Mailing List Archive: MythTV: Users

Notebook hard drives

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ScottB at cavps

Jul 18, 2003, 11:42 AM

Post #1 of 12 (1708 views)
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Notebook hard drives

Does anyone have any experience with notebook hard drives as the primary
storage for Myth?

I have two drives, a 40Gb notebook (Hitachi DK23DA-40F) and a 20GB
Western Digital Caviar 7200RPM standard drive.
I would prefer the increased disk space for more videos if possible, but
I thought I heard somewhere that most notebook drives are only 5400RPM
or lower, and would not hold up to this kind of access. Anyone with some
real world experience with MythTV and notebook drives?

Thanks,

Scott

bjohnson at johnson-engineering

Jul 18, 2003, 12:27 PM

Post #2 of 12 (1669 views)
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Re: Notebook hard drives [In reply to]

I only know the generalities:
1. notebook hard drives are slower than desktop ones
2. you need an adapter to connect notebook drives to a desktop machine (about $20 ea
so $40 total)
3. desktop drives are down to about $1.00/GB for 7200 rpm ide drives

so consider getting a new 60 GB (or bigger) HD

Scott Blomfield (ScottB [at] Cavps) wrote:
>
>Does anyone have any experience with notebook hard drives as the primary
>storage for Myth?
>
>I have two drives, a 40Gb notebook (Hitachi DK23DA-40F) and a 20GB
>Western Digital Caviar 7200RPM standard drive.
>I would prefer the increased disk space for more videos if possible, but
>I thought I heard somewhere that most notebook drives are only 5400RPM
>or lower, and would not hold up to this kind of access. Anyone with some
>real world experience with MythTV and notebook drives?
>
>Thanks,
>
>Scott
>

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ScottB at cavps

Jul 18, 2003, 1:12 PM

Post #3 of 12 (1665 views)
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RE: Notebook hard drives [In reply to]

I just bought a new drive for my desktop, and I still have over $300 in
other parts to buy for my Myth box... adding another $60 to that price
is not exactly trivial. The 20GB drive is a standard 3 1/2" 7200 RPM
ATA66 IDE drive with a 2MB Cache; I think that it is more than up to the
task if the notebook drive just won't cut it.

I just thought I'd ask if anyone had any personal experience, given that
I already own both drives. Failing that, I'll just try both and see for
myself.

Thanks for your thoughts, they're appreciated... just not quite possible
for me at this time.

-----Original Message-----
From: Brian Johnson [mailto:bjohnson [at] johnson-engineering]
Sent: Friday, July 18, 2003 2:27 PM
To: Discussion about mythtv
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Notebook hard drives

I only know the generalities:
1. notebook hard drives are slower than desktop ones
2. you need an adapter to connect notebook drives to a desktop machine
(about $20 ea
so $40 total)
3. desktop drives are down to about $1.00/GB for 7200 rpm ide drives

so consider getting a new 60 GB (or bigger) HD

Scott Blomfield (ScottB [at] Cavps) wrote:
>
>Does anyone have any experience with notebook hard drives as the
primary
>storage for Myth?
>
>I have two drives, a 40Gb notebook (Hitachi DK23DA-40F) and a 20GB
>Western Digital Caviar 7200RPM standard drive.
>I would prefer the increased disk space for more videos if possible,
but
>I thought I heard somewhere that most notebook drives are only 5400RPM
>or lower, and would not hold up to this kind of access. Anyone with
some
>real world experience with MythTV and notebook drives?
>
>Thanks,
>
>Scott
>

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webmaster at cmtweb

Jul 18, 2003, 1:58 PM

Post #4 of 12 (1654 views)
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Re: Notebook hard drives [In reply to]

> I heard somewhere that most notebook drives are only 5400RPM or lower, and
would not hold up to this kind of access.
last time i knew, that was true... but that was two years ago... but,
battery technology isn't that much different so it might still hold true.

anyway, the original tivos use 5400 rpm hard drives, so i'm not sure what
makes them so special... in theory anything they can do you can too ;) ...
they of course have more hardware specific to the functions of PVR (e.g.,
dedicated encoder/decoder hardware). And, they have a tweaked file system,
which might be the difference. you can tweak the linux file system, read
back in the list for some tips (and theres something in the faq about this
iirc).

i haven't heard much squawk about hard drive requirements, and 5400rpm
drives are still very common, so i'm sure if they weren't sufficient there
would be something in the HOWTO hardware section. And, glancing at the pvr
hardware database, there are several 5400 rpm drives in use...

-d

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Cliff.Draper at sun

Jul 18, 2003, 2:22 PM

Post #5 of 12 (1673 views)
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Re: Notebook hard drives [In reply to]

5400 rpms is fast enough (so long as you're not running lots of other
things on there at the same time). Making sure that DMA is working on
the hard drive is a more frequent problem.

From what I understand, notebook hard drives are a bit nicer since
they use less power and generate less heat. Heat, and hence fan noise
are a real problem for my machine.

regards,
Cliff Draper Sun Microsystems, Forte Tools
My opinions may or may not reflect those of my employer.
---------------------------- food for thought ---------------------------
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webmaster at cmtweb

Jul 18, 2003, 3:16 PM

Post #6 of 12 (1661 views)
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Re: Notebook hard drives [In reply to]

> I just bought a new drive for my desktop, and I still have over $300 in
> other parts to buy for my Myth box... adding another $60 to that price

How are you spending $300 and still don't have everything? (you can find a
barebones system, with motherboard+case for ~50-150, an athlon xp for 50,
ddr mem for 40)... By my tally, thats somewhere between 140 and 200, without
hard drive or capture card. you can get capture cards from 30-50, bringing
the tally to 170-250. You might need a scan convertor, which can be gotten
for $40. Thats $200-300. But, you talk like you already have a box and
don't need all of those things. For $80-100 you can have a snazzy huge hard
drive.

