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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
restock
831 posts
 
Macdadtexas.

I don't understand why the noise from a Drobo would bother anything? Mine are in another part of the house.

Another part of the house would be in the bedroom or the bathroom in my 1-bedroom place ;)

The Drobo is otherwise very nice, but if in the same room as the music system my friend's Drobo was loud enough for me to hear while listening to quiet music . It is a bit louder than a fanless hard drive enclosure. The Raid array is hard to beat though.
macdadtexas
1,794 posts
 
Restock, that makes a difference for sure. Apt looks very cool though!!

I had a Raid array, and I found it took a bit more mainenence that I was comfortable with doing myself. It was definitely more cost effective, I had mine in an old desktop enclosure, and networked.

I don't remember it making any noise, but it was in the office in our house too, so.

hgeifman
2,313 posts
 
I am using the Seaport Free Agent Go Pro 500GB external hard drive for my MAC Book pro to store my music files. I have a 2nd Seaport for backup. I have had no problems with either hard drive. I load all my music on the external hard drive. It sounds better if it is on a different controller than the DAC, which means a FireWire hard drive. The Seagate is a portable external drive and has a 2.5" drive inside it. The advantage of this over a bigger external hard drive with a 3.5" drive is that it will be much quieter and it will run off the power provided by the bus. This means you will not need an extra wall plug for the hard drive.

Please see http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?name=ST905003FJA205-RK-fa-gopro-mac-500gb-hd&vgnextoid=13530c1001c11210VgnVCM1000001a48090aRCRD&locale=en-US
dmailer's avatar
dmailer
235 posts
 
I am using two 1tb western digital green enterprise drives in an Icy Dock enclosure. The Icy Dock has a variable speed fan which I keep at the lowest level. It is rather quiet.
cutterfilm OP
59 posts
 
I wish I could put my DirecTV receiver and computer stuff in another room, but there's no space. I'm also in a 1 bedroom set-up. And even with Wireless-N running I still get weird dropouts now and again due to the fact that there's at least 8 other wireless networks within reach of my place. That's what drove me to drop sending my audio wirelessly through an Airport Express.

Maybe I could move the fanned components off my rack and into a cabinet below the TV that has a glass door or just a regular door and I could stick IR extenders on them.

I might look at the Icy Docks. I actually have an old version of their stuff in an 8 drive RAID and it's been rock solid for 4 years.

It'd be cool if someone designed an enclosure for MacMinis & storage that allowed for heat dissipation with little noise. It'd be kind of specialty, but hell, I want to stop fussing with it all and listen to music.

Of course everyone is wondering when/if Apple will make a more flexible product out of the AppleTV.
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