ER

Thanks for the replies. What would be the easiest way to make the old HDD RAID-setup non-bootable and leave its current partitions as is, but make the the new D and E drives (instead of the current C and D)? What would be the order in which it would be easiest to do the upgrade? Can I just clone the current RAID's bootable C-drive on the new SSD (using Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 or Trueimage 2011) after making the old RAID non-bootable somehow, or would the drive letters be messed up, since the RAID is now C and D?

Hi everyone, Sadly it's been some years since my last visit to the forums, time really flies... Anyway, reading my Asus P5Q manual and searching the internet I've found mixed answers to the following questions: I currently have a 4 disk (WD 500GB x 4) RAID10 setup using my ASUS P5Q motherboard that has the ICH10R controller. I'm using Windows XP Pro and my disks are partitioned to two (boot drive C=500GB and storage drive D=500GB). I believe the P5Q motherboard supports a maximum of 6 SATA disks(?), but I'm not sure if it supports them only as one 6 disk RAID setup or for example a 4 disk RAID setup AND a separate SSD boot disk as well. I'd now like to add an SSD disk (180GB or 256GB) as my C-drive and leave the current 4 disk RAID10 setup as my secondary (non-bootable) storage. First of all, is it even possible to add a 5th SATA disk when I already have the 4 disk RAID10 setup? Does the P5Q motherboard support having a separate boot hard disk and a secondary RAID setup (=booting from a SATA drive while still having the RAID10 setup) or does the RAID disk always have to be the boot disk? My plan is to add the 5th SSD disk as my boot drive (if my motherboard supports this?!), and use Acronis Backup & Recover 10 to clone the current boot partition C from the RAID setup to the new SSD boot partition C and then make the RAID setup's C-drive non-bootable. My second question is that can this be done simply as described by just making the old bootable system C-drive in the RAID setup non-bootable, or do I have to delete & format the whole old bootable C-drive in the RAID setup first before adding the new SSD disk and making it the new (only) bootable system disk C? Obviously the new SSD disk would have to be the C-drive while the old RAID setup partitions would have to be D and E, but I'm not sure how to proceed so that I don't mess the partition letters up and end up having a non-bootable system. Sorry for the complicated presentation of my questions, but hopefully someone can help me! Any tips and help are appreciated.

I have a MSI Megastick 256MB, which allows me to select the record rate for recordings (from the FM tuner or internal microphone/external microphone) between 8kHz up to 44kHz. I'm interested in using a MP3 player as a digital recording device using the internal built-in microphone the player. The MSI Megastick is a very good device for my needs, however they are not made anymore, which is the problem. I want to buy a similar device for my relative. Is there any alternative MP3 player (capacity between 256-1GB, preferably 256MB or 512MB) that allows me to choose the record rate for the recordings using the built-in microphone of the device? My goal is to use the MP3 as a dictating machine. I now bought a Creative Muvo TX and it's record quality was absolutely terrible. The record rate is fixed and is I believe only 8kHz and 4bits or something. It's totally unusable, when recording a speech from only 0,5 meters it's all garbage. Any good experiences from a MP3 player that lets you select the record rate and preferably has a decent built-in microphone, like the MSI Megastick 256? Any help greatly appreciated! I don't need any FM tuner etc. features, I just need the device for recording speeches in good/decent quality (at least 22-44 kHz mono).

Probably this is due to Windows memory caching. That's why you get irregular times during multiple times, because parts of the data is already in cache memory. What operating system are you using, I'm guessing it's Windows XP. Also, an important factor is how much system RAM you have? The copying starts quickly because it is caching the data to RAM, i.e. the disk is only read until the buffer is filled. Then the system slows down when Windows starts to offload data from the cache memory, the disk then has to read and write simultaneously which slows down the copying. When the data is written and the buffer has room again, then the data is again only read to the buffer and the copying speeds up again only to slow down once again when writing to disk begins. The speed depends on the amount of data you are copying. If you have for example 1GB of RAM and you are copying 100MB, then the copying would be very fast, because all of the data fits to the memory cache of Windows, which is then emptied by writing to the disk, also very quickly because reading the data has already ended. Hope this was explained extensively enough.

