Disklavier

For those who have done the SSD hard drive replacement, what brand and size of SSD did you use? Are there any IDE to SATA connectors that didn't work?

George

--- In disklavier@yahoogroups.com, "kenruda" wrote:
>
> Actually the whole process was fairly simple for me… however, I might point out that I do have over 35+ years experience tinkering with computer hardware and software. I have spent several years of my career building, updating, troubleshooting and repairing computers for a living. (I have also been upgrading Tivo hard drives for the last 10 years or so, which also run on Linux, so I felt that I was up to the challenge.)
> ;
> I would strongly recommend that you make a backup using your Mark IV's remote. I back my piano up frequently, since I have many one-of-a-kind midi+audio sync recordings that I have made over the years that I would hate to loose.
>
> I also waited 5 years to the day that I purchased my Disklavier, to let the warranty expire on the player before removing or opening the I/O Center.
>
> Actually the original hard drive was an 80 Gig IDE drive. Although, I replaced it with a 120 Gig SATA3 SSD drive. I needed to use a SATA to IDE adapter. If I had to do it again, and I probably will.. I will order an IDE SSD drive.
>
> Yes, I cloned the original hard drive and any HPA using a stand-a-lone (StarTech) hard drive duplicator that I have. It took just under 30 minutes to successfully clone the drive. I then examined the drive and found that media files were in the last volume of an extended partition. So I resized that extended partition to use the unused space of the new hard drive and then expanded the volume of that partition to use the rest of the space of that ext partition. Then I tried to reinsert the hard drive back into the original hard drive mount but the SATA to IDE adapter did not align up properly, so I had to remove the original drive mount (which is held to the underside of the cover of the I/O Center by four screws.) I then installed the smaller 2.5" SSD into a 3.5" drive mount and placed it in the center section of the I/O Center's lid where the other hard drive was. I had to drill two holes in the lid in that section to secure the new drive's mount to the underside of the I/O center's lid. I then connected the power and IDE cables to the SATA to IDE converter adapter and plugged it into the SSD. Carefully buttoned up the 12 screws in the lid and carefully reinstalled the I/O center back under the piano. Now they I/O center has much better ventilation since the old mount and drive covered some of the vent holes on the cover. After reconnecting and double checking all of the cables were properly connected, I plugged the power back into the Disklavier and turned on the Main power switch on the I/O center. The moment of truth came when I saw the power light blinking on the Media Center and saw each of the lights power up one by one. (I also noticed that the CD Drive on the Media Center chirps a couple of times ever so slightly at the start up of the booting process. I never heard this before since the original hard drive spinning up and clatter of servo that moves the read/write heads on the hard drive drown it out. The new drive is totally silent and has no moving parts!
>
> The Disklavier boot's up in just under two minutes after a cold boot or shut down with this new drive. I don't think I ever timed it using the original drive. I did noticed that the screen on the PRC-100 seems to update faster. I can scroll up and down my 109 album under the PianoSoft section and the names of the titles populate in less than a second—much faster than before.
>
> Since this update was successful, I plan on ordering an IDE SSD and replace the SATA3 drive. I was thinking about a 160 gig drive to see if the Mark IV's IDE controller can access and actually use a drive over 128 gig. That will leave me with a test drive that I can experiment with. I was thinking about removing all of my media thus actually test the "RESTORE" of my latest backup to make sure the media can successfully be restored that way. (I always hoped Yamaha actually tested this feature after each software release, but was scared to try it in fear of loosing original audio and midi sync recordings.) Has anyone actually had to restore? Anyway, now I have the original hard drive tucked away in my fireproof media safe—I may even make a spare copy and keep it at my parents house on the other side of the state… just incase the unthinkable would happen to my place or piano.
>
> -Ken
>
>
> --- In disklavier@yahoogroups.com, Twothbeave wrote:
> >
> > Awesome! How difficult was the operation? I'll assume the existing drive is a SATA so the swap is simple once the unit is opened up. Did you clone the original 80gb drive? What utility did you use and did you partition it post installation of before. Such great news to know that this unshackling can be done with relative ease. The stock performance of the computer is shockingly bad. Nice that it's merely an I/O issue. Time to hit up
> > Amazon or Tiger and order one up.
> >
> >; Thanks for the most useful post I've yet read on this already gem
> > Filled group!
> >
> > E
> >
> > Sent from my iPhone
> >
> > On Jul 19, 2012, at 11:43 PM, "kenruda" wrote:
> >
> > > Last night I upgraded my Mark IV's 80 Gig Hard Drive to an 2.5" 120 Gig SSD (Solid State Drive). My Disklavier now boots up in just under two minutes and is completely silent when booting. So I no longer hear the hard drive spin up and the chitter chatter of the hard drive seeking as it reads different tracks. The new hard drive is physically smaller than the original drive and so I ended up removing the old mounting hardware that held the original drive and installed the new drive like before but so that it did not completely cover any of the vent holes of the case unlike the original drive and mounting hardware did. This will allow for far better heat dissipation than the original drive and so the system should run even cooler. Plus the new SSD drive generates less heat and uses less power than the original drive to begin with. I also see improved performance when searching and scrolling through songs with the Disklavier's hand held PRC-100. Over all screens seem to be less sluggish and refresh more quickly. I wish I had another Disklavier to compare with side by side. I have also expanded the extended partition and allocated more space to the volume where the media is stored-- so I went from about 19 gig free to about 59 gig free or about enough storage for at least 88 additional Smart PianoSoft Diskettes plus matching Audio CD with 74 minutes of audio each. But since most CD's contain less than 74 minutes I may have room for a few more. This is assuming that the Disklavier's software and database can accommodate that many. Does anyone know if there is a limit? (I have 109 entries or albums/folders in my system now under the PianoSoft section.)
> > >

Hi Sam,

I know a couple customers have gone to a solid-state drive and then expanded the music partition on the SSD drive. I don't remember who they were. I will need to look through old emails to see if I can find who has done that.

I replaced my hard drive with a SSD about a month ago. I backed up my old drive, then switched the two drives. I then did a manual RESCUE involving 3 CDs which brought my operating system to version 3.0. I then did a Restore and got all my song data on the new drive. Then, I updated my operating system using Internet Update.

I did not expand my music partition. I tried this one time before and lost all of the data on the computer I was trying this with. So I am very gun-shy about using a Partitioning app...

Bill

On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 7:03 AM, <samsheleby@...> wrote:

Hi Bill,

Merry Christmas! I sent in a posting that hasn't posted yet. I have purchased a solid-state drive and the posting is asking if anyone will copy my hard drive to the solid-state drive and expand the music petition. I know a lot about computers but I don't know anything about Linux. I don't want to make my piano unusable. Is there anyone that you know of that would do this that you trust? I'm holding off on adding music to my piano because I don't want to fill up the hard drive. Thanks, Sam Sheleby