External drives and spindown thoughts

[lucasbuck]

Sorry for all the questions lately, it's my end of summer break tweaking session! I've been looking for a 4 bay enclosure for some storage space (not just WMC, but maybe throw in a drive for file storage and backup). I can't seem to find many 4 bay enclosures with decent reviews. Plus, I read where they don't spin down. I've also read an equal amount of proponents that say never let drive spins down and the same number saying do (for drive wear, I'm not worried about the power consumption for this part).

My questions are:
1) I trust folks opinions here, have any on spin down vs not?
2) If spin down is an issue, I had an idea. I have an older machine sitting around that runs Win7 and a bunch of free sata ports. Would I be better off (vs a USB 3 enclosure) just setting that machine up and hooking it into the network? Then I could use it for backup and offload all my movies and music to it. I know I couldn't move my recorded TV due to DRM, but my movies take up a lot of space. Would playing them off another network machine slow anything down? What if I was watching on the xbox extender? Would it have to go from the storage box, to the WMC machine, then to the xbox?

Sorry for rambling and thanks for any thoughts. Think of it as a 'what would you do if you were me' kind of thing.

[lucasbuck]

Maybe I'm dumb for not thinking of a more simple solution (although I am curious to the answers to the above).

I started thinking maybe it would be less trouble if I put in a sata port card. My sata ports on the board are filled. If someone wouldn't mind taking a look at the picture, the sata cards I've found are pci-e. Would that one above my video card work? I didn't know if those were dedicated to the video card. Be great if I could squeeze one in.

[foxwood]

I know I couldn't move my recorded TV due to DRM,

You can store your protected content wherecpver you want, as long as you only play it back on the machine that recorded it. Moving your recordings to network storage won't be a problem.

[Shackleford]

Drives spinning down isn't as much an issue as the constant parking of the head. Green drives will spin down when not in use to save power. The only problem with that is waiting for it to spin up when its time to record.

[lucasbuck]

Thanks for the replies. So is that pci-e port okay to use for a sata card or is that for graphics cards only? I bought a Mediasonic 4 bay enclosure but it goes to sleep constantly, no matter what I set the sync on the box to. I've emailed customer support and asked on the forums, but no luck. Going to have to return it before I run out of time.

[foxwood]

Post the make and model of the MB, and someone will read the manual for you. PCI-e slots are usually just PCI-e slots, but on some boards a slot might be configured for graphics.

[lucasbuck]

It's an Asus P8Z68-V LE. The manual shows it as PCIEX1_1, then PCIEX16_1 (the video slot), then PCIEX1_2 under that (which is where the Ceton is)

[Shackleford]

I have this board and the only limitation is the bandwidth being shared between the second x16 and the 2 x1 slots. Your not using the other x16 slot so it should be fine.

[foxwood]

There's a BIOS setting that controls the bandwidth sharing for the black PCI-e 2 slot. You might want to check it, though the Auto setting should be OK.

[lucasbuck]

Thanks much for the help folks.

[kd6icz]

Thanks for the replies. So is that pci-e port okay to use for a sata card or is that for graphics cards only? I bought a Mediasonic 4 bay enclosure but it goes to sleep constantly, no matter what I set the sync on the box to. I've emailed customer support and asked on the forums, but no luck. Going to have to return it before I run out of time.

Did you ever get the issue with the Mediasonic resolved? I was thinking of getting the RAID version and using eSATA.