Perfect SpinRite Hardware

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gdalgliesh

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Sep 29, 2020
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Wondering if anyone has suggestion for the perfect SpinRite bench motherboard/system. My current machine that I have used for this is not up to the SATA performance that I believe the new 6.1 will be able to take advantage of and I am looking for a new bench system for media repair and maintenance without breaking the bank. Any thoughts?

Thanks
 

PHolder

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Sep 16, 2020
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If you're planning to buy the latest new hardware, you're probably already close to too late for SpinRite 6.1, which will not support UEFI Class 3 motherboards. I donno how you can know which motherboards support a CSM and Legacy Boot, and which do not. Intel has indicated that UEFI is the future, starting in 2020, and Legacy Boot is no longer to be supported in 2021. (See https://forums.grc.com/threads/the-end-of-legacy-booting.165/ )

SpinRite 7 is planned to support UEFI booting, but it is probably still a couple of years away.

Thinking of PC's I have to hand, that have cost effective hardware, I have a Ryzen 7 2700X on this motherboard https://www.asus.com/ca-en/Motherboards/PRIME-B350-PLUS/ and it has a CSM and Legacy Boot and works well with the current AHCI test program. (Even allowing the M.2 to show up in the BIOS.) It was a value board, and it's older now, so it might be hard to find, donno about that.

Since the MOBO provides video outputs, you could use an APU so you wouldn't need to invest in a standalone GPU. I think this machine would be quite happy to run a Ryzen 5 2400G or even a 3400G. That wouldn't have it being a killer gaming machine or anything ;) but it should run SpinRite just fine.
 

oupi

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Oct 6, 2020
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It would also be interesting to get an answer with the cheapest/smallest form factor possible. It would be nice to have a small dedicated machine in the corner of my home office.
 

PHolder

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Sep 16, 2020
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cheapest/smallest form factor possible
My friend built a server out of one of these with the dedicated case... I wonder how it would like being a SpinRite box?
I believe he ordered his from Amazon.

I have a mini Ryzen system. The DeskMini A300 with a Ryzen 5 3400G in it. I ordered my parts from NewEgg,
https://www.asrock.com/nettop/AMD/DeskMini A300 Series/
They also make newer DeskMini form factor PCs for Intel and for Ryzen Renoir (4xxx) but those Renoir CPUs are very difficult to find right now because of AMD only releasing them to OEMs.

Either of these are going to be too small to install a desktop HDD in, and I don't know if the Odyssey can internally have anything but the M.2 form factor. They both have USB though, once SpinRite supports that.
 

Simon Zerafa

Member
Sep 18, 2020
12
21
Personally I'm looking forward when I can attach to USB 3.0 / 3.1 to SATA connectors to virtually any PC with two such ports and recover data from one drive to the other.

Past that I doubt that the choice of CPU, RAM or motherboard will really make that much difference 😉
 

PHolder

Well-known member
Sep 16, 2020
1,095
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Ontario, Canada
Past that I doubt that the choice of ... motherboard will really make that much difference
Well other than Legacy Boot support, I would agree with you. I've been waiting a looong time to be able to really use SpinRite because I have large drives, NVMe drives and/or UEFI only hardware. Eventually SpinRite should handle all these and USB too, in version 7, but if you're buying today to plan for 6.1 then you do have to avoid the newest and greatest hardware without Legacy Boot.
 
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