Aaron Ledger

[Aaron Ledger]

That’s a good first step. The next step would be to plug from HTPC direct to the server and play back problem files to see if the issue occurs. This will eliminate the switch or anything else on your network from causing any issues.

[Aaron Ledger]

We’ll see. BF the past few years has been mediocre for me. Amazon had some decent BD sales throughout BF week last year. BF is a great opportunity for retailers to unload the garbage they can’t move now that it has become more of a mass market phenomena.

[Aaron Ledger]

[quote=skirge01]

[quote=Aaron Ledger]

Surely, you can take the drive you are replacing with a system drive out and store it in the closet for a rainy day, right? I know you use WHS so it sounds like you are all set.

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I thought I said that. 

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I’m talking about just putting it into production and skipping the “proving” period.

[Aaron Ledger]

[quote=skirge01]

[quote=Aaron Ledger]

My take on using an SSD (or any system drive) is to back the system up and have a spare drive in the closet that I can put into duty if the system drive fails. This will give enough time to RMA or replace the problem system drive. It’s going to happen sooner or later so best to be prepared for it if the application is critical.

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Easier said than done… when talking about an SSD.  They’re still a bit on the pricey side.  But, that’s part of the reason I won’t be putting this drive into production until it proves itself out for a few months.  I’ll be toying with VMs on my server, while the mechanical HD can quickly be hooked back up to have the server back in production in a matter of minutes.

[/quote]

Surely, you can take the drive you are replacing with a system drive out and store it in the closet for a rainy day, right? I know you use WHS so it sounds like you are all set.

[Aaron Ledger]

[quote=skirge01]

[quote=Aaron Ledger]

It sounds like you found it either did/didn’t work 🙂

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By that definition, then mechanical drives work that way, as well.  :-p

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I have had mechanical hard drives that “work”, but are intermittently slow or have some mechanical flaw that makes them usable yet questionable.

[Aaron Ledger]

That’s true. It’s not a complete exercise since it is only a benchmark tool.

My take on using an SSD (or any system drive) is to back the system up and have a spare drive in the closet that I can put into duty if the system drive fails. This will give enough time to RMA or replace the problem system drive. It’s going to happen sooner or later so best to be prepared for it if the application is critical.

[Aaron Ledger]

It sounds like you found it either did/didn’t work 🙂

You could run disk benchmarking tools. Just remember that when writing all that benchmark data, you are using up some of the lifespan so don’t do it every day.

[Aaron Ledger]

It’s just a bunch of NAND chips and a controller. It should either work or it shouldn’t. No crazy mechanical issues to make the water murky 🙂

FWIW, the first drive I received had an issue where disk activity indicator was always on. The 1st RMA had an issue when booting and wouldn’t be recognized by BIOS.

[Aaron Ledger]

I’ve got one of the 3.5″ Vertex 2 SSDs. It took me two RMAs to get one that was solid, but it has been working well since that time.

I read a lot of the criticism has to do with the change in NAND chip tech. It is a bit disappointing to have a few less GB, but obviously not the end of the world. My Vertex 2 has 107 GB available.

[Aaron Ledger]

Don’t be embarrassed. It is perfectly logical to think that the HDMI audio driver that should be used should be provided by the GPU vendor.

[Aaron Ledger]

There are a couple: HDMIOn and HDMIYo.

[Aaron Ledger]

Why are you avoiding the use of a switch? Surely a switch that can be controlled remotely with the press of a button is much easier than configuring audio outputs in Windows.

I have no experience trying to send video and audio out of separate ports of an AMD card. I have used different video cards to do this (e.g. video from NVIDIA card to display and HDMI audio out of a Core i3-530).

The simplest of all options is to utilize your AVR for all audio requirements.

[Aaron Ledger]

The specs you indicate are perfectly adequate for what you want to do. You will not need a graphics card with the Core i3. When passing sound via HDMI, you will not require a sound card. The motherboard used will be dictated by your choice in OEM (Dell, HP, Acer, etc.). USB 3.0 is not a necessity. It is useful if you plan to use external storage for copying large amounts of data and want the transfers to take much less time than USB 2.0.

[Aaron Ledger]

Can you expand further on your hardware, the PC itself, the equipment it is connected to and the connections made between the PC and equipment? Do the issues happen when playing back a DVD or Blu-ray?

[Aaron Ledger]

Yes. For half the price, it seems worth a try. They were recommended by Intel. Perhaps Mini-box have straightened out their inventory/customer service issues by now.

[Author]

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