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#298310 - 10/05/2007 13:22 eSATA Options
Dignan
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12338
Loc: Sterling, VA
I'm trying to helping my dad out. He just got DirecTV's HR20 hi-def DVR. One of the nice features is that it has an eSATA port. So now we're looking at our options.

My thinking is that this drive is going to be accessed a lot, is going to be on round the clock, and will be in an area that's only somewhat ventilated (behind the cabinet housing the AV equipment). Additionally, I doubt my parents are going to want to watch TV with a noisy drive in the background. So I'd like to get your opinion on my thought process, and I'd really appreciate any suggestions you might have.

My first thought was to go the route of getting a separate enclosure and drive. I started with the enclosure. I wanted something with a fan, but also quiet. I turned to silentpcreview.com and found a nice solution in the Antec MX-1. They claim that the case cooled their drive a minimum of 10 degrees Celsius, and was inaudible past one meter. Sounds ideal to me.

Now for the drive, which is tougher. Basically, the bigger the better, but reliability is clearly important. We'd really like to stick to 750GB, which naturally limits our options. On Newegg, there's only two, actually. This one and this one. Can anyone tell me the difference between the two, other than a .5ms write time and $40?

So that's what I'm looking at. Any opinions? Any suggestions?
_________________________
Matt

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#298311 - 10/05/2007 13:39 Re: eSATA Options [Re: Dignan]
mlord
carpal tunnel

Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14493
Loc: Canada
Quote:
Can anyone tell me the difference between the two, other than a .5ms write time and $40?


The difference is in the "AS" versus "NS" model number suffixes.
With Seagate, the "N" means "Native Command Queuing" (NCQ) support in the firmware. For random-access fileserver (mail, news, web..) applications, this can be a big win. For large media file recording/playback, it's mostly a "don't care".

-ml

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