hdd expansion on an old PC

[VJ]

Hello,

Simple question: I'd like to add a harddisk to an old PC (Pentium II 450), but I'm wondering what connection type to go for. The PC is an Intel BX chipset with

• IDE controller, but suffers from the 65536 cylinder limitation (up to 31.5 GiB)
• USB 1.1 (2 ports, often both in use)
• Adaptec 2906
• available 10 Mbit network connection
• available PCI (I won't mention the available ISA)
• network connection to 54 Mbps wifi (using a 100 Mbit PCI NIC + wifi bridge)

The harddisk will mostly be used to hold music, photos and to a lesser extent moveis that will be streamed over the wifi network (there is a media client in the living room, the pc is running media server software).

This pc will most likely be upgraded to a laptop soon (but perhaps still be used as media server), but I'd like the purchase to outlast this PC.
I'm leanging towards the ethernet-disk solution, but I'm unsure about performance (when connected to the router, streamed media will have to be transfered over the wireless network twice). USB + USB2.0 hosts also is an option (USB 2.0 can be useful for other stuff). What do you guys suggest?

Jörg

[az]

IDE or SATA controller card. Probably SATA, if the price difference isn't large.

USB 1.1 is painfully slow, USB 2.0 would need a card anyway, so why not go for the real thing, and an SCSI is probably more expensive than an IDE drive + controller.

You could still use an SATA drive in USB or NAS drive boxes later, should you retire this PC, and you'll have the choice between 3.5" and 2.5" (capacity/price/performance vs. noise/heat/size).

[VJ]

Silly me, hadn't thought of USB or NAS boxes...



Jörg

[Wombat]

If you're going to have a laptop soon, I'd go for a drive with an external closure. I've got a portable drive with a USB2/Firewire enclosure, and the Firewire is *fast*. A cheap firewire card for the PC, and you're set.

[Mehen]

check out this article http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/03/...e-performance/

very little performance difference found in IDE vs SATA

[VJ]

I've been wondering about USB: my PC at work is an old Pentium III (MSI mainboard), and when I copy data to a USB2 memory (onboard USB port) the system becomes irresponsive until the file has been copied.
Using the USB1.1 on my Pentium II doesn't exhibit this problem, but is this irresponsiveness a consequence of the mainboard chipset or could my Pentium II exhibit the same behaviour when a PCI USB host is used?

Mehen: Thanks for the link.

Jörg

[Taz]

Does it slow down doing anything else that's hard disk intensive?

Are the drivers up to date for the USB controller?

[VJ]

Does it slow down doing anything else that's hard disk intensive?

Are the drivers up to date for the USB controller?

Drivers are up to date. The slowdown is dramatic when the file is read from the network (onboard sis-based 100 Mbit nic) and written to the USB memory. But even without the network it is bad.

I have a feeling something like this wouldn't occur on my Pentium II system (that mainboard is one of the best I ever bought), but I cannot be sure.

Given the comments in this thread, I am now considering these options:
1. combined usb/firewire controller + external drive
2. sata controller + internal sata drive


Jörg

[degrub]

Go with a PCI Firewire / USB2 combo card. Watch out for external drives with a combo firewire/USB2 interface. There are some with serious problems - as in lost data. A web search will give you the info. Firewire is more robust, reliable for disk than USB2. Your wireless network will probably be the bottleneck for the system anyway.

[Dilitante1]

get an IDE controller card, (Promise/etc) then you can park any size drive with FAT32 on it and transfer to other PCs as neccesary and have full speed out of HDD, rather than settle for USB or firewire speeds

[VJ]

I think I made my mind up: an internal SATA drive + controller.
Reasons:
- performance (traffic only has to go over network once)
- futureproof (SATA drive can be moved to new PC or put in a USB/FW/NAS box)
- price (it's less than half the price of a USB or FW combination)

For instance, a 320 GB Seagate Barracude ES (same as the ones in my RAID) costs €120, a simple 2-port SATA controller around €24. A Lacie usb/firewire drive easly costs €250 for only 160 GB.


Jörg

[az]

If price was the deciding factor, you could get a USB card, empty USB enclosure (ICY Box for instance, for about 30 EUR) and a drive.

[VJ]

If price was the deciding factor, you could get a USB card, empty USB enclosure (ICY Box for instance, for about 30 EUR) and a drive.

Price was not the key deciding factor, but I'd hate to pay over double the price to get less space and less performance.


Jörg

[az]

I can understand that, so if you should decide to get an external drive sometime in the future, don't buy those overpriced ones with drives preinstalled into them. Enclosures can be had for 30 EUR, and yuo can put any old drive in them.

[agallag]

Definitely. I have a Vantec NexStar3 and it's very sweet. It supports both USB2 and eSATA. On USB, it's very fast. On eSATA, it absolutely smokes.

Now I think I'll go with a SATA controller and another Vantec for my Windows Home Server box...