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Big SSD? Or, small SSD with: 1. LAN enabled? 2. external SSD/HDD?

Hi all,

I finaly installed an SSD (Kingstone SSD 100 now 8Gb) in my cMP setup.
And, whow, what a jump in sound quality (SQ) !!.
On this forum I’ve red before that using a SSD would bring better SQ.
But I didn’t expect this much.
In my setup installing an SSD, equals all previously done power optimizations.
So, not just a little tiny improvement!

I deliberately chose an small SSD.
Because small = less.
And less = less power consumption.
Just like choosing less ram, improves SQ.

I created 3 little primary 2.5 Gb partitions on this little 8 Gb Kingstone SSD.
Because a regular XP installation only uses 1.2 Gb.
This grows too 1.6 Gb, after applying minlogon.
(because of the automatically created extra user account by applying minlogon)
So 2.5 Gb is more than enough space.
With 3 partitions I can easily experiment with different software (tweaks) and hear there SQ differences.
I use DriveImage XML on the UBCD for Windows CD to backup images from these 2.5 Gb partitions, too a temporarily connected HDD SATA drive. If excessive tweaking (with autoruns or registry) makes the system unstable, I can easily put back a copy of the last know good situation. (provided one regularly makes some image backups while tweaking).

I preferred an 8 Gb SSD because of : ‘less = loss power consumption = better SQ’
But…… its not enough too store music files.
So, what is the best way forward now?

- Ditch the 8 Gb SSD and install a 300 Gb SSD (separately powered by PSU which powers the dirty sphericals)
- install an extra SSD (separately powered by PSU which powers the dirty sphericals)
- install an extra external eSATA/USB/Firewire SSD (separately powered by PSU which powers the dirty sphericals)
- install an extra external eSATA/USB/Firewire HDD (separately powered by PSU which powers the dirty sphericals)
- use an network attached storage through LAN.

Any suggestions on where the music files should be stored best?
( purely based with SQ in mind)

Mark


Some background info on my current cMP setup:
* MoBo: Gigabyte GA-G41M-ESL2 (because I fried my GA-G31M with my TTi linear PSU)
* 1 Gb HyperX ram
* SSD: 8 Gb Kingstone SSD 100 now
* linear PSU -> Pico XT 150 -> P24 (with smoothing caps on 5 volt rail)
* linear PSU -> P4 (with smoothing caps)
* linear PSU -> ‘dirty’ Pico XT 150 (with smootings caps on 5 Volt) -> USB bracket: wireless mouse/ keyb. + Kingstone SSD.
* Esi Juli@ with smooting caps on 3.3 and 5 Volt ( on ‘upper bridging pins’)
Optical connection used to Lavry DAC with high quality (van den Hull) optic toslink cable.
When using the optical output, it’s very important too also use high quality optic cable.
5 euro / 7 dollar plastic toslink cables, sound really bad (and I mean: really bad !).
At first I found it hard too believe that toslink would excel coax.
But Cics is right!
When done correctly, toslink excels coax S/Pdif or even ground free transformer coupled aes/ebu (by a mile) in a computer based setup.

* Linear PSU’s are powered from separate 230 AC spur with Epcos mains filter
(preventing the linear PSU’s too spoil the 230 AC separate spur)

* Klein & Hummel O300 + Lavry Black DA 10, on a separate 230 AC spur.
(both with Epcos mains filters installed. 'Load' side facing the net)



Edits: 01/23/11

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