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[JimH]

We're doing a little testing with the very small USB drives, connected to an Id.  They're very low power, powered by the USB cable.

Bob and I were trying to calculate what the wattage use was this morning, and we were getting numbers that didn't make sense, so I put a Kill-a-Watt on it tonight.

Including the Id, the whole rig uses about 9 watts.  The highest I saw was 11 watts when I plugged the drive in.

By itself, the Id uses about 6.5 to 7.0 watts, so the drive adds almost nothing -- 2.0 to 2.5 watts.

At 2TB, this drive would store about 5,000 or 6,000 CD's at lossless quality.

I think it's amazing.

The drive is a Seagate SRD00F1.

[mwillems]

I've measured a few modern internal drives and most of them used between 2 and 5 watts at idle depending on rotation speed and efficiency, so two watts for an external USB powered drive idling sounds about right.  

Most of the drives I measured used about double their idle when spinning full-speed; what's the seagate like at full spin?

My faves in the current generation of internals are the WD Red's; they use about 2.5 watts at idle and about 4 when spinning.  I haven't bought an external in a few years, so I'll be interested if you all have any recommendations when you're done testing.

[Listener]

Jim,

I'll be re-implementing my MusicPC in a couple of years.  A larger NUC with room for a single 2 1/2" HD (or SSD) seems the right solution for me.  There is a 2 TB Samsung HD that would work for me in that application.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822178627

It is only 9.5 mm high and should fit in a NUC or laptop.

[jkrumm]

So if using an Id and this drive, which sounds pretty neat, could I just dump all my music on the drive, connect it to the Id, connect the Id to my stereo and then control it from JRemote?

[JimH]

Yes.

[jkrumm]

Yes.

Sound more and more interesting. Reading the wiki, it has wireless now? How do I give it the wireless password?

[JimH]

There is a utility that allows you to set up a network interface, but it's not for the faint hearted.  I believe it's been discussed before.  Try an advanced search of this board only for "wireless".