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PostPosted: Thu Jan 28, 2010 9:25 pm 
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gjbth wrote:
A question Jorge, do you have the Lacie 1tb hard drives in the black aluminium case, about the size of a standard house brick. I have two of these connected to two Netgear ReadyNas. The fans switch on and off every minute or so and they make a racket, do yours do this?


(Un)fortunately I have the LaCie d2 Quadra models, which have a gray metal case in aluminum with passive cooling (no fans), with huge blue button leds, and absolutely no openings for airflow. These things heat up, 46ºC while idle, and, because they have no holes for airflow, the Nox laptop cooler solution I was using with the WDs has no effect on them.

On the other hand, unlike the WD external drives, they gave me absolutely no troubles with their eSATA connection - neither with the JMicron controller nor with the Marvell controller. The drives inside are also much faster than the WDs: 110 MB/s max, 92.1 MB/s average read.

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PostPosted: Thu Jan 28, 2010 11:47 pm 
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winstep wrote:
These things heat up, 46ºC while idle, and, because they have no holes for airflow, the Nox laptop cooler solution I was using with the WDs has no effect on them.


So I took an old unused 12V external power supply I had here, cut the connector off the end and spliced it with a 120mm Artic Fan. Now I had a working internal fan that I could use externally.

Result: temperatures on the LaCies are now down to a healthier 40ºC, not as much as I was expecting, but perhaps the difference between the drive electronics frying or not frying during the Portuguese summer time.

I have to admit the two drives look kind of odd with a fan 'hat' on top of them, however, hehe.

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PostPosted: Fri Jan 29, 2010 8:25 am 
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Location: Durham, England
It seems I have bought an obsolete product, http://www.lacie.com/uk/support/support ... m?id=10283 They were cheap enough anyway and have a two year warranty so I'm not complaining.

By the amount of noise the fans make I would assume they run cool, good job I only switch them on to make backups from the relevant ReadyNas (BTW I am most impressed with Netgear ReadyNas)

Best Regards


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PostPosted: Fri Jan 29, 2010 8:46 am 
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perhaps the difference between the drive electronics frying or not frying during the Portuguese summer time.



Whats summer? :( we only have two seasons Cold and Colder


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 30, 2010 12:05 am 
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Ahaha, true. :D

That's one of the things I love about Portugal, though: the weather.

In other news, I disassembled the Nox cooler I was previously using to cool down the external My Books, removing the bottom and keeping only the black aluminium base, connected another 120 mm fan to the 12v 1000 mA power supply and placed both 120 mm fans below the grill of the cooler, blowing up, with the two LaCies placed horizontally on top.

41º C and the external hard disk cooling system no longer looks absolutely ridiculous, hehe (it actually looks nice and very hi-tech).

I also decided to buy the ATI Radeon HD5870 (for the new system) and a HP LP2475W monitor for my older system (which is off until I get the new video card and can put the 9500 GT back into it). I have the old system currently connected to a 15" CRT, but after getting used to a dual monitor system - with the excellent LG W3000H as a primary monitor - I can no longer work properly at such low resolutions, even on a 'backup' system (which is one of the reasons why I decided to get another TFT monitor).

The beauty of the HP monitor is twofold: first, it has several input ports (two DVI-Ds, one HDMI, and, ta-da, a DisplayPort!), second you can actually connect more than one system to it, and switch between them at the flick of a button. In practice this means that I'll be able to connect the HP monitor to my new system via the HD5870 DisplayPort connector and to my old system via the DVI-D connector, making me the happy owner of a triple monitor system!

When I need to work on the backup system, I just press the 'Quick Select' button on the HP and the image switches from the desktop of the new system to the desktop of the older system.

Since the HP will be at the left of my primary monitor, I will finally be able to investigate fully (and hopefully fix) some NextSTART quirks on multi-monitor systems where one of the monitors has negative coordinates (don't you just love how we can rationalize and justify just about everything we do? :wink: ).

Of course, I have to admit that being able to use ATI's Eyefinity technology to play games at 5760x1200 (3x1920) resolution also had something to do with the decision of buying the HP and the ATI HD5870. :wink:

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PostPosted: Sat Jan 30, 2010 8:24 am 
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Heh, good choice for your monitor. My current monitor (Samsung Syncmaster 2494HS) has DVI-D, HDMI and D-SUB as well as sound (in/out). Love it. Still need to grab another VGA cable to connect my erm 6+ years old laptop to it :twisted:


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 30, 2010 11:38 am 
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Ahaha, true.

