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The Official PC building thread - 4th Edition

Discussion in 'Building a new PC' started by ddp, Sep 13, 2010.

Page 48 of 399
  1. omegaman7

    omegaman7 Senior member

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    Yah, you're right. Given how rare they are, and not a whole lot of demand, I suppose they are appropriately priced. Can't wait to have a few laying around LOL!

    Creaky, You think software Raid 1 is ok? I imagine Raid 0 would be risky, but Raid 1 should be full proof. Do you setup such configurations?
     
    omegaman7, Jan 5, 2011
    #941
  2. creaky

    creaky Moderator Staff Member

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    Only at work, and not for a few years now (even then it was only on medium to huge Unix systems, not on PC's). The only software RAID i used was (again Unix) Veritas Volume Manager/Filesystem, but apart from the software being brilliant, the underlying hardware arrays (hundreds of discs across many disk arrays & controllers - scsi/fibre channel etc) were correctly setup for hardware redundancy. I can't think of any other software RAID but even so, on lowly PC technology i don't think it would be much good. As i often say, RAID at home is something i've never had an interest in, too much like bringing my work home, far too long for rebuilds/resyncs and i personally find it much easier to keep manual backups of everything, it's hardly any extra work/hassle over and above having just a single drive with no protection.
    Haven't had to do much RAID in the new job yet, we have a single main server at each of our branches with RAID but being main servers they're up 24/7 so don't need to mess much, we do have many linux servers with RAID but they're (like the main servers) just RAIDed on the boot disks, and once built, again there isn't much need to mess with them. We tend to often build new linux servers for disk staging and the like, ie copying silly amounts of data from foreign branches (using 'rsync') so we have local copies of most foreign branch data, some rsync's have been running for a few months, incrementally backing up data (i wrote loads of scripts to automate it all, which also kill the rsyncs when each working day starts, though i do also have some rsyncs that run locally between servers to recopy some of that same data to other servers, and again these are auto-killed at close of play so as not to clash with the overnight rsyncs). A tad confusing sometimes but my point is that this way we have more ingenious ways of protecting data than maintaining more RAID than is necessary. We're currently testing a new (tape, LTO3) backup server to replace the old one, though our main, critical backups run to 2TB hard drives, tape backups are a secondary form of backup
     
    Last edited: Jan 5, 2011
    creaky, Jan 5, 2011
    #942
  3. omegaman7

    omegaman7 Senior member

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    Well...If I do it manually, I run the risk of forgetting something LOL!!!
     
    omegaman7, Jan 5, 2011
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  4. creaky

    creaky Moderator Staff Member

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    I've edited my previous reply to flesh out my thinking a little.

    Nothing to forget really. Here's roughly how i do my own backups -

    Internal drives ~
    1) 500GB - boot disk and various other data to use up the 500GB better, 'file server' stuff etc
    2) 500GB - MP3's
    3) 2TB - AVI's
    4) 2TB - AVI's
    5) 2TB - Documentaries & Concerts
    6) 2TB - TV shows/Kids shows (cartoon shows etc)

    (the 2 500GB's eventually need replacing with 2TB drives and i can then move Concerts onto the MP3 drive, stuff like that). The drives are all filling nicely but hopefully i'll not have to replace any 2TB drives with anything larger, i can't be doing with any other upgrades after these drives are all at 2TB.

    Anyways, i have a cheapy SATA dock, whenever i make changes, ie new AVI's, TV shows or whatnot (or of course, delete stuff), i just pop the relevant external backup drive into the SATA dock, make the same changes and it's done. For adding new stuff (as opposed to deleting, which is done manually) i use robocopy with certain command line switches, all i have to do is fire up a dos box, paste the relevant robocopy command into the dos box (as i always forget the switches) and let it run. This way, even if i don't bother updating the external drive every time i make changes to internal drives, robocopy will transparently cater for what i've forgotten on a subsequent robocopy pass.
    It's dead easy and not time consuming at all. Apart from not wasting hours of my life arsing about with RAID rebuilds i have an up to date external drive always available to recopy in full if wanted or needed, for that i use the dual SATA dock at work, it's £55 or so so a bit steep to buy my own when it'd rarely ever get used (we use it quite a bit at work though as we're often rebuilding user pc's)
     
