Audiophile hard drive

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Joined 2006
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Hello every one

Please see my audiophile hard drive (well that's what I call it) its a 1TB western digital black hard drive with suspension. I also made a high current power supply to power the drive .. I use it to store my WAV music files. I wanted to make a hard drive look like a piece of hifi equipment and be reliable as possible. I also added side mounted heatsinks to keep the unit cool. The drive is nice and silent once the lid is on .... what do you all think?

An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.


An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.


An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.


An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.


An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.


An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.


all the best

Nick (jamesfeline)
 
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Joined 2006
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Hi

Thanks for your kind words, yes I run it into a music pc that I have just made, I have moved over to using a PC as my music source .. I then feed the out put from my pc (using high quality sound card) into the power amplifiers that I make. I have been making power amps for the last 20 years and have now got very interested in PC audio, hence my hard drive project. I have a couple of DJ's who have asked me to make a couple for them.

The hard Drive is USB2 output which is fast enough, my nest one will be USB3, I find the linear PSU has great results to power the drive .. better then those small switch mode psu that plug into the wall socket. I also use a on / off latching power socket, so when it is off it draws zero stand by current .. I use this on all my projects now. I use DBpower amp to rip my cd's into wav and this gives me great tagging support when I use other music players.

please find pic of the music pc I have just made

An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.


An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.


An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.


An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.


An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.


the pc uses win 7 64 bit with a SSD boot drive

regards

Nick

regards

Nick
 
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I like it a lot! Really nice looking system.

I see you have a video card too. You must be watching some high def video? If you wanted a strictly music only pc, did you consider a micro pc like one of those intel atom ones? They have some neat fanless options and are ultra small form factor. How is the fan noise?

Intel Mini-ITX Motherboards (Atom Core / Mount Olive / Pine Trail )
 
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Joined 2006
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Hi every one

This pc was a difficult brief as I wanted to play music files, some occasional games and watch blue ray films.
The PSU is a Silverstone passive cooled as well as the graphics card. The fans run at 790 rpm, which is enough to keep the case cool .. and are hardly audible. My next pc for my music room will be just music only, so that will be a total fan less design, using solid state drive as a boot drive and my audiophile hard drive as a music data drive.

But to be honest I am really pleased with the results of this pc as I would class the unit as silent, with the fans running at low RPM they are totally inaudible. But when I play a game I just turn the fans up to full revs as in this mode (gamer mode) it does not matter. But even on full blast its still very quiet.
 
That's very nicely done, but I'd rather put the music on a NAS box connected via wifi-n to the music pc (that's 150 - 300 Mbps which should be more than enough for music), can hold lot more music and can be accessed by more than 1 device in a multiroom scenario.

I built a music PC, lot smaller and less complex than yours, using atom d410. I'm perfectly happy although I'll do some improvement on it. I believe that pc is the future of music.

What sound card do you use ?
 
That's very nicely done, but I'd rather put the music on a NAS box connected via wifi-n to the music pc (that's 150 - 300 Mbps which should be more than enough for music), can hold lot more music and can be accessed by more than 1 device in a multiroom scenario.

I built a music PC, lot smaller and less complex than yours, using atom d410. I'm perfectly happy although I'll do some improvement on it. I believe that pc is the future of music.

What sound card do you use ?

I fully agree with you that pc is the future of music, and all young people understand this. High end audio has some catching up to do.

vac
 
Nick

Nick
Seeing that you are using a high quality Linear PSU for the external HDD, also try disconnecting Vbus (+5V SMPS) at the PC end of the incoming USB cable.;)
There are numerous reports in various forums of USB sounding better with expensive USB cables, which invariably have better separation between Vbus (+5V red wire ) and the twisted pair D- and D+ data leads.
A further enhancement could be the use of a "super regulator"
with the Linear PSU . A "JLH"as featured in a GB thread in DIYAudio , does a great job there, as would other high current capable shunt regulators.
Alex
 
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Joined 2006
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Hi

The main focus was to reduce vibration and heat, also to increase the reliability hence the suspension mounts.
I was never a fan of those small switch mode power supply's that you plug directly into the wall socket.

I thought I make a high current (in this case 5 amps) regulated using a to3 case regulator (LM series) to power the drive. My main reason was. if I could supply as near a DC supply as possible .. you would give the drive every chance to perform at its best. I use pure wave files ripped using dbpower amp software. This enables windows media player and JRIVER media to use tags for wav files. The sound is better then any CD player that I have owned and is dead silent when the case lid is on, with no vibration at all.

I just had a urge to make the drive as I did ... and I am glad I did.

all the best

Nick
 
I was going to use my computer for the music system, but found the audio card was to noisy. So I tried a M-Audio transit. It has USB host connection right to the mother board and bypassed the noise. Output from the M-Audio transit to the preamp and it sounded nice. Now I am using a Tvix M6500 with a 2TB HD with all my music ripped to flac or wav files and use the optical out to a decoder then to the preamp. Very nice. I was going to go the computer system but found it to large. Your setup is great. Very high build quality. I like seeing the good work that goes on out there!
Peter C.
 
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Joined 2006
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Hi

Also I am a bit of a amateur DJ, and I find the suspension system really protects the drive from sudden shocks. Also the main PC platform using a passive graphics card so generates loads of heat. By removing the data drives my next pc case can be smaller say 3u in height instead of 4u as per the photos, also I use a SSD drive for boot up. Also when I turn the drive off it is 100% off not drawing any power as the on/off is a latch system for the main .. so a little greener as well.

My next project, same case as the drive will be used for a sata blue ray drive, also the idea was to make PC hardware look more like hifi equipment hence the rack case. The feet I had specially made ...
 
WD Caviar green 1TB has 5.30 watts on Read/Write and a max of 27dba @ 5400, while the 1TB black has 6.8Watt 33dba @ 7200...
I can hardly hear or feel my 59€ 1TB green from Amazon in its default case atm :)

+1 on the WD Green drives. I have both the black and green versions, and the green drives are MUCH quieter. I have a couple green 1.5's that are lightly used that I could be persuaded to part with if you're interested...I had planned to put them in a RAID, but they are just unsuitable for that for reasons I won't get into here. But as a standalone, they work fine and would be nearly ideal for an audio application--lower power and QUIET.
 
Very nice project.

And if you say your drive needs to be protected from external shocks, then I won't criticize.

But for "regular" operation, suspension REDUCES the life expectancy of a drive.
This is because drives are not usually operated that way and the motors are built for a solid mount usage scenario.
If you want it silent, you would need to use a Scythe Quiet Drive for example.
That provides the counterweight the motors in the drive need and reduces noise.
Then you could suspend the Quiet Drive and be golden.

Temperatures would not be a problem, as hard drive reliability is best between 35 and 45 degrees.
(Hotter is not that bad, cooler is really bad for the drive.)

But overall: Nice work.