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Space - Everyone Needs More

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Whether you are building an HTPC, increasing the storage of your TiVo, or building a simple media server for convenience, everyone needs lots of hard drive space.

For an HTPC or the media server, it is very nice to be able to have redundancy. Doubling the drives to have identical information in case of failure is a good thing. Everyone speaks of drive failure. Most will talk about if it happens. Those really knowledgeable will speak of when it happens.

Just last week, news of someone trying to assert a patent concerning the manufacture of hard drives came out. If the courts take this seriously, imports of drives will slow to a trickle or stop altogether.

Retailers have not gotten the word, or haven’t been paying attention, because some drives are on sale at prices never seen. Cost per gigabyte is down around $0.20, and this is for drives with long warranties, and large caches.

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image Seagate Barracuda drives, 300 GB, 16 MB cache, and 7200 rpm, with a 5 year warranty. These drives work to make a killer TiVo setup, as they run relatively cool.

Fry’s has these for $59.99 with free shipping.

 

image Western Digital drives, 1 TB (yes, that’s a T), 16 MB cache, 7200 rpm, SATA, and 3 year warranty. These are the quietest drives around, with astounding performance. Four of these in RAID 10 would make for a media server that can download a big chunk of the iTunes catalogue.

Best Buy has these for $279.99, and you can save shipping charges by picking it up locally.

 

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If you have a system that has run out of drive bays, a big drive, like the ones above, can be added by using an external box, and a USB 2 connection. This can be used for long term storage, or backup that should last a good, long time, provided that the drive is only turned on occasionally.

image This box has both USB 2 and Firewire 400 connections, making it useful for use with a Mac, if needed. With good cooling, this enclosure works well and allows the drive to perform at top speed, unlike the many others in the same price range.

The unit is made by Galaxy Metal Gear and is available from egoodz.com, and with the use of the code ‘drop8off’ the price is $29.99, including shipping.

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Forget that stuff about being never too rich or never too thin, what they meant to say is that you can never have enough drive space!

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Posted in General on October 15th, 2007

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With the new and intermediate home theatrician in mind, Talking Home Theaters takes you on a tour of what's hot, what's affordable and what's not. If you've ever been envious of the endless home entertainment options available or are looking to build your first home theater without eliminating your children's education funds, you've come to the right place. We focus on scouring the internet for excellent entry-level ideas, incredible deals for newbies and home theater tips and tricks, so you don't have to.

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