Author Topic: I give up. Buying a prebuilt System. (Read 1049 times)

FOGOLD · « **Reply #15 on:** March 25, 2005, 07:47:32 AM »

I have an OEM machine for work purposes.

It's a Fujitsu Siemens Scenic from a friend who has a computer business and I have to say it's a very well designed proprietory case and cooling system. Very nice hard drive rails and designed to be worked on by IT people. Not for games to be sure, but I think for work stuff its ok to go OEM for warranty and stability etc.

I did actually slip a 9600XT into it for some multiplayer. Have to be careful tho. PSU's not that big.

Only thing that made me roll my eyes was the discovery that they used PC 2700 in it for a 800 FSB machine. Cheapskates! For work it makes squat difference, but still...

FOGOLD · « **Reply #16 on:** March 25, 2005, 07:49:43 AM »

Said friend has no interest in gaming and wouldn't know a 9600XT from a Voodoo 3.

I tell him it's my second childhood/midlife crisis thing.

He's a networking wizz though.

Siaf__csf · « **Reply #17 on:** March 25, 2005, 08:09:37 AM »

Skywolf the prob with Raid 0 is that you cut your hd reliability to half. Either one of the hd's get busted and you lose the whole stripe.

Ah the agony when I tried to salvage the data from the half stripe with a salvage software. It saw the folders and files, listings just fine but everything corrupted.

Some new Intel mobos have a built in system that lets you use 2 harddrives in mixed mode - Part raid 0 and part raid 1. That way you could keep everything really important in the raid 1 part and games etc. which you can reinstall at will in the faster raid 0 part.

Raid 0 = other hd dies and you lose all data.
Raid 1 = data is saved on both disks fully, so you keep the data if other one dies. Double reliability, no performance gain compared to 1 disk.

JB73 · « **Reply #18 on:** March 25, 2005, 08:27:17 AM »

well, theoritically in raid 1 it can read faster because of getting the info from 2 places, but then writing is slower.

raid 5 is where the real benefits come in, striped with parity.

i have't seen a MB with native hardware raid 5 yet, but im sure they will come along

humble · « **Reply #19 on:** March 25, 2005, 09:25:38 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by Pongo
THey should put up the humble approved logo.
Does seem like a bit more reasonable site then Alien or GamePC though.

Hehe....

Still alot of mark up...but not the 100%+ the others seem to keep.

humble · « **Reply #20 on:** March 25, 2005, 09:31:25 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by Siaf__csf
Skywolf the prob with Raid 0 is that you cut your hd reliability to half. Either one of the hd's get busted and you lose the whole stripe.

Ah the agony when I tried to salvage the data from the half stripe with a salvage software. It saw the folders and files, listings just fine but everything corrupted.

Some new Intel mobos have a built in system that lets you use 2 harddrives in mixed mode - Part raid 0 and part raid 1. That way you could keep everything really important in the raid 1 part and games etc. which you can reinstall at will in the faster raid 0 part.

Raid 0 = other hd dies and you lose all data.
Raid 1 = data is saved on both disks fully, so you keep the data if other one dies. Double reliability, no performance gain compared to 1 disk.

When you run striping you should run a seperate HD as a backup. My two work servers are IBM netfinities and I know they run 3 set up to stripe. But if one fails you can hot swap it and it will rebuild off the other two while the system is still up...only time I ever ran a striped system at home I just put a 3rd drive in and set a system backup to it for 3am every day...

SkyWolf · « **Reply #21 on:** March 25, 2005, 10:02:23 AM »

Quote

When you run striping you should run a seperate HD as a backup. My two work servers are IBM netfinities and I know they run 3 set up to stripe. But if one fails you can hot swap it and it will rebuild off the other two while the system is still up...only time I ever ran a striped system at home I just put a 3rd drive in and set a system backup to it for 3am every day...

Thanks Humble.. I'll look into that too. Sometimes is very trying to be a dumboscar.

