Sony HAP 1 ES and adding external Hard Drives

"Also, I looked further at the descriptions of the Paragon ExtFS program I cited earlier. Assuming it works as advertised, it looks like it would be an excellent solution, allowing the drive to be removed from the HAP-Z1ES and connected to your computer when and if desired, the data it contains remaining intact, and then used with the computer just like any other drive."

I wasn't aware of that program. An app that lets Windows use ext2, 3, and 4 is something that I would very much like to have. I'll give it a try either today or tomorrow and post back on how it works.

If it doesn't work, another solution would be to just use Linux to access the external HD after the Sony formats it. Going that route would also allow you to recover your external HD and format it back to FAT32 or NTFS so it can be used with Windows again.

" I don't relish the thought of wasting a HD, although I guess it is a relatively small expenditure. Has any one tried adding external HDs to this unit?"

So that won't happen. You can put your HD back like it was before the Sony took over. You'll just have to back up any data you don't want to lose.

Al,

Maybe you can give me some thoughts on how you would proceed on this. I've been using Linux as my main OS for the last couple of years and like it very much. After reading some comments about people using Windows 8 find that it sounds better than Win 7, I became curious and went out and bought a copy of 8.1. To my ears, it really does sound better. (One thing I would like to be very clear on to anyone reading this is that I'm fairly new to computer audio. I don't consider myself qualified in any way to give advice. Why does 8 sound better than 7? I have no clue. I could very well not have 7 set up right.)

Anyway, back to my question. Right now, most of my music is on ext4 partitions, both internal sata and external usb. Would it make sense to go through the trouble of getting Windows working with ext4? The reason I ask is that ext4 is a journaling file system and from what I understand, data is safer from corruption than with file systems that don't journal. I do back everything up, so I would probably be OK with ntfs.

Thanks Al. I didn't know that ntfs was a journaling file system. I'm pretty sure that I read somewhere that it wasn't, but I'm glad I was wrong. As far as Win 8 goes, I hate the interface. I just don't know what MS was thinking. There's a free program called Classic Shell. Using its default settings, it pretty much turns the Win 8 interface into Win 7. It also has a lot of tweaking options so you can mix features of both interfaces. So for me, Win 8 looks just like 7 and after using it for a couple of months now feel Win 8 isn't perfect, but like 7, you can make it work.

As far as Linux goes, I understand. Some users must have certain software. That said, I think if more people become exposed to Linux, it could very well be the future. It's just amazing what's is offered at no cost whatsoever. If you ever give Linux another try, maybe look at a KDE distro like Mint KDE or Kubuntu. Its the most Windows like desktop environment, and I feel, the most powerful.

Thanks again Al for the great info.