[mythtv-users] Any ideas how to make my hard drive shut up?

[Calvin Harrigan]

Richard Bronosky wrote:
> Here is my system:
> http://bronosky.com/index.php?p=21
> 
> I've been happy with it for several months now, but I'm started to get
> annoyed with the HD performance.  I opted for the HD with 16MB of
> cache, I have 512MB of RAM but for some reason the HD is constantly
> grinding.  I get the feeling that my system isn't using it's hardware
> optimally.  I would think that 512MB would be plenty of RAM for a
> PVR-500 FE/BE system.  However, during playback most of the time the
> HD never stops grinding.
> 
> BTW, this is KnoppMyth R5B7
> 
> Ideas?
> 

What do you mean by grinding?  Spooling HD takes a lot of data, the 
drive has to work to supply all that data.  16MB of cache don't mean 
squat when you're sending several gigs per hour!  Say you have a 1 hour 
show, it's say 5 Gigs (being really conservative), that's about 1.3MB 
per second.  You can't do much about that but get a quiet drive. 
Seagate perhaps?

Calvin...