question New Computer

My mid tower case contains 2 x5.25" bays, and 8 x 3.5" and 2 x 2.5" behind the motherboard for SSDs. The 8 HDD bays have two 140mm fans for cooling that I control with fan profiles via software. At the moment I only have three HDDs in those bays with the two SSDs mounted behind the motherboard.

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My HTPC has two optical drives in it. They were used for ripping Blu-ray and DVDs, now they're mostly idle. I have a standalone 3D capable Blu-ray player that I use now for playing Blu-rays since the open source community couldn't figure out proper Blu-ray movie playback in the past decade and I got sick of all the kludgeyness. I still like DVD playback on the HTPC though since it has much better image quality than any other solution courtesy of madVR.

My desktop has one optical drive used mostly for ripping CDs. If I have a lot of CDs to rip, I will plug in a 5.25" optical drive in a USB enclosure to rip with both drives. It looks like my desktop is in the same case Handy is using.
 
I know that you guys are old, but... I get my movies online. No need for fiddly disks.

I had a Blu-ray drive in my computer, but it's never even had a Blu-ray disc in it. Actually just bought my first Blu-ray this week.

I took the drive out of my desktop for better airflow. I have a laptop with a DVD burner in it, if I need read a disk.
 
sechs said:
I know that you guys are old, but... I get my movies online. No need for fiddly disks.

I had a Blu-ray drive in my computer, but it's never even had a Blu-ray disc in it. Actually just bought my first Blu-ray this week.

I took the drive out of my desktop for better airflow. I have a laptop with a DVD burner in it, if I need read a disk.
Click to expand...

I never had a blue-ray in the computer since the format was far too late to store a decent data capacity.
I have a couple of Blue-RAY players connected to TVs, which is the natural way to view. There is no need for computers, wi-fi, maintaining pay accounts, dealing with the hassles of internet outages and hackers, etc. It is also possible to watch the program again years from now.
My airflow is much better after removing five hard drives. The case is rather quiet now with no spinning disc noise other than when a few are occasionally powered on.
 
sechs said:
I know that you guys are old, but... I get my movies online. No need for fiddly disks.
Click to expand...
I'm glad you're enjoying your inferior presentation without having to use fiddly discs.

Myself, I'll stop buying physical media when I can get a superior equivalent online for the same price, or a comparable one for less. So far that hasn't happened and I don't think it'll be changing anytime soon.
 
Stereodude said:
I'm glad you're enjoying your inferior presentation without having to use fiddly discs.

Myself, I'll stop buying physical media when I can get a superior equivalent online for the same price, or a comparable one for less. So far that hasn't happened and I don't think it'll be changing anytime soon.
Click to expand...

No, it will probably get worse and if you stop paying there goes the option to watch it again. Discs are fairly robust if not abused. I'd not call them fiddly.
The time it takes to pull a disc from a bookcase and start playing it is about 1% of a movie, hardly a lot of overhead.
The TV commercials from the cell phone companies with the subscribers watching movies on 5-6" smartphones makes me shake my head. :scratch:
 
I'm with SD on this. I still prefer my media to be on disc via Bluray if possible because I've yet to see an online streaming service offer anything with a decent bitrate and quality when compared to the content on a disc.

Ripping my media also removes the bullshit advertisements at the beginning and having it in a digital catalog (Plex) makes finding a movie so much easier and worth it compared to dealing with the disc. Starting, pausing, advancing, and rewinding are all more responsive than my actual Bluray player. In addition to all that I now have a bit-perfect backup in case the disc gets damaged or lost.
 
Who said anything about streaming? I store my digital movies on my Plex server.

Do you guys still buy CDs, too? It's the same issues versus streaming music.
 
Where do you get your digital files for your Plex server? I won't download movies because I want higher bit rate from a better source assuming you're not downloading entire Bluray or UHD content. I extract Blurays into mkv containers and direct play those through my own Plex server with native audio pass through.

Yes I still buy CDs and rip them into FLAC files for subjectively higher quality content over streaming when I desire more-critical listening. I also stream music from various services.
 
I'm with the majority on this one, I don't often watch movies but when I do I prefer them to be on disc. My internet connection is very unreliable and slow when it does work, so anything beyond 480p is a stretch to me.

I got the N400 in the mail today and I'm actually somewhat pleasantly surprised, it does have cable management features that went undetected by me. They're very... very basic, but they will do the job required of them. A thing I kind of wasn't thinking of is that my spinning disk is a 2.5" one, a holdover from when I was going to use it to upgrade the T450 (but couldn't because the drive was too thick). In my Neos case this isn't an issue, it has 3 2.5" bays, but the only 2.5" bay I see in this N400 is a plastic one that snaps into the other side of the 3.5" bays. Obviously meant for an SSD just to keep it from freely dangling, it doesn't have any substantial mounting to it, but thankfully I do have a 2.5" to 3.5" adapter bracket somewhere in here. This case has support for eight (!) 120mm fans, and I plan on populating every available spot for one eventually. Noise levels don't bother me when something isn't whining, white noise I can easily tune out.
 
I've mounted SSDs with 3M velcro tape. It's not a big deal and works fine.
 
I try to get one screw through some hole somewhere, but double-sided tape is fine. If the case isn't going to move, I've had them dangling for years without issue ;)

Of course, the proper solution is to M.2 and not worry about cables/mounting at all.
 
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