Woof

JB73 · « **Reply #22 on:** March 25, 2005, 10:39:03 AM »

running 2 drives in a stripe, to have a 3rd as a backup, it has to be the full size of the array.

ie:

2 20gb in raid 0, = 40gb, that 3rd backup drive would have to be a 40gb drive.....

if it is in a server i wouls assume it is a raid 5 with 3 drives.

thats what you seem to be explaining humble, if 1 drive fails it can be hot swapped, and the array rebuilt using the parity stripe.

at least thats the way i was taught...

i was always told raid 0 and another (4 maybe?) if one drive fails it can not be saved unless a backup of the full volume was available somewhere else (which kind of negates the usefulness of a raid array)

humble · « **Reply #23 on:** March 25, 2005, 11:38:42 AM »

Yup JB.....tis a raid 5 array...

humble · « **Reply #24 on:** March 25, 2005, 11:40:45 AM »

My understanding of striping is its a speed not backup technique....

No clue why anyone would use it otherwise...I was using two 40 gigs and happend to have a 160 gig lying around that I used as a backup.

JB73 · « **Reply #25 on:** March 25, 2005, 12:00:20 PM »

yeah, striping just for speed, but IIRC once the "fast" servers started having drive failures, the came up with the different recoverable ones....

i know one uses 2+ drives striped, and a last for parity. if one of the striped fails you can recover from the parity, but if the parity goes you hosed. you only have to back up the parity disk though, so it saves backup space. i think thats raid 3.

i forgot what 2 and 4 are but i think it's something like 2 spans the disks, and 4 is spanned with parity or something.

5 is the schizznit though, if you can get it.

Spitter · « **Reply #26 on:** March 25, 2005, 01:02:29 PM »

Also, call around your local shops and find out if they will build a custom system.

I just bought a new system last week. I specced it out myself, since I was originally intending to build it myself. Just for grins, I emailed the specs to a local computer shop who will custom build systems.

Quote

1 Black Mid Tower Case SN:2005031801
1 450W Power Supply
1 AMD Athlon 64 3200+ SN:1194027B50585
1 Asus S939 Nforce4 PCI-Ex R 1 GE SN: 51ZG041789
2 512 MEG DDR 400 PC3200 Memory SN:1823880, 1823886
1 Western Digital 200 Gig SATA Hard Drive, 8MB, 7200 RPM
SN:WCAL81593971
1 Samsung CD-RW SN:M2946GBY107079
1 Samsung DVD ROM SN:L7976RFX93920 0.00T
1 Nvidia GeForce 6600GT 128 Meg
PCI Express Video Card SN:56368471850

Plus OS, mouse, etc. I already have a monitor. All for $1500. Which was nearly the same as I would have paid with shipping to order the components and assemble it myself.

For less than $100 difference, I get full on-site tech support for one year & free replacement of parts for one year. Also, the company ran into some issues with getting the mobo to fit the original case (which according to the spec, should have worked fine) and had a problem with the DvD/RW that they recieved (bad part, it happens), but I got a DVD player and separate CDRW, plus an upgraded case for free, and I didn't have to deal with the headache of shipping parts back (more postage) and waiting for a new delivery.

All in all, I was pretty happy doing it that way. Although I think I really will build my next system, just for fun!

Cheers,
Spitter

Kegger26 · « **Reply #27 on:** March 25, 2005, 01:50:54 PM »

Check out Hypersonic-pc. I own two of there systems I have had no problems at all.

http://www.hypersonic-pc.com

MOSQ · « **Reply #28 on:** March 25, 2005, 02:23:23 PM »

Also Falcon Northwest. http://www.falcon-nw.com/index.asp

BigGun · « **Reply #29 on:** March 25, 2005, 02:58:09 PM »

I have had alienware system for 2.75 years now, never had an issue, system hasn't crashed once. Has ran solid from day one.