That's one of the things I love about Portugal, though: the weather.


It was -12 C here three weeks ago and we were snowed up for nearly four weeks, One of the diesel fuel lines even froze on the car. fancy a swap :wink: .


Very impresssive monitor Jorge, I have never seen these over here. I have always liked Dell ultrasharps but these look nicer. I like the fact it does not have the trendy gloss black finish, I don't know what the attraction is to shiny black, its scratched to bits the first time you clean it.

I have four Dell 22" arranged in an arc in front of me, like yourself I couldn't go back to Dual or single monitors. I also have two spares ready to rig up when I build my new system. :D . I've been looking to change the front two monitors to 24" ultrasharps , but I am now tempted to go for a single good 30" and keep four 22".

Between the two of us Jorge, I hate to think what we have spent on Computer equipment over the years, probaly best not to think about it eh. I can remember paying £600.00 each for two Hitachi 20" CRT monitor's and binned them a couple of years later.

I think my next investment has to be a new bloody keyboard, this Logitech is driving me mad dropping every other keypress.


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 30, 2010 6:30 pm 
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Just had a quote for a 30" Dell :shock: , well another idea out the window.
22" don't seem so bad now.


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 30, 2010 8:10 pm 
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gjbth wrote:
Just had a quote for a 30" Dell :shock: , well another idea out the window.
22" don't seem so bad now.


Sorry to hear that. 30" monitors are extremely expensive (they start at US $1,100 or more) , and there is a HUGE price gap between 30" 2560x1600 monitors and sizes immediately below them.

On the other hand, once you go 30" you never go back (but I still remember how patient I had to be until I was finally able to afford my LG W3000H). Well worth every penny, IMO, and it cost me more or less the same I paid for my Philips 21" CRT back in 2000 or so (something else I could only dream about back then, until I was finally able to afford it).

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PostPosted: Sun Feb 28, 2010 8:46 pm 
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I thought you guys might like to see the 'den' I work in:

Image

Here you can see the 24" HP LP2475W at the left, 30" LG W3000H BN center and 24" LG W2452T at the right. Next to the latter are the two external LaCies 1TB hard disks, and in front of them a Toshiba Laptop.

Below the desk, the leftmost PC is my older system with the Armor+ case, and next to it the new PC, with an Antec Twelve Hundred case.

The HP monitor is shared between my old and new systems. :D

Barely visible behind the HP is the WD 1 TB My Book eSata drive, which is now used to backup the rest of the systems here.

Please do not mention my (inexistent) desk cable management, hehe.

Image

Here is another view. On this photo you can also see the APC SUA2200I Smart UPS protecting the new system, the 3 monitors, the cable modem/gigabit router, and the external hard disks. It's a monster UPS giving me over 1 hour of runtime with the 3 monitors on, and over 2 hours when the monitors are in standby. Should allow me to ride through most power outages without interruption.

Not visible on this picture, there is another APC Smart UPS, this time a 1000VA unit, protecting my older system and another PC.

Image

Another view of the SUA2200I. This thing is as big as a small generator, and heavy to match! :wink:

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PostPosted: Sun Feb 28, 2010 10:10 pm 
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And why am I seeing two office chairs huh?! :twisted:


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PostPosted: Sun Feb 28, 2010 10:21 pm 
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Because my gf doesn't like sitting on the floor while working on her PC, I guess...? :wink:

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PostPosted: Sun Feb 28, 2010 10:49 pm 
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Must be annoying, you working on Winstep and then your gf bugging you.... :twisted:


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PostPosted: Sun Feb 28, 2010 11:27 pm 
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Oh no, she's great! The only time she 'bugs' me when I'm working is to ask if I would like more coffee. :D

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PostPosted: Mon Mar 01, 2010 7:57 am 
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Jorge, you have highlighted something which a lot of people neglect, that is the UPS. I consider these vital to any system. So many people over here don't bother with them. I have seen several small business systems running without any power protection at all. Its not just the downtime during power outages, but the data corruption which can occur in just a split second interuption in power.

Its nice to see you have a heavy duty solution with APC units. They are a nice piece of kit those APC jobs.

Oh, and my cable management is about on par with yours, if not worse. :wink:


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