I would like to upgrade my new Rio to a bigger HD. Any recommendations on where and brand and size to get for the best price? Thanks guys.

Well, you can never have too much disk space... Capacities up to 80GB have been tested. The only thing you have to watch for is the 80GB drives specifically are "pushing the envelope" with the memory available on the empeg (especially the Mark1 and Mark2s). You see this especially with the drive builder software and when you do file system checks. But they do work.

The empeg does not need a high speed drive. The cheaper 4500RPM drives are just fine. In fact, better because they generate less heat.

Meanwhile, make sure you check out the drive upgrade FAQ for step by step, detailed instructions on how to do the upgrade.

As for price (re-reading your original post, and seeing that I misread...), I always use the old Googlegear, now ZipZoomFly.com. I have been extremely happy with their service and with their prices. Pricewatch and C|Net also give good pricing guidelines on what is out there.

I was under the impression that it was 160GB (that is, two 80GB drives) that ``pushed the envelope''. So one 80GB drive is probably fine. Is that correct? (Edit: It's not. See posts below.)

I also like New Egg for online purchasing. They have good prices and good shipping costs (amongst the best I've seen regularly) and their web site is not too attractive, but has the best features of any online retailer I've ever seen by far.

Not necessarily. The memory problems can be seen while running the builder or doing an fsck. Both of these tasks are single drive oriented. Even with 1 80GB drive, you might still see these problems. Especially if you are not using a 16MB Mark2A.

The problems that I have seen in "pushing the envelope" with 160GB are more related to the size of the scratch partition, number of FIDs and database size.

Oops -- you're right. I should avoid saying things I'm not sure about.

Actually, you should be able to use two of the 160s, if you choose to. Once they are built, they should not give you too much trouble. Building them is the harder part, but if you do it manually, it should not be a problem either.

By built, do you mean formatted and an initial load of mp3's and ogg's,

"Built" = formatting the hard drive to the proprietary system used by the empeg. It is a one-time only thing.

The failure of the build utility on the larger hard drives seems to be a mystery, possibly having to do with the phase of the moon or something. I have so far built and installed three different 80 GB drives and had not the slightest difficulty with any of them. Yet other people have run into problems with the same size drives.

tanstaafl.

Well I ordered 3 of the 120gb drives. So 1 empeg will get two 120s and the other will get one 120gb and one 80gb! Hopefully they will arrive in time for the weekend.

So now I guess it's time to brush up on the FAQ entries on formatting the new drives and copying the data from the existing drives!

So 1 empeg will get two 120s

Only about a quarter of a terrabyte? Are you sure that will be enough?



tanstaafl.

have 34CDs of Ruby: The Adventures of a Galactic Gumshoe and Clive Cussler's Dark Watch to finish ripping and loading for a start.

On a slightly more serious note, rip/encode your audiobooks at a significantly lower bitrate than you do your music. VBR with a 128 kb/sec max will give quite acceptable listening quality, and will take up far less room... I have over 50 GB of spoken word audio on my player, and no way would it all fit if it were recorded at music quality.

tanstaafl.

I have 34CDs of Ruby: The Adventures of a Galactic Gumshoe

Good to see another ZBS fan! I've been a Jack Flanders fan for years (and years!)