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spec my new PC

syadasti

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
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Well there is the expensive one:
http://www.provantage.com/sonnet-fus-d5p-00tb~7SONT06F.htm

And the cheaper one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817332017

As I mentioned earlier, for the eSATA enclosure you need a minimum of three disks for RAID5. RAID 10 would perform better for writes but would have less capacity. If you buy five drives for the RAID 10 you can only use 4 but could use one remainder as a hotswap for failure.

You can buy 320GB for $75, 500GB for $100, and 750GB for $150 each.

If you are looking for info on which brand drive to buy you can check newegg reviews and troll forums like:

http://forums.storagereview.net/index.php?showforum=2

or

http://www.hardforum.com/forumdisplay.php?f=29
 
syadasti

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
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If you setup 5 500GB discs RAID5 you'll have 1862.64GB

If you setup 4 500GB discs RAID10 you'll have 931.32GB but you'll have better performance than the RAID5 and if you buy a 5th HDD you could have it as a hotswap spare. You could also do the RAID5 with 4 discs and have 1 HDD as hotswap spare and that will give you 1396.98GB.
 
narlus

narlus

Eastcoast Softcore
Staff member
Nov 7, 2001
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velocity is cool. josh, on yr advice re: the AHCI setup, i talked w/ a guy on the phone and they will configure that for me so i don't have to.

:D
 
syadasti

syadasti

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Apr 15, 2002
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Thats cool. On my Intel 975 Badaxe (no its not a nickname I just randomly gave it) it wasn't too hard to do it after the fact.

I had to switch the controller's driver manually to an AHCI driver in Windows, reboot, and switch to AHCI mode in the BIOS. Also installed the Intel matrix manager afterwards.

XP worked fine doing it in that order and Ubuntu 7.1 had no complaints with no changes on my part at all.
 
narlus

narlus

Eastcoast Softcore
Staff member
Nov 7, 2001
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behind the viewfinder
syadasti

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
12,690
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A single HDD is about 50 db idle 60 db seek but with a good enclosure a single drive is usually in the 30s.

RAID arrays are never quiet - 5 drives going at once is going to be noisy. Fans keep things cool and prevent drive failure. I doubt the more expensive sonnet enclosure is that much more quiet, but you can check.
 
syadasti

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
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Keep it in a well ventilated area unless its cool year round (basement?)

eSATA cables aren't available in large sizes - I think 2m max?
 
syadasti

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
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narlus said:
new version of Lightroom is 64 bit.

:monkeydance:
Click to expand...
Yeah you hit the jackpot with your platform and OS choice. A mac would have been overpriced and epic fail for you unless you dual booted or waited years for CS5 by which your equipment would be obsolete yet again :cheers:

macrumors said:
Adobe's John Nack writes about the future plans for Adobe Photoshop CS4 and CS5, revealing that Adobe Photoshop CS4 will include 64-Bit support, but for Windows only. The Mac version of CS4 will remain at 32-Bit. The reason for the discrepancy, however, is not due to a lack of interest or support from Adobe, but for more practical reasons.

First off, Nack admits that the 64-bit version of Photoshop will see modest speed increases (8-12%) but the biggest advantage will be for those using massive images (a 3.375 gigapixel image is given as an example). With these massive sizes and with enough RAM (32GB given as example), you can see substantial (10x) improvements.

Adobe expects that Mac users will have to wait until CS5 before getting full 64-bit support. The reason for this delay is due to Apple's abrupt dropping of Carbon 64-bit support:

At the WWDC show last June, however, Adobe & other developers learned that Apple had decided to stop their Carbon 64 efforts. This means that 64-bit Mac apps need to be written to use Cocoa (as Lightroom is) instead of Carbon. This means that we'll need to rewrite large parts of Photoshop and its plug-ins (potentially affecting over a million lines of code) to move it from Carbon to Cocoa.

