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In response to my announcement that my DAW went “caput” I was expecting that people would bombard me with advise do not do PC anymore and try Mac. I was kind of semi-ready for it but… not one bombarded me. In fact a few Mac people I know were not available but I need to have my DAW back to operation sooner than 2 weeks vocation.

So, I desired to do with what I know PC only this time I would like to have my quiet DAW sitting right next to the rest of my equipment.  So, the hard drives with days would go to the external network arrays and the little PC will have only system drive and recording drives.

I was looking at many small and compact towers and was not too impressed. They do not host the sophisticated motherboards; they do not have a lot of option for bay expansion (my Links card) , they have strange cooling patters. Of course here are SOME mini PCs that have all of it and they are VERY promising but they come with over $1K price tag. Also, I have difficulties to agree with anything that I can touch and feel. I of cause do not mind to pay $1K or more for DAW but I need to be sure that it will be what I want but not another temporary solution.

Anyhow, looking thought the options I come across to a very interesting option: IBM ThinkCentre M57P machine. I always was a big fan of IBM machines and here was something that I found promising. The M57P machine is compact box, the size of a half VCR, if you ember them (SFF version,  IBL call them Small Form Factor: 3.9 x 12.5 x 13.4). It has old 2.33 GHz processor that does not do the crazy duo and quarto threading – something that I do not need for DAW and in fact would like does not have. It will run Windows XP – I am a bit afraid to for 64bit OC and it has 4G memory – enough for XP. It has shitty video and sound cards – perfect for what I need. It has a room for 2 hard drives: perfect – perfect OS and one Recording. It has one PCI slot and one E- PCI slots: perfect for Links and perks one USB extra controller. It has 6 USB, one eSATA and the rest standard things…. Oh, yes, and it is BLACK – the way how it MUST be. I like how it compacted and I it has one single fan, that can be dealt with. It has external PS (something that I LOVE to have for DAW) and it takes 45W to operate. Hey, I can get this box for $200 – can you beat it?

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/pdf/Lenovo_M57p_Datasheet.pdf

I played this morning with on my client side and I very much like it. So I will go for it. I do not know what will be sonic result from it but I do have very good feeling. As long it will take my Links card and be able to access my driver array it will be fine. I am bit concerns about noise but in the worst case I can put the fan assembly in basemen and run a culling pipe to my DAW…

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