[ayt999]

isn't the DAC in the RME card better than the one in the grace? I'll need to get a glass optical cable and try it out myself too. so far I've used the optical cable that came with my hammerfall and prefer the balanced analog out, possibly the glass optical will create a different impression.

 

[Edwood]

Quote:

Originally posted by lan Double the harddrives, double the probability. There's no way to tell if you get a good harddrive. Who would've known IBM 75GXP had issues? Time is $. I have no time to waste reripping audio. Is it worth the $ to spend on RAID1 or 5? To me it is. Most user access is random so bandwidth isn't that necessary. Accesstime is better so I would recommend WD Raptor or 10K+ SCSI drives.

RAID 10 will let you have it both ways.

Well, except for cost. It still uses twice as many hard drives.

-Ed

 

[Edwood]

Quote:

Originally posted by ayt999 isn't the DAC in the RME card better than the one in the grace? I'll need to get a glass optical cable and try it out myself too. so far I've used the optical cable that came with my hammerfall and prefer the balanced analog out, possibly the glass optical will create a different impression.

I can't see how it would be that different from coaxial output, but I guess I won't know until I try. I really need to rearrange my furniture. Having to make 3 meter cable runs to my headphone amps is killin me.....

-Ed

 

[ooheadsoo]

The problem with RAID 0 isn't hdd failure, it's corruption. My friend who runs a no parity setup gets his info junked about once every 18 months or so. The drives are technically fine, but the controller goofed and his tables got jacked up.

 

[Iron_Dreamer]

Quote:

Originally posted by Edwood I can't see how it would be that different from coaxial output, but I guess I won't know until I try. I really need to rearrange my furniture. Having to make 3 meter cable runs to my headphone amps is killin me..... -Ed

We could try a Ratshack Fusion optical cable tomorrow (easy to return, so no big deal), and we could just extrapolate that the glass optical would likely sound a bit better.

 

[Xanadu777]

Speaking of glass optical and 3 meter, how about this deal here It's a 3 meter glass optical for $40.51... NOT... just put in cart and em373 in "Source code" box and "apply" for a discount of $25.56 for a total, kaching, $14.95. BTW, the pic is not what you get, it will be gold like the ones selling for mucho more on ebay... 25 left in stock... analog still rules for me!

 

[cmascatello]

Quote:

Originally posted by ooheadsoo The problem with RAID 0 isn't hdd failure, it's corruption. My friend who runs a no parity setup gets his info junked about once every 18 months or so. The drives are technically fine, but the controller goofed and his tables got jacked up.

Windows is also a big-time culprit into RAID failures of this variety. I work with high-end video servers and, if I had a dollar for every time Win2K/XP/Server barfed on the ref. tables I would have some R-10s by now! I am having a major issue with WinXP and the RAID over the last few weeks -- major frame drops and corruption of uncompressed AVIs on an otherwise 100% functional dual-Xeon 2.8 GHz 4GB RAM 15K RAM SCSI server. It is driving me to insanity. Although, to look at it on the bright side, the need to mess with RAIDs and controller cards does give me lots of time to listen to the HD650s in my office while hacking away at MicroShaft's quirks.

 

[ROSSOred]

Talking of microsoft....i installed that new operating system Windows code name Longhorn. What a load of rubbish? Microsoft have clearly stolen ideas from that Desktop X. Anyone else tried it out yet? Or even seen it?

 

[Stephonovich]

First, the MTBF of most modern disks is pretty good. As long as you aren't running SCSI 15K drives with no cooling, you ought to be fine running RAID 0. You ought to be doing regular backups anyway

But if you are paranoid, but still want performance, there's always RAID 0+1. Less space for the amount of disks, but you get mirroring, so if one drive goes out, you can still run.

Oh yeah, my specs:

MSI KT2 Combo (KT266 based)
Athlon XP 2000+
512MB PC2700
WD 1200JB (120GB w/ 8MB cache)
ATI Rage 128 32MB, soon to be replaced by XFX GeForce FX 5900
SB Live! X-Gamer, soon to be replaced by Chaintech AV-710


(-:Stephonovich

 

[tk_suki]

How about going with Apogee mini DAC with USB and their Big Ben clock?

Cost $2.6K approx
$1K for mini DAC
$1.5K for Big Ben

p.s.
A dedicated group discussing these concept is avail at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PAMS/

Though finding useful information is not so easy, takes time to join, one-two days, then initial posts are screened.

 

[ooheadsoo]

Please, I let's not make accusations like X copied Y. Who copied the command prompt? Should apple be the only one to use a mouse and gui? Toyota shouldn't implement motorized doors on their vans if Honda does it first?

 

[cmascatello]

I've played around a bit with the Longhorn preview that got out a few months ago. It is OK but needs a TON of work before it is released. In tacit acknowledgment of this fact, it looks like MS is going to be releasing an incremental update to WinXP that will give them an extra year or two to get Longhorn done right.

 

[loafier]

linux software raid howto

Looks like RAID 5 is a good way to save some money over mirroring if you have more than two drives but still want some integrity. Only the equivilant of one drive is used for parity data.

 

[gruhl_r]

Quote:

Oh, one other thing, you might consider running RAID 0 with two 120 gigs instead to help reduce bottlenecking.

People! He's just using this to serve audio streams. A single HDD will have plenty of bandwidth for this application. Multiple drives = more power = more noise.

I'd suggest going over to http://www.silentpcreview.com/ for tips on quieting your computer. Intelligent component selection can result in a dead-quiet PC.