Will I kill the hard drive with all of the vibrations/potholes? Back to doing what I love best and that is truck driving. In addition would I be able to tether my Verizon Thunderbolt to it for some 4G action? Thank you in advance for some advice so I can get back to making some videos from the truck/my home.

Nope, probably not - you could mount the HDD with rubber bungs of some sort... lots of in-dash nav/AV systems here us HDD. Mine has a SDD though cos I can't speak to reliability

I don't know if you mean a tower or a laptop. I assume laptop because of the decreased power usage which would make a big difference in a truck. I would guess it would be best to set it on a cushion of some sort but without obstructing the airflow.

Tower actually. I have power a inverter to handle the load. I would love a new laptop but will have to figure something in the meantime. Can you still park a hard drive?

SSD
solid state drive!!
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-det...

Very low tech but I would probably lay it in the passenger's seat making sure there was good airflow. Might even buckle it in. I would guess it is the big bumps and sudden stops like falling off the seat or whatever to the floor that are most likely to kill it.

I also guess if you could afford a solid state drive you could get a laptop, but if you have a good inverter then that is probably all you need.

I also recently paid for an online backup service called carbonite. Biggest issues for you is they don't automaticly backup video or music, and ofcourse bandwidth. My computer was acting funny before the backup and crashed about 2 weeks ago. Still working on it but I think the hard drive is shot. It was our everything computer. Fortuantely I have an old freebe laptop I rehabed and it is doing ok.

Good info guys and thank you. Thinking of hog tying it to the bed while traveling.

Can you swap out the internal HDD with a solid state drive? That's the ticket if it's possible.

yes, easy swap ,but they have lower GIGS for the money. 300 Gb would cost 700-1000 dollars!!

Here is a sweet bare bones system for building a PC for your car.

These are real slick. Use a SSD to boot the OS. Save your files to a portable USB drive..... easy to carry.... very durable.... also doubles as an awesome MP3/iTunes player and movie player for those long trips......

Car PC

You can also port this into your audio amplifier if your vehicle is so equipped and pump the sound through your car stereo.......

These are made to wire into your 12v vehicle power system while still protecting the PC components...... sweet.... no power inverters needed.....

Not sure what your budget is, but for piece of mind, I would seriously consider a SSD drive for your primary hard drive (operating system and apps) and a physical drive that can be powered down and parked, when not in use for video storage. Hopefully you won't be driving while video-editing (if so :o , please give me a heads up when you are in my neck of the woods. ).

If this rig will be used to continue to produce videos, consider approaching some of your sponsors to help defray some of the costs.

SSD drives have come down a bit and it's possible to get a decent one in the $1-1.50/GB range.

ATB,
Sam

Todd are you running a standard rout or are you on a run to run basis? If you are ever coming north east I'd be happy to meet up and buy you lunch or dinner.
Sorry no pc advise, but I daught you expected any from me:frog:

Todd,

Don't worry about the hard drive and bumps when off... I would worry about the weight of some other internal components like the cpu heatsink and if you have a video card installed.

Make sure it is laying down on the side to your right. (the side that does not come off on most cases) That will take the strain off the mainboard cause you don't want a 2lb heatsink to fall off over bumps.

Ron

Quote:

Originally posted by rocfighter Todd are you running a standard rout or are you on a run to run basis? If you are ever coming north east I'd be happy to meet up and buy you lunch or dinner. Sorry no pc advise, but I daught you expected any from me:frog:

Thank you Dave sounds like a plan!


And thanks to the rest of you for the help.

Todd,

As Ron said if it is off while driving and on its side you will be fine. Most HDD's will withstand almost 2G's now and they no longer park the drives
Your monitor should be your highest concern as it is most susceptible to temp change and damage due to bump and being unstable. It will be tough for you to go to a laptop under 1800.00 as the RAM and Processor speed you need for Sony is so demanding! But I'm sure you already know that.. SSD is not the way to go when needing so much space for all of your movies. Do you still have the terastation? if so that will help on space but they are still normal HDD's : sounds like you are between a rock and a hard drive place lol yea a little nerd humor

If you have the $$ you should get a battery backup to go between your inverter and the computer as it fluctuates in power and could damage your power supply. It is not like a laptop that has its own power cleaner built in. Just A Thought


Chad

I would be less concerned with the shock/vibrations, most newer hard drives are built to withstand a fair amount. I would on the other hand be concerned about condensation forming on the inside of the case, especially since its cold, and if you plan on leaving it there over night or anything, it may be an issue. Something you may want to consider.

Thank you Chad for that info... Miss you Brother and I'm sorry.
@ Sam. I'm already on the sponsorship stuff
@Distort. Good though about the cold... Do they still make electric blankets?



The computer is aboard and hopefully I'll have time to hook it all up but for now I'm trucking it to get to Pittsburgh by the AM.

Thanks again for all of the great info.

Up and running finally... thank you all for the suggestions and goodnight.