check out their website.

Drobo.com
restock
831 posts
 
Unfortunately the Drobo was too noise for my taste (even with WD Green Caviar drives).

The only way to get really quiet storage is to go for a bunch of 2.5'' drives, which are quite a bit more expensive though (and only availabel up to 500-640GB).
rlwainwright
1,904 posts
 
I'm getting good, quiet service from my USB external Seagate 1 TB drive. It was a breeze to setup - attach the power and USB cables and you're done! During operation it runs stone cold quiet, I rarely hear it and it's only 2 feet away from my left ear.

I believe they are selling for right around $100 and the 1.5 TB model is going for about $150. Check NewEgg.com, TigerDirect.com, or MicroCenter.com

I recommend you stay FAR away from Buy.com, they ripped me off for a $100 rebate and then basically told me to go pound sand...

-RW-
vegasears
1,173 posts
 
In three years I've had 3 outboard hard drives. Seagate, LaCie and Western Digital. The LaCie matched the Mac Mini and really looked cool and only lasted a month. The last Seagate lasted less than a week. They both came in sealed enclosures. The WD 2 TB MyBook II, knock on wood has been great. I use firewire cable for the connection and it is sitting on the floor behind my component rack, out of site and very quite.

After spending a month with the WD I went out a bought another 1 TB drive. I replaced one of the drives in the enclosure and now keep it stored away. I am not going to load all those CD’s again.
macdadtexas
1,794 posts
 
I don't understand why the noise from a Drobo would bother anything? Mine are in another part of the house. They are next to the router, and the Droboshare is connected to the router, this allows the whole wireless network to use it.

I have (4) 1TB drives and that gives me about 2.8TB of usable space, and the rest used for Back up.

MY AppleTV uses the Network to grab the info off of the Drobo and then I use a v good TosLink cable from the AppleTV to a Bryston BDA-1 DAC. It works stunningly well.

Drobo is super safe and easy to use, it replaced a RAID array for me.
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