Playback drive drive

[juanpmar]

In my system, the sound of music ripped directly to the OS drive (3tb, 7200 rpm, UEFI interface, true SATA III cable) is better than everything I've tried as a playback drive.... you may read that there is no difference between a true SATA III cable and a SATA II cable. Perhaps regarding speed that's true; regarding sound it's not--the SATA III cable, here on my system, makes a very big difference.

Could you tell me please what´s the brand name/model of your 3tb 7200rpm drive and the SATA III cable?. A link to the products (Amazon or any other place) will be appreciated.

Best regards,
Juan

[boleary]

Here's the hard drive: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148907
My cable came with my Corsair AX650 PS, but you can get them anywhere: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812119473&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwords&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-_-pla-_-NA-_-NA

The SATA 3 cables have a metal locking clip.

[juanpmar]

Here's the hard drive: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148907
My cable came with my Corsair AX650 PS, but you can get them anywhere: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812119473&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwords&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-_-pla-_-NA-_-NA

The SATA 3 cables have a metal locking clip.

Here in Spain I can only find the Seagate Barracuda ST3000DM001, I really don´t know what´s the difference with your STBD3000100 model, do you?

ST3000DM001: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148844

Thanks, Juan

[boleary]

Hi Juan, other than the ST3000DM001 being 50 dollars cheaper and warranty differences I don't know. My drive, STBD3000100,  has a 5 year manufacturers warranty if its made in Thailand, the Chinese version only has a one year warranty. Looks like the one you found only has a one year warranty.

[juanpmar]

Here in Spain that drive has 2 years warranty, maybe I´ll buy it to to see if your "madness" makes any sense. 

Best regards, Juan

[boleary]

Sounds good, but I can't guarantee results, especially with a different MB and processor. Sure hope it works for you!

[AlainGr]

Just a quick note. Please check the warranty... It used to be 3 years standard and 5 years for more expensive and durable drives... I see a lot that only carry 1 year now...

Alain

[stefanobilliani]

In my system, the sound of music ripped directly to the OS drive (3tb, 7200 rpm, UEFI interface, true SATA III cable) is better than everything I've tried as a playback drive.

Well , thanks to your suggestion Boleary ;

I have been able to install Windows 7 Sp1 ,with a GUID partition table UEFI interface to a 250Gig Sata disk .

What is interesting , is that the sound I hear is much better than before . Well that could be some other factors , but the disks are similar , and many other things are similar too .

I did not activate yet , because I need to make some choice for the future .Probably a new HDD;  the result is very very promising anyway . I like it .

stefano.

[boleary]

So glad to hear you've had a good experience! One of the things that I've noticed here is that anything other than a SFS of 2 doesn't sound right. 

[juanpmar]

I´m looking for the "perfect" hdd for Playback Drive. So far I´m looking for an external hdd because I want to test different connections.

These are the minimal specifications the hdd must have in my opinion:

- USB 3.0
- External power supply

There are other specifications I´d like to investigate, to see the influence on SQ, like:

- rpm speed
- the size of the cache
- other connections besides USB 3.0, like eSata.

On this regard I think that the Freecom Quattro could be a good candidate, mostly because it is a very silent drive and with eSata and USB 3.0 (besides FireWire). The problem, if it is a problem, is that it has only 8Mb cache size and that the speed is 5.200rpm. It is an expensive drive but the 1tb size is cheaper and enough for Playback Drive: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Freecom-2TB-Quattro-FireWire-External/dp/B004Z610M2/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1347991616&sr=8-2

I´d like to know some opinion about what could be the importance of the cache size in the Playback Drive. About the rpm speed I´m almost sure from my experience with other hdds that it is not the main issue.

Juan

[juanpmar]

I wonder if anyone has tried a WD Caviar Black for Playback Drive?. It seems to be appropriate for it because it is quite fast: 7200 RPM, 64 MB cache, and SATA 6 Gb/s interface.

Among the defects that can be attributed to the WD Caviar Black is that it seems to be quite noisy.

Juan