New Computer

[HiFiGuy1]

I will only add an alternative to the three HDD backup plan, and that would be a RAID5 array in your main PC and a RAID5 backup system in a NAS drive enclosure. You can relatively inexpensively put together 4TB on the main PC with a 4TB backup in the NAS using six 2TB drives. The RAID5 system allows for a drive failure without losing data on the system. The likelihood of losing two of the three drives at once is very slim, and the likelihood of losing two of the three drives on each of the two machines (main computer and NAS) is almost non-existent. You are probably more likely to be struck by lightning while holding up the winning lottery ticket. Also, the suggestion to use a SSD as your boot drive is excellent. That will make much more difference in the day to day speed of your computer than even a dramatic processor upgrade in most instances.

[Daniel Browning]

a RAID5 backup system in a NAS drive enclosure.

This is a great idea, but only if you have at least two separate, disconnected NAS backups. The reason is that while your primary NAS backup is connected, a simple administration error could easily wipe out both your main data as well as your primary backup. (For example, several times I have copied the backup to the main drive, rather than the other way around).A friend of mine blogged about it recently:http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/database-soup/a-san-is-not-a-highavailability-solution-47644?rss=1


If you have a secondary backup that is not connected ("air gap") then you are protected from yourself. (I would argue that you need at least several miles of distance between backups, too.)



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[Dr Croubie]

I've just ordered my new computer last night, made a few compromises based on what was in stock, no monitor yet.


Just to give you an idea of what I reckon is worthwhile:


.


Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 $165 - Would have gotten the 990XA cheaper but not available yet. 970XA is a cheap deal too, as is Asus M5A97. AM3+ is upgradeable for a few years.


AMD Phenom II x6 1055T $159 - Cheapest x6 available, more cores &gt; more GHz. Other option is cheap 2/3/4x now for half the price and 8-core end of this year.


Corsair CMX 2x2GB 1600C9 $39 - No need for &gt;1600 or C8/C7 speeds, get 8GB only for winbloats machines


Gigabyte GT440 1GB $77 - Could have gotten GT210/420/430/520 cheaper, or a Radeon, but nVidia has always supported linux.


OCZ Vertex 2 60GB SSD $109 - linux only needs 20GB really. Consider 120/240GB+ for winbloats


Seagate 1TB HDD $55 - 7200rpm and 6GB/s link, watch out for slower like 5400 or 3GB/s. 64MB cache is nice but this one only has 32MB. No need for 2/3TB (yet)


Silverstone Strider 500W PSU $69 - Others are cheaper, but I like silverstone. 12cm fans on big side are quiter than 8cm fans on back. Can't reuse old one on new MB, dammit.


Samsung 22x DVDRW $24 - Who needs bluray?


Logitech MK260 wireless KB/mouse $29 - Because my last keyboard went to my parents.


2.5" - 3.5" drive bay adapter $9 - For the ssd, why not.


.


All up, $767 shipped, in Aussie$. Re-using my (very) old (12-13 years) case, but may reconsider later. Stock cooler with the CPU, unless i can re-jig my old home-made watercooler to fit.


.


And I went to get my Dell 27" Ultrasharp monitor last night, it's now $900, so i might hold off and hope it goes back to $800 any time soon. But that's the core of photo editing so i can't wait much more than a week after i've finished compiling and configuring my system...

[Kayaker72]

Dr. Croubie,


Thanks for the post. I am actually sitting at my desk trying to finalize my order. I'll review your order and maybe I'll change my mind on a few things, but as it stands (prices after rebates):

• ASUS M4A88TD-V EV Motherboard ($103)
• AMD Athlon II x4 3.1 GHz ($106)
• WD Caviar Black 2 TB, 7200 rpm, SATA III, 6.0 Gb/s ($150)
• G. Skill Ripjaw x Series 8 GB (yep, windows) DDR3 (1333) ($55)
• OCZ Technology Agility 3 120GB ($190)
• ASUS CD/DVD burner ($20)
• Cooler Master HAF 912 ($45)
• Apevia 500W PSU ($20)
• Window 7 Home Premium ($95)
• Samsung B2430H 24" monitor ($220)

For a grand total of $1004.


Just a few more things I want to check (I logged in to re-read this threadfor the recommendations)and then I'll place the order.


Thanks,


Brant

[Raid]

How about two drives and run a mirror?


Add a second video card so you can run two monitors?


Does your PS have an 80+ rating?


Card Reader?

[Kayaker72]

How about two drives and run a mirror?

Isn't that the RAID configuration? [:P] I looked into this a fair amount and it is on my list of what I wanted. It seems that it is very good protection against drive failure. But, as Daniel pointed out,it wouldn't protect against theft, fire, water, or human error. So, while I would still like to add it, I am up against my budget that I had in mind so I opted to use two external HDDs as my back-ups, which I already own. One of which is kept offsite...it's manual, but should work. To help prevent disk failure to begin with, I went with the Caviar Black, which had the best ratings I could find.

Add a second video card so you can run two monitors?

That is a good thought. I talked to our IT guy at work yesterday and he didn't seem to think I needed two. But your question has me looking into it. Re-reading this thread has me re-evaluating my motherboard (AM3 not AM3+, only up to 16 GB RAM memory, and RAM at 2000, 1333, 1066, not 1600). So I'll look at multiple video cards too. But company came over, so all this will need to sit a couple of days.

Does your PS have an 80+ rating?

Is this "efficiency under maximum load?" If so, it is rated at &gt;70%. I went for a less expensive, very basic looking PS that still had a "4 egg" rating.

Card Reader?

