Dumb Question

[Cap]

2.5" internal 300gb laptop hard drive? Wow! Do you know what rotational speed and access time? I've seen SATA and some IDE 300gb 3.5" desk top internals at 5400 rpm but nothing that big for a laptop. Zowie!

[DJ Iron Mike]

for the laptop it's not internal, it's external and works on a USB 2.0 pcmcia card. I run externals on my latop all the time with a 4 port hub. I think externals are the way to go because you can add and subtract them when you need to and it's only a matter of plugging them up. Laptops very seldomly get too large, but if I had some drive the size of those in my Big units I'd have a lot of drives. I'm sorry I didn't clarify myself better. I use ver large internal desk top drives on the multiple desktops i have but I also use very large external drives for my laptop.

[Cap]

My turn to ask a dumb question. Does your laptop have USB 1.0 or USB 2.0 jacks? That question comes out of curiosity why you're using a PCMCIA card for USB? Not nit-picking, just having trouble visualizing your config.

Taking a slightly alternative stance on your use of external drives (although it really doesn't matter when dealing with the miniscule .mp3 file size), if the internal read/write hard drive's speed and access time is first generation processor connected through the main bus, it is far likely to have any tendency towards processor and connectivity latency delays that are typical with PCMCIA/USB/IEE1394 connectivity. Using external drives as transport, archive, and backup...absolutely. As the main, ah, my vote would have to be uh-uh. But again, .mp3 files are so small by processor standards, it ain't no biggy.

Mike, ya got a picture of your road-show digital set up from the DJ's point of view? There's a bazillion shots of fronts and trusses but rare footage from our angle.

Oh. I found the 300gb drive of all dreams...fiber optic connection, 15,000 rpm. Holy Smoker! And only $8 grand!

[JX2 Productions]

The best thing to do is to go the manufactures site that you are purchasing the program that will play your music. More than likly it is PCDJ, heres the link to the newest version of PCDJ http://www.pcdj.com/support/systemreq.asp#fx . They are also selling custom machines that works with their software, thats what I am going to go with.

Heres the specs for PCDJ FX / KJ

Intel Pentium III
750 MHz Processor or above
128 MB of RAM or above (512 Recommended)
DirectX 9 / Windows Media 9 drivers
Windows 2000 or XP
CD-Rom Drive
16 Bit Graphics Card (800x600 minimum)
Direct X Compatible Sound Card or a Windows compatible Sound Card

Recommended Specifications
1 Gighrtz Machine (Pentium or AMD)
512 DDR RAM
60 gig or bigger hard drive
WDM compatible soundcard with dual output
Win 2000 Pro or XP pro
Direct X 9
Windows media player 9
64bit Video card (dual head - Karaoke/video)

Heres the link for PCDJ's custom stuff. Looks awesome, sounds awesome and the hardware is pretty good stuff. I am going to be using an odessy case,the same kind that I use for my mixer and cd player, to house a 17" lcd (hopefullytouch screen) racmount monitor as well as the PC2U-17 (PC2U-17 specs

2U high and 17.25 inches deep - fits in an amplifier rack

Four drive spaces - two 51/4 and two 31/2.·

Two PCI slots, one empty for you use.

2 Models - Single 80 Gig hard drive or dual 80 Gig hard drives (1 internal and 1 removable), CD ROM, and Floppy Disk drive The second hard drive is removable and can be used for file transfers and backups·

List Price : Single HD model $1,625
List Price : Dual HD Model $1,825 ). It will be kick butt when it is done! Can't wait, should be completed in May/June! I'll take pics and post them on my site when it is completed. Total cost is estimated around $2200 - $2300.

Andy