I also would like to see a comparison to desktop drives. Why not?! It gives you very interesting comparison info, so you know what's the real world difference to a "real" desktop drive. Average 7200rpm desktop drive is fine for comparison!

Just when I said that it's been quiet at SR, there's the new testbed and multiple reviews per week for the past few weeks. Wow, excellent! Keep up the great work Eugene!

Hello, I want to upgrade my main windows/boot HDD, which currently is a Maxtor 80GB 8MB cache DiamondMax 9 Plus drive. I have windows XP Pro and my software on this disk, the swap file is on my WD 250GB SE disk, which also holds games, DV video etc. My alternatives for about 200 euros are either: 1) WD Raptor 74GB 10.000RPM. About 180 euros here. OR 2) Maxtor Atlas 15k.II 15.000 RPM 36GB (about 210 euros here), BUT this would be connected to a Tekram 80Mb/s Ultra2Wide SCSI PCI-adapter, which I originally bought for an IBM 10kRPM drive. BUYING A NEW ADAPTER IS NOT AN OPTION! Naturally the Atlas would be the faster choice, if the Raptor and Atlas would be both the same size AND if the Atlas would not be restricted by the U2W SCSI adapter. Considering these two slowing factors, my question is, which option would be faster? Heat is not a problem. Noise is another factor against the Maxtor, if the Atlas is much noisier than the Raptor? Obviously the Tekram card would restrict the Atlas somewhat to the theoretical 80MB/s available bandwith (probably closer to 70MB/s in reality?), and additionally the capacity of the Atlas is only half of the Raptor. I would partition the new disk so, that the windows drive with software would be about 15GB, and the remaining portion for data. Would the Raptor be faster in reality, since the 15GB partition is a smaller portion of the disk than with the Atlas due to this partitioning? I mainly use office applications, do digital video editing and occasionally play games. I want my computer to be "snappier". My computer is a Prescott P4 3,4GHz with 1GB RAM.

I myself have been away for over a year. My activity dropped dramatically after the SR crash that wiped out all of the posts (between 2002-2003) and after I noticed that there were rarely new news or reviews at SR. In the last weeks it looks better again, at least there are a few disk reviews and the new testbed. I still remember the legendary Apology to China-thread that had some 1000-2000 posts... (A tribute here: http://forums.storagereview.net/index.php?showtopic=18&hl= )

Exactly. Of course the STR was limited by my slower controller, but the snappines of SCSI and the Atlas was clearly present. It may be, that the difference between the Raptor would have been greater if connected to a modern SCSI controller. However, the speed was not a problem but the high-pitched whine. I don't know if such a whine is due to the high rotation speed and thus is a "feature" of all 15kRPM drives? Maybe a Fujitsu MAU or Seagate would be more quiet? The seek sounds however did not bother me, they were suprisingly muted. Maybe you are right about the case amplifying the noise- certainly not muting it. I have a Thermaltake Xaser II server case, which is otherwise very quiet, but the hard drive noise is clear over the quiet case fans. The loudest component in my computer is my Prescott P4 Intel stock processor fan. Although I like my raptor, I still have to say there was something with the Atlas- it somehow felt more snappy, more instantaneous and less overhead. This I remember even with my old IBM 36LZX drive, which had a certain snappiness factor, although otherwise quite slow. Maybe it's due to the SCSI controller offloading the work load away from the processor.

Come on, don't leave! I myself was away for one year from the SR forums, but now have returned and I'm happy to be back. I have to agree, though, that SR itself has become very quiet regarding articles (even 1-2+ month breaks), but I think the forums are still interesting and helpful. So stay- don't contribute to an escape from the forums!

