The Official PC building thread -3rd Edition

Just noticed that when I transfer files from one hdd in my system to another the transfer speed is ~33% slower then if I was transferring from another computer (to the same hdd as before). Is this because the controller on one MB has to handle both the "in" and "out" data traffic as a opposed to just "in" or "out"? (forgive me for the non-technical terms).

TIA.

 

I run internal transfers all the time. E.g. WD1001FALS to another WD1001FALS. Or Velociraptor to WD1001FALS. In either case, I generally average between 90,000Kb/s - 106,000Kb/s. If it were Veloci to Veloci, it would probably be slightly quicker. But this was probably the last Raptor i'll buy. SSD is not far from becoming a universal standard. If they could just come down another 50%, even I would make the switch rapidly. In fact, I may have enough "Rainy day" funds saved up for one

 

Yes hopefully by the end of this year or sometime next year I will have a few 500GB SSDs. All my HDDs can stay because they are fine for storage. I want the SSDs for gaming. I think it was mentioned before about gaming from your OS drive. With HDDs you can have issues if your OS starts acting up or eating resources. With SSDs the transfer speed is so fast it would run entirely hitch free. I prefer gaming from the OS drive purely for convenience.

 

Perhaps, but the chart I looked at, it was something like a 5% reduction in write performance for unganged mode, hardly landmark when you consider how variable memory bandwidth can be... I assume there's something else at work that's not evident in the graph.
Maw: Shouldn't be, but it depends on the free space and fragmentation of the drives concerned, as well as CPU activity from other processes during the transfer. It's typical to see as much as 40-50% variation due to conditions like those.
The SSD market has been expanding slightly slower than I had anticipated, and it's taking a while for performance and price to come down properly. Price has come down to acceptable levels (just), and performance has risen to acceptable, but unexemplary levels, but not in the same product yet.
If we can combine the price of the X25-V with the speed of the X25-M, SSDs will really start to take off.
As it stands right now, an 80GB Gen2 has been on my to buy list for a long time, and every time something new is added to that list, the SSD is pushed down a spot. They just aren't that good value yet.

As far as 'hitch free' goes, quite the opposite. Until relatively recently, intel SSDs were the only SSDs that would perform much better than hard disks in a smoothness sense, due to the poor random performance of the original SSDs. Thankfully the SandForce based OCZ Vertex has also joined the crowd.

 

i think ill end up waiting for the gen3 from intel to make my decision.

 

By the time I get round to buying an SSD, I imagine I'll probably be doing the same.

 

so if there is no need for a 650w+ then why does everyone demand or recomend one bigger?

 

We don't. Simply put, the 550W VX is the smallest PSU size you see from most companies that has two PCIe connectors for high end graphics cards. The 650 is often chosen in Corsair's example for peace of mind, quietness and the fact that it doesn't cost a lot less.
If you use a single 6-pin graphics card, however, 400W is really all you need.

 

iicr the hx450w has a 2 pcie cables

 

well maybe im missing something along the lines here. if i remember correct just about everyone here has teh HX620 or above and dang near everyone i know that has built one or had one built has 650w or bigger.

I know from first hand experence a 500w PSU was the cause of my failures when i did my build the first time 2 years ago. bsod,rebooting and such. i got my now 650w psu and have had no issues what so ever. and that same 500w psu is in a less demanding system than mine now and works like a champ.

now im not trying to start a arguement here im just trying to understand why or why not to use a more wattage PSU. if i dont need it thats great i have no problems getting a smaller one, like you said they are alot cheaper. BUT do they make a modular psu in the 450-550 range? ihavent been able to find any that i could feel good about useing and not worring about failures,and blow ups and such.

Shaff
nice 850w PSU you got there..lmao...

EDIT:
looking now at the 450-550w psu's only a few are even 80% effecent.
and only have 6 sata plugins. need atleast 8(4hdd+4odd)

 

as everyone knows i dont have no big gpu so its not like i would need alot in that area.
does anyone know anything about ULTRA pus's?
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicat...?EdpNo=4242584&csid=ITD&body=MAIN#detailspecs

 

haha yes the hx450w is modular, and i bought the 850w because it was half price

well what 500w psu did you have then?

 

Shaff: The HX450W is only available in europe.
Rob: Because you had a bad 500W PSU, that couldn't deliver anywhere near 500W. If it was a good unit, it would have had no trouble, I assure you.
Ultra PSUs are pretty dodgy most of the time, avoid.

As for 8 S-ATA connections, you can use adapters. They're far less risk due to the lower current draw. Or you can of course, just buy a power supply that does come with that number of connectors. It will be more power than you need, but you're effectively paying for the extra connectors, instead of paying for the extra watts. The main reason this is the case is that the oldest S-ATA hard drives used a substantial amount of power when spinning up and a high powered PSU was required to initialise them, even if they didn't use anywhere near that much power when running. Modern drives are no longer like this.

 

That's exactly why I subscribe to threads like this. It's educational LOL! Thank you sam. You learn something new everyday. I suppose that is logical though. CPU's, GPU's, etc. All components successors generally outdo them in every way. Power draw and performance. I imagine blu-ray drives will not suffer from early dvd drive mistakes...

 

Also, for the record, I've not measured the power draw of an optical drive when burning at full speed. I imagine it's quite high. Four of those at once probably use a fair bit of power. Not enough to make 400W inadequate mind, but still enough to send cheap low quality units over the edge I'm sure.

 

it was a coolermaster 500w psu. i dont remember the exact model. but it is running fine right now in another system without any problems.

i thought the same thing about the ultra's

but im at the point now to get a PSU that is modular and has at least 8 sata plugins it has to be 600W or bigger. i havent found any smaller that was worth talking about. maybe im missing the boat here and just not looking at the right stuff???

 

There are plenty of dodgy coolermaster 500W PSUs out there, unfortunately.
As for modular and 8 SATA connectors, that's probably true, 600W sounds about right.

 

If you were to measure the draw, what would you use?

 

Well that's just it, it's not especially easy to properly measure it unless you manually wire the drive through several logging ammeters. The simplest way is to measure your PC's idle consumption, note the increase when a DVD is being recorded, then factor in the efficiency of your PSU at the given load level.