    Last edited: Jan 5, 2011
    creaky, Jan 5, 2011
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  5. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    No, RAID1 would be worse than what I have, as it offers the same level of redundancy [data lost if a matched pair fails] but with all the issues and hassles of using RAID.
    I simply have two sets of hard disks, one in my server, and one sitting outside in various places that I use with an external enclosure.
    This way, I'm protected from single, and also multiple disk failures, assuming the drive's counterpart outside the case doesn't fail simultaneously (different sizes/models/brands/ages etc, this is very unlikely), and more importantly, I'm protected from environment failures, such as the case being dropped, a PSU failure or power surge, and stuff like that.
    Having 22 hard disks in any shape or form is cumbersome, but for not having to deal with all the terribleness of RAID, it's well worth it in my opinion, easier to set up [I had everything up and running within 4 days of the new drives arriving] and actually cheaper.
     
    sammorris, Jan 5, 2011
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  6. omegaman7

    omegaman7 Senior member

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    Ok. I definitely need a friggin sata dock :p I see the risk in having all eggs in one basket. I guess I trust Corsair PSU's quite a bit. But perhaps I shouldn't trust any company soo much. That would be foolish. And I'm dealing with a LOT of data here. And you guys deal with even more LOL! I'm definitely getting sick of looking at soo many optical disks ;)
     
    omegaman7, Jan 5, 2011
    #946
  7. shaffaaf

    shaffaaf Regular member

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    so guys, what's the general consensus on sndybridge? Go for it with its near 5GHz on air OCing, or wait for bulldozer?
     
    shaffaaf, Jan 5, 2011
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  8. omegaman7

    omegaman7 Senior member

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    I'd like to see some pricing, and -->encoding<-- comparisons. But myself it'll probably be Bulldozer. AMD generally seems to hit the pricing just right. Time will tell of course.
     
    omegaman7, Jan 5, 2011
    #948
  9. Estuansis

    Estuansis Active member

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    Will more than likely be jumping on the Bulldozer bandwagon as well. Like Omega said price is as important as performance and AMD have the pricing game down pat. Of course we're all waiting to see benchmarks before making a decision, but my confidence is high.

    Will probably be sitting on my current hardware for a while until a good deal comes my way. Have a few "extended budget" enthusiast friends so brand new(less than a month old) second-hand parts are never far away. My 955BE was purchased from Newegg about 3 weeks before I ever got my hands on it. The guy overclocked it, benchmarked it, then promptly replaced it with a 1090T. Sort of curious to see if that comes my way now :p
     
    Estuansis, Jan 5, 2011
    #949
  10. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    double post due to connectivity issue with aD
     
    Last edited: Jan 5, 2011
    sammorris, Jan 5, 2011
    #950
  11. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    Well it's not just the PSU, I'm reasonably confident in the Nexus unit in my server, but it's all sorts of other concerns, the server could get damaged in transit somewhere, or heaven forbid it could even get stolen, so RAID I see as a very mediocre way of keeping redundancy. It's worth pointing out that no business relies on RAID alone, they have physical redundancy like I do as well, RAID is just a means to shorten downtime if a failure occurs.

    Shaff: Sandy Bridge is worth an upgrade from a Core 2 or Phenom II, but from an i5/i7, it's a total waste. It's roughly 10% faster per clock, but the clock speeds are higher. You also need a K-type CPU to overclock as bus-based overclocking is disabled, you can only do it through multiplier increases. However, K-type CPUs aren't any more expensive.
    My interpretation of it is like Yorkfield (Q9) vs Kentsfield (Q6) but versus Lynnfield/Bloomfield (LGA1156/1366) instead. It's more efficient, it's a bit faster, it's a bit more powerful, but it's nothing revolutionary.