Nack reports that they started working on the transition immediately after the announcement but due to the scope of the transition are unable to deliver it by CS4. He also tries to dispel the notion that Cocoa alone will produce a higher quality product than Carbon:

Most Mac users don't know Cocoa from Ovaltine, and nor should they: it's just an implementation detail, not a measure of quality. I think Brent Simmons, creator of wonderful Cocoa apps like NetNewsWire, put it most elegantly: "Finder + Cocoa = Finder." That is, rewriting one's app in Cocoa doesn't somehow automatically improve its speed, usability, or feature set.
Click to expand...
 
bullcrew

bullcrew

3 Dude Approved
Dec 8, 2004
9,452
3,177
I'm dude playing dude pretending to b another dude
Lian li 1000B case
Q6600 (OC to 3.6 24/7) lapped and as5
Coolit freezone elite lapped as well on CPU sink
4 gbs ram (xp 3gb switch on)
2 Raptor 150gb HDs raid 0
PC P&C silencer quad 750 PSU
8800 GTS
Zalmann digital fan/temp controller
Abit IP 35 pro board
+ more and some LEDS (got bored so I blinged + customers think its cool)



 
JustMtnB44

JustMtnB44

Monkey
Sep 13, 2006
855
123
Pittsburgh, PA
bullcrew said:
Lian li 1000B case
Q6600 (OC to 3.6 24/7) lapped and as5
Coolit freezone elite lapped as well on CPU sink
4 gbs ram (xp 3gb switch on)
2 Raptor 150gb HDs raid 0
PC P&C silencer quad 750 PSU
8800 GTS
Zalmann digital fan/temp controller
Abit IP 35 pro board
+ more and some LEDS (got bored so I blinged + customers think its cool)
Click to expand...
How do you like the Abit IP 35 pro mobo and the build so far? I am planning on some similar parts in my new build.

This is the plan for my new build:
Abit IP 35 pro mobo
E8400, probably OC'd to 3.6 ish
AC Freezer 7 Pro cooler
OCZ 4 gb ram
8800GTS 512mb
WD 500gb AAKS hdd
Corsair 620HX psu
Samsung DVD burner
Antec P182 case w/3 120mm fans
 
bullcrew

bullcrew

3 Dude Approved
Dec 8, 2004
9,452
3,177
I'm dude playing dude pretending to b another dude
Love it, its stupid fast in all apps I use it as well as it rips to the printers quick. I took it a little beyond just graphics and wide format printing but happy as ever.
The coolit freezone is an awesome unit I beta tested the elite before its release and its been flawless, good reviews (better than the competition) in terms of cooling and consistency at higher OC's.
I had my Q6600 running prime 95 all 4 cores at 3.87ghz 45 minutes in and the temp hit 73 celsius, then the mem choked 4;4;4;15 I had to slack it up a bit and play with the voltages a little bit.
Abit boards have a v-droop issue (easy to fix, not pencil mod easy but still not bad) aside of that it rocks. I slaughtered alot of stuff out there in benchmark programs as well as has 1 of the fastest 8800 gts 320mbs out there. Single card, Air cooled, approved drivers 13882 in 3dmark06
 
syadasti

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
12,690
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VT
Yeah you can but the one integrated into the motherboard probably doesn't have decent performance but I'm pretty sure it supports port multiplier which is all you need (though some controllers in these enclosures are pretty pick on what you pair them with). You'll probably need something like this if you want speed with the RAID array (RAID5 for security and value or RAID10 for security and performance):

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115036
 
SkaredShtles

SkaredShtles

Michael Bolton
Sep 21, 2003
67,785
14,144
In a van.... down by the river
narlus said:
ok, i've still not figured out my external RAID setup...and i need to.

i was confused a bit about some of what was said here:
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=525202


can i not use the external drives via eSATA in a RAID configuration?
Click to expand...
WTF is this guy on about?

Also when building a RAID make sure you buy a extra drive of the same make, as you don't want different drives in your array as spindle vibrations from different drives (or even firmware) can have a detrimental effect on the lifespan of the drives.

Are these guys camera guys or computer guys? :think:
 
syadasti

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
12,690
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If you haven't found anything yet, I would call these guys for advice:

http://www.pc-pitstop.com

They sell a ton of enclosures, many with port multiplier support:

http://www.pc-pitstop.com/sata_port_multipliers/

Though newegg.com sells the Rocketraid 2314 card for cheaper and this enclosure (mentioned earlier in the thread) is a pretty good deal:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817332017

That would probably be the best bang for buck setup.

Also like SS said buy all the same drives with the same firmware. RAID5 requires at least 3 drives and RAID10 requires 4 drives.
 
narlus

narlus

Eastcoast Softcore
Staff member
Nov 7, 2001
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behind the viewfinder
syadasti said:
Also like SS said buy all the same drives with the same firmware. RAID5 requires at least 3 drives and RAID10 requires 4 drives.
Click to expand...
from wiki:

Some RAID vendors will avoid placing disks from the same manufacturing lot in a redundancy group to minimize the odds of simultaneous early life and end of life failures as evidenced by the Bathtub curve.
Click to expand...

so it sounds like i'm best off either running RAID 1 or RAID 5. i was not thinking i'd need a RAID controller card since the MoBo has an eSATA output; is that bad thinking?

i'd rather not have any complicated setup crap either. is what i am asking impossible?
 
syadasti

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
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narlus said:
i was not thinking i'd need a RAID controller card since the MoBo has an eSATA output; is that bad thinking?
Click to expand...
Well it depends on if the controller in your enclosure controller plays nice with the Intel controller on your motherboard. Untested combos are a data security risk.