Just as a follow-up for those who might be interested... I actually tried both the Maxtor Atlas 15k.II 36GB and the WD Raptor 74GB. The thing that made me return the Maxtor was a very high-pitched whine, probably 10-15.000 Hz that reminds me of a 50Hz television whine. Although barely noticeable, when I noticed it, it annoyed me very much. Also, my transfer rates were only about 60Mb/s when connected to my Tekram UC-390W Ultra2Wide/LVD controller, so not even closer to 70Mb/s or 80Mb/s, which is the theoretical maximum. However, the Maxtor was otherwise silent and the seeks were comparable almost to my previous 2-year old Maxtor DiamondMax +9 80GB (8Mb cache), much quieter than I had thought. The Maxtor Atlas was also very snappy and responsive, so other than the high-pitched whine, I would have kept the drive even with the lower transfer rate. However, I replaced the Atlas with the 74GB Raptor. This thing is very quiet and has no high-pitched whine, or at least the whine is much quieter than that of the Atlas. My transfer rates are higher than with the Atlas, about 70Mb/s. Also, the system is almost as snappy as with the Atlas, the difference I think is negligible, if noticeable at all. Maybe the Atlas felt faster due to the Atlas's louder seeks, which make it "feel" faster. Anyway, both are very fast drives, and I would have been satisfied with both (without the Atlas's whine). Summa summarum, If you take into account that the Raptor has twice the capacity, is priced lower, is quieter and as fast as the Atlas or only slightly slower, I have to recommend the Raptor. If the difference between the Atlas and the Raptor cannot be felt, at least the difference when compared with my previous Maxtor DM+9 is very noticeable, and so the Raptor is definitely worth the money. My system with the Raptor is much faster and snappier than with the 7200RPM Maxtor! The only thing bothering me now is that when will the new Raptor come out...

Thanks for your replies. I'm currently leaning towards the Maxtor regardless of the smaller size and a bit more higher price. The only thing that worries me actually with the Maxtor is the noise. I used to have a IBM Ultrastar 10kRPM 36LZX, and it was quite decent - only the seeks were pretty rumbling. Is the Maxtor noisier, quieter or about the same? Also- any guesses/opinions regarding the partitioning, if this would have a noticeable effect on speed so that the WD would in reality surpass the Maxtor (15GB partition on 36GB 15kRPM Maxtor vs. 15GB partition on 74GB 10kRPM WD Raptor)?

I have successfully received advice from SR members before on difficult topics, so I thought I would ask members who have worked with digital video (especially miniDV video): I have successfully capture (mini)DV video from my Sony PC-120E miniDV-video camera to my PC via firewire. Also, I have successfully converted the video to MPEG2 and burned it to a DVD. HOWEVER, MY PROBLEMS ARE: 1) How can I transfer the date/time information from the DV video via firewire to my computer? Is there any way I could capture not only the video and audio, but ALSO the date/time information that my camera records AND ESPECIALLY I would like to create/import subtitles to my video (automatically?) using this time/date information. Is there any software available that would do this? For example MS Movie maker 2 apparently can read this date/time information and make titles/clips automatically using the information, but is there any way (using another program?) to add this information (automatically) to my video either preferably a) as subtitles or alternately pasted straight in the video like with old video cameras, which show the date/time on top of the video all the time. I have now worked around this problem by manually inserting the date/time information as text on top of the video, but with 10s of titles/clips in one video, this is VERY slow and also it does not make it possible to select whether I want to show (or not) the information during playback as with if the information would be as subtitles. 2) Is there any video editing software which is as easy to use as MS movie maker 2, but has more features such as support for an additional audio/music track (movie maker supports only one track, so it is EITHER music OR audio, but not both at the same time) and also support for subtitles? Also I would need the capture features to be as good and easy as with Movie maker2, because it automatically creates the titles using the DV date/time code. Of course it would be best if this date/time information could be automatically imported as subtitles to my video as I have explained above in part 1). Please give me suggestions for such software? I am using Windows XP, and my machine is a 3.4GHz Prescott P4, 1GB RAM, and 330GB hard disk space, so I should have enough power for DV video editing. THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR ANY TIPS/HELP/SUGGESTIONS!! Best Regards, ER

I forgot to add: Are there any DV-video specific forums, where I could post this problem, if no one here knows any solutions?