    Only difference though is of course it's on a new socket. I still think this is a good thing.
     
    sammorris, Jan 5, 2011
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  12. shaffaaf

    shaffaaf Regular member

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    mmm i agree sam. That and it oc's like a beast being on 32nm. How much at like 4.7 ghz am i looking vs 3.4 on my Q6, in performance? Enough to warrant a change. I also really want 8GB of ram.
     
    shaffaaf, Jan 5, 2011
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  13. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    Rough Comparative Performance

    Q6600 @ 2.4Ghz: 100
    Q9550 @ 2.833Ghz: 135
    X4 955 @ 3.2Ghz: 135
    i5 750 @ 2.66Ghz: 150
    X4 955 @ 3.8Ghz: 160
    Q9550 @ 4.0Ghz: 190
    i5 2500K @ 3.3Ghz: 205
    i5 750 @ 4.1Ghz: 230
    i5 2500K @ 4.7Ghz: 290

    As for 8GB of RAM, easy. 2x4GB 1600mhz DDR3 from Corsair is only £80 now. Ridiculously cheap.
     
    sammorris, Jan 5, 2011
    #953
  14. FredBun

    FredBun Active member

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    Guys I need a little help here please.
    I need a new external drive, 1TB would suffice, sturdy relaible, I understand there are USB, Esata hookups, some that power up with USB only and some that you need the power adapter or both, I hear the ones with the power adapter are better and faster, but my concern is if traveling e.g. to the UK than I would be required to use my U.S. power adapter with a transformer, don't trust those damn things as I burned out my electric shaver doing so over there, are there one's out there that can power up using either the power cable or USB only if desired, not my greatest concern but would be nice if available since my traveling is few and far between.

    Most important for my home use, which would be the best out there. Thanks.
     
    FredBun, Jan 5, 2011
    #954
  15. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    The only drives that power over USB are 2.5" laptop-based drives, and not all of them either. They're pretty slow so you usually don't want them unless you can't use a power adapter. However, if you're not after high speed, then they're absolutely fine. You'll need to research which ones use only USB though (some will work, but require two USB connections)
     
    sammorris, Jan 5, 2011
    #955
  16. Red_Maw

    Red_Maw Regular member

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    2600K is 280US right now.

    My next purchase will probably be a sata dock so I start storing my backup drives offsite rather than have all of them in one case. Only real downside is that backups will be less frequent.
     
    Red_Maw, Jan 5, 2011
    #956
  17. FredBun

    FredBun Active member

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    OK, forget what I said about USB only, throw some ideas at me on the best externals period, to much to dabble about the other idea, need a good one for the home, if I do overseas again I'll get one of those little externals that can almost fit in a shirt pocket, right now I'll consentrate good solid one for the home, so ideas please.
     
    FredBun, Jan 5, 2011
    #957
  18. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    I'd recommend the externals I use but they don't sell them in the US, sorry.
     
    sammorris, Jan 7, 2011
    #958
  19. creaky

    creaky Moderator Staff Member

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    I swear by an 80GB laptop drive in a cheapy caddy, however the 3 or so identical caddies i bought since (and the various other different caddies i bought previously) would corrupt files. The caddies would copy/paste files fine under windows, but often times movies would skip/crash during playback. I proved the file corruption by comparing the files under linux, subtle differences would show up (hence the playback corruption), which windows isn't clever enough to detect (windows would claim that the files were identical). So know i only use the 80GB caddy, the many other caddies got binned and i won't buy any others.

    The only other laptop drive i use in a caddy is a WD Passport SE drive, a 1TB model. Nice and everything but it has a tendency to go offline and complain about lost files quite often, where you get the yellow triangular danger icon pop up in the taskbar and display "lost files $MFT" or similar. I just use it for a few files at a time, that way it doesn't error out. Seems it only errors out when large amounts of files (regardless of size) are attempted to be copied at once.
    This is why i don't trust 'pre-built' external drives and buy my own parts, however as i say, it's all about finding a decent caddy. 3.5" drives is easier, the chipsets tend to be better in all the types i've used thus far.
     
    Last edited: Jan 7, 2011
    creaky, Jan 7, 2011
    #959
  20. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    Agreed, USB enclosures are pretty terrible most of the time because you're paying £20 for about 50p's worth of electronics. That said, I've had better luck with IcyBox enclosures than others, which sadly seem exclusive to europe. They don't always last that long, but when they're working you usually don't get any problems, more than can be said for the cheap ones I've had from the likes of Dynamode.
     
    sammorris, Jan 7, 2011
    #960
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