Feb
6th
2020
I am old · 9:16pm Feb 6th, 2020
I'm celebrating my computer's 10th birthday by getting a new one, including a new case so that I could keep my old system as a backup computer. I looked long and hard for a "silent" case with two 5.25" drive bays. There is one--the Fractal Design R5. But it's expensive, and I settled for a case with only one 5.25" bay (the Antec P101).
I didn't remember until days later why I had wanted two 5.25" bays. It was because the last time I bought a case, it took DVDShrink several passes to copy a DVD, because I didn't have enough hard drive space to save an entire DVD image.
Well, you've got me beat.
But where are the snows of yester-year?
Hey, you can probably just stack a hard-drive or two in there. Nothing fills that dread of age like the realization that you can have two more 5TB drives in that space!
5198468 NOOOOO!
Ahh, that takes me back. I haven't even used a 5.25" drive bay in I think eight to ten years.
I made sure to have two 5.25" bays in my last build too, though for different reasons -- I put a Blu-ray reader/burner in one, just in case, and a hot-swap hard-drive dock in the other, so I can slot in 2.5" and 3.5" SATA drives to transfer data directly. They both get used infrequently, but they're nice to have.
Ah yes, the classic "the roast wouldn't fit in the pot" situation.
I upgraded my rig recently within the last two years, and unfortunately I had to lose my 3.5" floppy drive.
I still won't get over it, even if it was a white drive on a black case.
5198468 5198481
I think the last computer I had with a floppy disk drive was… let’s see… six computers ago. Of course, I started with punch cards (school) and cassette tapes (home) for storage.
I’m still amused by Evil Overlord Rule #99: Any data file of crucial importance will be padded to 1.45Mb in size. It’s badly in need of updating. They haven’t made a flash drive or SD card that small for years now!
You can always buy a used case.
Old is when you try to make a 1.2 mb floppy work with a modern computer. The 1.44s are fine, but try to get the HD 5.25" functioning.
Guys:
Know a good backup utility? For a physical backup on a removable hard drive, that is, as it sucks performing manual backups, and Windows 10 seems to be free of such a routine.
(One of the few thing I miss about Mac is Time Machine.)
I'm too old to want to have anything to do with fancy cloud storage. (Don't want to lose my stuff over something as idiotic as forgetting to pay. Besides, I can do my own off-site storage.)
Please.
5198511
That’s old, but ancient is getting punch cards to work with a modern computer. Yet it has been done!
Now we just have to get someone to create a version working on an emulator built in Minecraft…
…running on a toaster.
5198532
Macrium reflect, probably?
Does this help? Not sure if it does for me, but at least the thing is older than I am (not sure how old you are, but I think we're close).
From the same fellow (CuriousMarc) who restored an Apollo computer:
1958 FACOM 128B Japanese Relay Computer, still working!
FWIW, I bought the Fractal Define R6 (not at Amazon's price!) for a new PC last month partially because I needed space for my blu-ray drive...
5198532 You could invest in a NAS box (network storage) that you would keep local. The box itself has a cost, of course, on top of the drives that you would add to it. I would steer clear of Synoptic, though, since their reliability and customer service are reportedly pretty bad these days. The alternative might be to build a small, low-cost PC with several drives, that you can port around as needed. Connect over your home network and transfer data that way... As for software, sorry I don't have anything to recommend.
Hello, old.
I've had one of these specific cases for awhile. Great case. I've never had anything but good luck with Antec.
My next case, however, is likely to be MUCH smaller. It doesn't really matter since I never move the thing, but with the rise of NVMe hard drives there's just no real need for all that bay space anymore. It'd just sit empty.
5198541
Thing is I have gold box games and such on 1.2 and it makes it hard to test them to see if they still work.
5198511 Last year I had to figure out how to transfer files from 140KB Apple DOS 3.3 disks. It took almost a week, not counting shipping time for the hardware.
5198663 I think bigger cases should run quieter, because they dissipate heat better. The more PWM (4-pin) fans you can put in a case, the quieter it can run, because one 2000 RPM fan creates about
30{EDIT: 15} times as much noise (measured by acoustic energy) as using two 1000 RPM fans. (This doesn't always work for 3-pin non-PWM fans, because they may stutter if you lower the voltage to spin them below ~1000 RPM.)Also, a smaller case is hit with more acoustic energy per square cm, so you need thicker acoustic foam, which lowers its heat radiation.
My new computer is almost literally silent. Liquid CPU cooler, 4 fans running under 1000 RPM, sound insulation foam, 65W R7 CPU, 1300W power supply (power supplies run very cool at half their peak output), X570 chipset fan turned down in the BIOS to 25% unless it gets hot, passive-radiation Zotac GT 730 graphics card. My only regret is that I probably coulda bought a Ryzen Threadripper and still had an almost-silent system.
I had a little bit of bad luck with the Antec--I almost returned the case because the power button didn't work. I opened up the front panel & found the switch for the power button was rotated 90 degrees from its proper position, so it had just popped off the first time I pressed it. Put it back on properly & all was fine. I also had to file down a spot inside the case to touch to ground myself--Antec was so thorough in painting everything that I couldn't ground myself anywhere while working on it.
Also, I pulled off that white plastic grille inside the front door. It serves no purpose and cuts off most of the airflow through the case.
5198532 I just format a hard drive, put it in an external case, connect it via USB3, and copy all the files. There are some cases this won't work right, like copying a Windows boot partition, which has secret bytes stored on the drive AFTER the end of partition. (This is why you shouldn't move or resize Windows boot partitions with GParted unless you have an MS repair disk.) I back those up with nftsclone.
Oh, also, after the first backup, I do incrementals using ViceVersaPro. Great software except that it deletes files very slowly.
5198931 If you're going that far I'm surprised you didn't just spring for a full heat pipe system, get a computer with no moving parts at all.
5198544
Thanks. I'll take a look.
5198936
Thanks. I'll take a look.
5199148 I haven't seen a single consumer heat-pipe system other than the heat pipes found in some CPU coolers and graphics cards, which all have loud fans and are noisier than liquid cooling. My liquid cooler (a DeepCool Captain 240 RGB V2, without the RGB hooked up 'coz I think RGB is like pimping out your car with neon lights and shag fur) cost $70 and is so quiet that I'm worried that it isn't actually running at all and my CPU will melt.