More over, if you *are* spending $200 on a new system, why skimp out and use
small/old hard drives?

-d

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lists at forevermore

Jul 18, 2003, 3:35 PM

Post #7 of 12 (1675 views)
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Re: Notebook hard drives [In reply to]

> How are you spending $300 and still don't have everything?

Maybe he's actually putting together a nice system. I spent about $500
on my pundit, and that was wholesale (and I already had the tuner card).

I still want to get a couple of pvr-250 cards for a backend-only
machine, too... and those are $125 wholesale (so if you find them
online for less, you know you got a deal)

-Chris

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ScottB at cavps

Jul 18, 2003, 4:08 PM

Post #8 of 12 (1644 views)
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RE: Notebook hard drives [In reply to]

Per Chris response, yes I am buying quality parts.
Asus Pundit: $180
Hauppauge PVR-250: $130
Intel Celeron 2000: $80
512Mb PC2700 Ram: $60

I have (so far) the I/R keyboard and I have a few hard drives in my
possession already that I was hoping to reuse. Sure, I will upgrade
later as money and time permits... but right now, let's tally up the
list of quality parts: $450
Even assuming some phenomenal sales, I doubt I would get out of it for
too much less. And that isn't even including the CDRW/DVD I want to
include...

Parts add up. Not everyone buys the cheap parts. Quality speaks for its
self.

Thanks,

Scott

-----Original Message-----
From: Dane Kantner [mailto:webmaster [at] cmtweb]
Sent: Friday, July 18, 2003 5:16 PM
To: Discussion about mythtv
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Notebook hard drives

> I just bought a new drive for my desktop, and I still have over $300
in
> other parts to buy for my Myth box... adding another $60 to that price

How are you spending $300 and still don't have everything? (you can
find a
barebones system, with motherboard+case for ~50-150, an athlon xp for
50,
ddr mem for 40)... By my tally, thats somewhere between 140 and 200,
without
hard drive or capture card. you can get capture cards from 30-50,
bringing
the tally to 170-250. You might need a scan convertor, which can be
gotten
for $40. Thats $200-300. But, you talk like you already have a box and
don't need all of those things. For $80-100 you can have a snazzy huge
hard
drive.

More over, if you *are* spending $200 on a new system, why skimp out and
use
small/old hard drives?

-d

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webmaster at cmtweb

Jul 18, 2003, 4:29 PM

Post #9 of 12 (1666 views)
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Re: Notebook hard drives [In reply to]

> Maybe he's actually putting together a nice system. I spent about $500
> on my pundit, and that was wholesale (and I already had the tuner card).

Yes, but the purpose of my post was not to say to buy cheap parts and what
not (even though with the exception of the PVR250, you *could* easily get
quality parts in the price range I named), it was to question why he wants
to use an OLD/small hard drive with a really good, new system.

The fact that he now says hes using a PVR 250, brings this item into
question even more. everyone knows that the encodes on 250 take up much
more disk space (or has this changed?). Unless he has a reallly specialized
use other than a general PVR system, 20gb is nothing.
-d

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ScottB at cavps

Jul 18, 2003, 4:43 PM

Post #10 of 12 (1646 views)
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RE: Notebook hard drives [In reply to]

Thus my desire to use the 40GB notebook drive which is slower instead of
the 20GB 7200RPM.

Makes perfect sense when you think about it.

-----Original Message-----
From: Dane Kantner [mailto:webmaster [at] cmtweb]
Sent: Friday, July 18, 2003 6:30 PM
To: Discussion about mythtv
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Notebook hard drives

> Maybe he's actually putting together a nice system. I spent about
$500
> on my pundit, and that was wholesale (and I already had the tuner
card).

Yes, but the purpose of my post was not to say to buy cheap parts and
what
not (even though with the exception of the PVR250, you *could* easily
get
quality parts in the price range I named), it was to question why he
wants
to use an OLD/small hard drive with a really good, new system.

The fact that he now says hes using a PVR 250, brings this item into
question even more. everyone knows that the encodes on 250 take up much
more disk space (or has this changed?). Unless he has a reallly
specialized
use other than a general PVR system, 20gb is nothing.
-d

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shawn_junk at hotmail

Jul 19, 2003, 6:43 AM

Post #11 of 12 (1668 views)
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RE:Notebook hard drives [In reply to]

You are also assuming that your notebook drive is 5400rpm. Most notebook
drivers are 4500 rpm (sometimes 4200rpm) and only the higher end drives come
in at 5400rpm. I don't know how old the drive is, the mfgr, or the model so
I don't know which is which, but a 4500rpm drive probably wont cut it.

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shawn_junk at hotmail

Jul 19, 2003, 6:46 AM

Post #12 of 12 (1672 views)
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Re:Notebook hard drives [In reply to]

Well... i failed to read your message that closely... don't i feel like an
ass.

the Hitachi DK23DA-40F is a 4200rpm drive with a 13ms access and 2mb cache.
something tells me that isn't going to cut it.

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