One thing that I already have []


Thanks,


Brant

[Dr Croubie]

yeah, i choose more external backups not plugged in, no amount of extra RAID disks can protect against virus, theft, user error, or cat walking on your keyboard. 1 disk is quieter and less power too.


.


On your motherboard/video card thing. so far you've got a motherboard with builtin graphics and no graphics card. fair enough, but:


- I don't know if you can plug in two monitors, you'll have to check the motherboard manual if you can get one before buying. If you get an nVidia graphics card then you can use 2 of the 3 outputs (per card) at once. The latest Radeon cards with Eyefinity or whatever it's called, you can plug in god knows how many monitors per card, i think displayport daisychains even (but you'll probably need a high-end card)


- motherboard graphics will chew up your system RAM because they don't have their own. 8GB should be more than enough as it is, hurts most on games. How many 21megapixel 16bit TIFFs do you layer on top of each other at once? Even the lowest end card will help a bit if you do.


- motherboard itself, you *might* get away with plugging in the new am3+ CPUs into that board (best research it if you really want to). If not, you can always buy my x6 if/when i go to 8-core


- also, only the AMD 900-series chipset take the AM3+ cpus. but none of them have builtin graphics. so if you go up there, add another $40 for a basic graphics card too.


- with the RAM speed, i keep seeing things that say the lowest-end Athlon-100 series are limited to 1333-speed. i'll update tomorrow (or whenever the package arrives) as to how i get on with a phenom2 and 1600 RAM, i think i'll be fine though.


.


ps, and my PSU is 80% efficient. never heard of the brand you got, but there's a lot more choice in the states i've ever heard of...

[Raid]

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"]<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"]<span style="font-size: small;"]<span style="font-family: Calibri;"]I have used mirrored drives on all but one of my computers I owned (this is not the backup), It&rsquo;s so much easier to replace a drive when it fails than rebuild a system from a backup. I have had Raid systems at home long before a home NAS became the standard, hence the Raid nickname. I currently have three NAS units running at home&hellip; sad I know[:$].<o></o>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"]<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"]<o><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: small;"]</o>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"]<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"]<span style="font-size: small;"]<span style="font-family: Calibri;"]The reason why I suggested a second monitor, is that working on two screens is fantastic, once you have made the jump you will never go back. <o></o>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"]<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"]<o><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: small;"]</o>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"]<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"]<span style="font-size: small;"]<span style="font-family: Calibri;"]The 80+ program introduces about 6 years ago by industry, has highlighted how bad Computer power supplies are. I fact most PC power suppliers are so inefficient at part loads (50% or less) that more than half the power is being consumed by the power supply in heat. The 80 Plus Platinum power supplies are so good that many are now fan-less. <o></o>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"]<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"]<o><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: small;"]</o>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"]<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"]<span style="font-size: small;"]<span style="font-family: Calibri;"]Many years ago had a colleaguealways used 1KW power supplies in his PC&rsquo;s, just to be safe. After a few quick measurements we showed that of his load (500W) 70% was being consumed by the power supply in the form of heat (350W) and only 150W went to the computer. This computer had a number of 5&rdquo; full height drives&hellip; does anybody remember them?<o></o>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"]<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"]<o><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: small;"]</o>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"]<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"]<o>[img]/resized-image.ashx/__size/550x0/__key/CommunityServer-Discussions-Components-Files/24/7652.80Plus.JPG[/img]</o>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"]<span style="mso-fareast-language: EN-AU; mso-no-proof: yes;"]<v:shapetype coordsize="21600,21600" o:spt="75" oreferrelative="t" path="m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe" filled="f" stroked="f" id="_x0000_t75"]<v:stroke joinstyle="miter"]</v:stroke><v:formulas><v:f eqn="if lineDrawn pixelLineWidth 0"]</v:f><v:f eqn="sum @0 1 0"]</v:f><v:f eqn="sum 0 0 @1"]</v:f><v:f eqn="prod @2 1 2"]</v:f><v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelWidth"]</v:f><v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelHeight"]</v:f><v:f eqn="sum @0 0 1"]</v:f><v:f eqn="prod @6 1 2"]</v:f><v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelWidth"]</v:f><v:f eqn="sum @8 21600 0"]</v:f><v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelHeight"]</v:f><v:f eqn="sum @10 21600 0"]</v:f></v:formulas><vath o:extrusionok="f" gradientshapeok="t" o:connecttype="rect"]</vath><o:lock v:ext="edit" aspectratio="t"]</o:lock></v:shapetype><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"]<o></o>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"]<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"]<o><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: small;"]</o>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"]<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"]<span style="font-size: small;"]<span style="font-family: Calibri;"]The link below will give you all the information you need on this standard.<o></o>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"]<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"]<o><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: small;"]</o>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"]<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"]http://www.plugloadsolutions.com/80PlusPowerSupplies.aspx<o></o>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"]<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"]<o><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: small;"]</o>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"]<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"]<o><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: small;"]</o>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"]<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"]<span style="font-size: small;"]<span style="font-family: Calibri;"]As for the Card reader, I thought that your new PC would be USB 3, so it may be time for a big speed increase with a new reader. I have always prefer to use an internal mounted reader (using a drive bay).
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"]<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"]<span style="font-size: small;"]<span style="font-family: Calibri;"]
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"]<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"]<span style="font-size: small;"]<span style="font-family: Calibri;"]Hope this helps.<o></o>

[dsiegel5151]

I agree with Raid. Two monitors is the way to go. I have two monitors on all of my computers, even my laptop dock. It

[Dr Croubie]

Well, my computer is up and running, finally. has been together since last thursday, i