Just bought an HD24XR, need help with choosing hard drives

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kslight
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Just bought an HD24XR, need help with choosing hard drives

Post by kslight » Sat Feb 06, 2010 2:12 pm

Hey found a HD24XR cheap (among other things) from a studio closing and picked it up. The guy took his drives with him (he did boot it up and show it works) but left the empty caddies. So I understand that this takes regular old IDE drives, but I also understand that this thing is picky. I'd like to get a few Western Digital drives because they last in my experience, but I'd like to know before buying that it works.


Also I understand that some people are using SATA drives with it? Can anyone point me to the right caddie to do this?


And finally...is there a reason why I would get the $200 Alesis FireWire caddy versus buying a cheap enclosure that accepts IDE drives and has USB 2.0/Firewire?


Thanks

eh91311
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Post by eh91311 » Sat Feb 06, 2010 3:00 pm

It would be a good idea to join the HD24 group on Yahoo Groups. They have a posted list of drives that are known to work with the HD24/HD24XR. They also have threads discussing the new drive caddy that supports SATA drives. The thread archive also contains info on retrofitting a silent/quiet fan to cut way down in noise.

The HD24 user group has info on using a generic IDE removable drive caddy/dock with the HD24Tools program instead of the pricey Alesis Fireport.

With the advent of SATA drives, IDE or PATA drives are becoming scarce. Might be better to search on a site such as pricewatch.com & buy a number of compatible PATA drives online and maintain your own inventory.

snatchman
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Post by snatchman » Sat Feb 06, 2010 5:05 pm

I use Seagates with mine without problems.. ( knock on wood... :lol: ..)

Harry
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Post by Harry » Sun Feb 07, 2010 10:15 am

Wow...they really are getting harder to find.
I just ordered 2 of these

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822148212


I wish I could find some 250 or 500 gig but I cant....so I ordered these.

Anybody know of a better source for IDE drives?


I would ONLY use IDE drives(or something that says IDE in there somewhere)

I think someone might be trying to build a caddi for some other drives (like..in their garage)(since Alesis has no interest and I think the quit making IDE drives?)

But really unless you like messing with shit that may or may not work I would stick with Seagate Barracudas IDE 7200 and the Alesis caddi

It would be nice if Alesis would come up with something for this so you could use a 1 TB HD...but they wont.

Alesis sucks the way they abandon their shit....but this is a great machine IMO...ENJOY!!!

kslight
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Post by kslight » Sun Feb 07, 2010 2:51 pm

That's funny because the guy I bought it from specifically said not to use Seagates with it...but he was using Maxtors...which aren't they the same company as Seagate? I have had too many Maxtor drives fail to be comfortable with them...I might go with a pair of Seagates for the IDE drives and then buy a SATA caddy.

Harry
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Post by Harry » Mon Feb 08, 2010 9:01 am

kslight wrote:That's funny because the guy I bought it from specifically said not to use Seagates with it...but he was using Maxtors...which aren't they the same company as Seagate? I have had too many Maxtor drives fail to be comfortable with them...I might go with a pair of Seagates for the IDE drives and then buy a SATA caddy.

Yeah... I think they might all be a little hit and miss brand wise?

I could be wrong but I don't think the sata caddy actually exists?
I think somebody somewhere built one and eventually got it to work?

It would be nice since I don't think IDE drives will be around much longer.

snatchman
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Post by snatchman » Mon Feb 08, 2010 10:07 am

SOT..I've heard that of possible extention of the IDE drives.. So what will be the replacement for capture media in computers..?.. :?

kslight
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Post by kslight » Mon Feb 08, 2010 10:31 am

The SATA caddy is made by Magic Sound...link can be found on the HD24Tools site. It's out of stock right now, but I plan on ordering a couple, I reserved them.


I also ordered 2 of the Seagate IDE drives from Newegg posted above to try.

Harry
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Post by Harry » Mon Feb 08, 2010 11:05 am

kslight wrote:The SATA caddy is made by Magic Sound...link can be found on the HD24Tools site. It's out of stock right now, but I plan on ordering a couple, I reserved them.


I also ordered 2 of the Seagate IDE drives from Newegg posted above to try.
Wow...that's cool that somebody actually started making these.
They're charging almost 4x what the Alesis charges though.
And it doesn't look like that many drives are supported..

The only reason I would use one is if there were no more IDE drives to be had or if I could use a big 1TB HD or something?
Or maybe I'm missing something?

Good luck with the Seagates(to both of us:)
Pay close attention to getting the jumpers right.

kslight
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Post by kslight » Mon Feb 08, 2010 3:19 pm

Harry wrote:
kslight wrote:The SATA caddy is made by Magic Sound...link can be found on the HD24Tools site. It's out of stock right now, but I plan on ordering a couple, I reserved them.


I also ordered 2 of the Seagate IDE drives from Newegg posted above to try.
Wow...that's cool that somebody actually started making these.
They're charging almost 4x what the Alesis charges though.
And it doesn't look like that many drives are supported..

The only reason I would use one is if there were no more IDE drives to be had or if I could use a big 1TB HD or something?
Or maybe I'm missing something?

Good luck with the Seagates(to both of us:)
Pay close attention to getting the jumpers right.


To me the advantages of the SATA drives on the HD24 is for ease of plugin to a modern PC, availability, and size. Size is less of an issue though, because at least for my purposes, filling up even an 80gb drive in one session is not likely, and one would be foolish not to backup in between and during sessions, and for any kind of long term storage I likely would burn a DVD and not rely on the magnetic drives anyway. As I just found out, brand new IDE drives that are known compatible with the HD24 are nearly impossible to find, I imagine in a year or two it will be even more challenging. I'd be happy to get at least 5-10 years of use out of mine, so I would rather start thinking SATA now than let my IDE drives fail and get burnt on the clock, if you know what I mean. At least if for some reason I had to go out and buy a new drive I could do it easily and not be down for a week looking for IDE drives.

kslight
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Post by kslight » Sat Feb 13, 2010 6:42 am

Both Seagate drives formatted and work flawlessly for me.

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