The card that comes with the $230 setup will work but RAID5 performance might be slow.
 
syadasti

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
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narlus said:
what's the benefit of the NAS option? do i still get redundancy in case of HDD failure?
Click to expand...
Its basically an appliance running a stripped down OS to act as file server or other network based storage application. Its much slower than eSATA but easier to share. NAS come in RAID and non-RAID versions so they may be redundant
 
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Transcend

Transcend

My Nuts Are Flat
Apr 18, 2002
18,040
3
Towing the party line.
I just picked up a QNAP TS 209 Pro II NAS server to add on over here. 2 x 1tb hdds. You can do raid 0, raid 1 or JBOD. Gigabit ethernet, 3 x USB ports (printer server or expansion or hub), small, quiet. Includes a built in server for just about everything, but I have FTP and UPNP media server running. It's fantastic for streaming EVERYTHING to my xbox and plasma.

http://www.qnap.com/pro_detail_feature.asp?p_id=93

I'm running JBOd as I have my qnap backup to another array with different model disks. Less chance of failure if one appliances get dropped, zapped, stolen etc.
 
syadasti

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
12,690
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VT
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Transcend

Transcend

My Nuts Are Flat
Apr 18, 2002
18,040
3
Towing the party line.
The drobo is a slow piece of crap. And expensive once you add the NAS option. It also relies HEAVILY on the processor in your computer, it is not self contained hardware RAID.
 
syadasti

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
12,690
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VT
Transcend said:
The drobo is a slow piece of crap. And expensive once you add the NAS option. It also relies HEAVILY on the processor in your computer, it is not self contained hardware RAID.
Click to expand...
The new one is faster. If tim doesn't want something more complex you have to make some compromises. Beside that he has a quad core and very little makes use of all those cores yet. eSATA is way faster than NAS too.

He has to figure out what his priorities are - speed/performance, failover, accessibility, cost, etc...
 
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syadasti

syadasti

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Apr 15, 2002
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Much of the same can be said about Apple's products so what is your point:banana:

People see value in ease of use or perceived/over-hyped ease of use and the drobo is an acceptable entry level solution.

The cheapest (AMS) and otherwise (Sonnet) high performance entry level RAID eSATA solutions were mentioned on the first page of this thread and also here
 
Transcend

Transcend

My Nuts Are Flat
Apr 18, 2002
18,040
3
Towing the party line.
syadasti said:
People see value in ease of use or perceived/over-hyped ease of use and the drobo is an acceptable entry level solution.

The cheapest (AMS) and otherwise (Sonnet) high performance entry level RAID eSATA solutions were mentioned on the first page of this thread and also here
Click to expand...
It isn't entry level from a price standpoint. It is expensive. It doesn't do real raid, nor do it do NAS out of the box. It's an overpriced product that does NOTHING exceptionally.

The QNAP mentioned does everything the drobo does + about a zillion other things, for less money. It is true hardware raid to boot. The only thing is cannot do that a drobo can is connect directly via FW, which from a speed standpoint doesn't matter in this comparison as the drobo is so bloody slow.

Drobo just needs to go away.
 
syadasti

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
12,690
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Sounds fair. I never said it was cheap or high performance.

QNAP is a better value. For $100 more than the drobo you get 4 drive QNAP setup with NAS.

If he doesn't have anything else I think it would be best to do RAID 5 at least.

You could do a RAID 5 NAS setup with 3 drives and buy a drive + Antec MX-1 eSATA/USB2 setup for high bandwidth on the go usage and maybe a extra drive as a spare for either = total would be about $1100 if you buy the QNAP 409 Pro + Antex MX1 + 5 640GB HDDs.

The Antec works with most desktop in eSATA mode if you crack open the case of the desktop computer you are using and plug in the eSATA adapter bracket into a spare SATA port on the motherboard - I've done that before for HDD upgrades. If you need to get data off notebooks at internal drive speeds, eSATA cards aren't too expensive.
 
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