Thank you for your replies! I have used Ulead software also, and they seem to be OK. However, I still prefer Movie maker for its easy use despite its lack of more advanced features. I don't need subtitle capabilities, unless I can import the date/time straight from my DV camera video. The most important problem is still the one with the time/date code import for DV video. Does anyone handle DV video? Does anyone know about software capable of importing the date&time inside the video or as subtitles? HELP!

Is your disk NTFS-formatted? If so, then this might especially apply to you. I don't think this is a hardware issue, if your system worked previously. The problem is, that once your (NTFS) disk is corrupted, it (the file system) necessarily cannot be repaired. The disk however is probably physically OK. Let my story begin, hopefully my painful experience might be of assistance to you. I recently had corruption problems on my Maxtor Diamondmax+ 9 80GB (FAT32) and primarily my 250Gb WD2500JB (NTFS), after I upgraded my system from a Athlon XP2000+, VIA-based to an Intel P4-Prescott i865pe system. I had installed Windows, and after installing applications, things started to fall apart. With almost every boot I found corrupted, cross-linked etc. files. I lost nearly 25GB of data. Backing up 320GB is no easy cake. After I transferred the WD disk back to my old Athlon system, everything worked fine again, so I knew it had to be the system. The same seems to apply to your system: the disk itself is fine, so it is something else. Anyway, I tried everything from clean Windows XP installs to removing hardware card by card to search for conflicts. Finally I formatted the 250GB NTFS monster and my Maxtor and exchanged my Abit i865pe motherboard. Everyhthing seemed to go well when I installed windows and some applications, but then upon one of the reboots, things went corrupt again. After a clean install and another disk format session, and after working on the computer for about 40 hours in one week, I came up with the final problem: I had installed multiple applications without rebooting after each. Many of my software suggested me to reboot after I had installed a program, but I didn't and instead installed another program. After I had installed for example 3 programs, I rebooted, but the damage was done. Apparently windows/NTFS does not like that multiple software are installed without rebooting. At one time, the hard disk was not even recognized in BIOS, or recognized as invalid size. Fdisk didn't find the disk at all, it was only visible in windows. Also there were errors in indexes etc. Tried also Partition magic to resize the disk, Norton disk doctor etc., but nothing helped. Only formatting the disk and actually I first had to change the cluster size, because even a standard format didn't help- it was so badly messed up. So my suggestion, if possible: Format the disk and do a clean install. Install software one by one and REBOOT after each install. Maybe you installed some kind of update or service pack and software simultaneously without rebooting? This could have messed up your system and my experience is, that after NTFS got screwed up, nothing else than a format could repair it. Good luck!

Dear all First of all, sorry that my question is not related to storage. I'm looking for software (preferably shareware/freeware) that would let me do the following simple thing: I want to plot audiograms, that is I have Hz - frequency values (X-scale) and corresponding values for hearing deficiency (dB) (Y-scale). I want that the Y values would be the following: 0, 20, 40, 60, 80, 100, 120 (dB) and the X values to be the following: 125, 250, 500, 1000, 2000, 4000, 8000 (Hz - frequency) Then I want to be able to input readings for every frequency in the X-scale for both ears on the mentioned dB-scale (Y-scale) from 0-120 and then I would want to draw/plot a graph with this information. I am not able to do this in Microsoft Excel, because the problem is that I cannot choose the X-axis and Y-axis values freely, because the program allocates the steps evenly. 1) Is there any way to do this in Excel or 2) does anyone know of a software that can do the aforementioned? 3) I believe this wouldn't even be hard to program, alas I have never programmed anything in windows. Any help is appreciated. This is going for pro bono work and would benefit that. Thank You in advance!

Thank you very much! That looks right. However, what Excel are you using? I am currently using Excel 97, so maybe that cannot be done with it? I´ll have to experiment with the old version. I later however should be able to access Office XP or whatever newer Excel there is, so I´ll try that out. Once again, a great thank you to everyone for efficient assistance, especially Bassiq!

How did you do that, Eric? That looks like the chart I need, except that the Y-axis values should be inverted and I need two series- one for the left ear and one for the right ear dB-values. Also there shouldn't be a 140dB -value in the scale.

This is the problem exactly! Excel lets me choose minimum and maximum values and the intervals, but they have to be even. In my scale I have to have the specific values I listed above. The Y-scale is not a problem since they are spread evenly by 20 between 0 and 120, but the X-scale is the problem here, since the labels are not divided evenly. Please help! Is there no way to do this in excel or any other freely obtainable software? This is a very simple chart, after all, and should not be difficult to implement or even create a program with visual basic or something?!? dB ^ 0 | r r L | r L L r 20 | | r L r 40 | | 60 | L r | 80 | | L L 100 | | 120 | --------------------------------------------------------------------> 125 250 500 1000 2000 4000 8000 Hz Here is a rough illustration of a chart I need to be able to draw. "r" represents the right ear and "L" the left ear, and these are the two values I need to be able to input. Then I need to connect all the "r" 's and all the "L" 's with lines. Shouldn't be too hard, huh?

This is the problem exactly! Excel lets me choose minimum and maximum values and the intervals, but they have to be even. In my scale I have to have the specific values I listed above. The Y-scale is not a problem since they are spread evenly by 20 between 0 and 120, but the X-scale is the problem here, since the labels are not divided evenly. Please help! Is there no way to do this in excel or any other freely obtainable software? This is a very simple chart, after all, and should not be difficult to implement or even create a program with visual basic or something?!?

What might be the easiest and most convenient way (maintaining highest possible picture quality/or preferably non-lossy) to get digital miniDV -footage to a DVD-R? I've got good equipment: 160GB HD (8MB buffer) space, 2GHz Athlon, 0.5GB RAM. I have a Firewire PCI-card, through which I can get the DV-video to my hard disk in digital non-loss format. This takes about 3MB/s space, so 60minutes is about 12GB. I've used Windows XP's movie maker to record the video, and it stores it in DV-AVI format. What program can I use that is easiest (and possibly free or shareware) and with which I can convert the video into DVD-format (MPEG2) and so that 60minutes of DV video takes up one DVD-R (4.7GB, but in reality about 4.3GB). One DV cassette is 60minutes of video. It's been a while since I've used MPEG-encoder software, but was it possibly TMPEG that had the automatic bitrate selection possibility, so that the chosen video can be fitted into a given destination, for example a DVD-R disk (=the software calculates what the bitrate must be so that it fits to a certain amount of disk space)? I appreciate everyone's input and thank you in advance. Regards ER

A Matrox Parhelia supports up to 3 monitors and a resoultion of about 6144x1536x32bit. It offers the best image quality, but does not have the best 3D performance and is quite high-priced too.

This proves that people experience speed in quite a different way. The 36LZX was probably the worst buy I ever made. -noisy -hot -noisy -relatively slow (compared to other current models at the time, felt even slower than the 75GXP's I had) -noisy To make things worse it was REALLY NOISY !!! Love my Cheetah 36ES though. I had these two drives (75GXP & 36LZX) you did and I had EXACTLY the same experience: the 36LZX was too hot & noisy and did not give me any noticeable performance benefits, actually both felt equally fast, but the 75GXP was much cheaper. Of course comparable SCSI (and of course IDE) drives have gotten faster.

Haha, come visit Finland- home of 70% income taxes, 22% VAT, >100% car taxes, up to 48% inheritance and donations taxes etc. etc. If there's a new type of tax in the world, we've got it. I wonder how long Nokia stays Finnish and incorporated here (CEO Jorma Ollila has threatened to move the corporate HQ elsewhere due to extremely high taxation).