Need a machine for work

DEL 707 · 9 Mar 2010 at 19:56

We're thinking of building a new machine at work and I need help picking out, or building, the best 1 for the job.

We're be using the machine for mainly backups, virus scanning and doing hard drive integraty tests.
The key here is speed and multi-tasking, at the moment we use a few different machines for this job, but they're pretty old and can take ages to transfer date. We Need something that can copy data from several hard drives at once without slowing to a crawl.

Price wise, we'd like to keep under the £500 mark, I have been looking at the value machines from OCUK and they all look pretty good to me, but we need a bigger hard drive, at least 1TB.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 9 Mar 2010 at 19:58

Are you will to assemble the computer yourself??

Do you need an OS,monitor and peripherals??

DEL 707 · 9 Mar 2010 at 21:13

Yep I can assemble it myself

No need for OS/Monitor etc. Just need the basic computer.

NormanPorkinson · 9 Mar 2010 at 22:05

ct Name Qty Price Line Total
Intel Core i5 750 2.66Ghz (Lynnfield) (Socket LGA1156) - Retail Intel Core i5 750 2.66Ghz (Lynnfield) (Socket LGA1156) - Retail £139.57
(£163.99) £139.57
(£163.99)
Gigabyte GA-P55-US3L Intel P55 (Socket 1156) DDR3 Motherboard Gigabyte GA-P55-US3L Intel P55 (Socket 1156) DDR3 Motherboard £68.93
(£80.99) £68.93
(£80.99)
Patrtiot G Series Sector 5 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Dual Channel (PGV34G1333ELK) Patrtiot G Series Sector 5 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Dual Channel (PGV34G1333ELK) £68.08
(£79.99) £68.08
(£79.99)
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) £55.31
(£64.99) £55.31
(£64.99)
Corsair CX 400W ATX Power Supply (CMPSU-400CXUK) Corsair CX 400W ATX Power Supply (CMPSU-400CXUK) £34.03
(£39.99) £34.03
(£39.99)
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4550 "Low Profile" 512MB GDDR3 Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4550 "Low Profile" 512MB GDDR3 Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail £28.08
(£32.99) £28.08
(£32.99)
Antec VSK 2000 Midi Tower Case - Black Antec VSK 2000 Midi Tower Case - Black £26.37
(£30.98) £26.37
(£30.98)
Samsung SH-S223C/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM Samsung SH-S223C/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £12.76
(£14.99) £12.76
(£14.99)

total £508.93 inc VAT

beast

DEL 707 · 9 Mar 2010 at 22:08

Thanks

I'll pass this onto my bosses and see what they say.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 9 Mar 2010 at 22:13

NormanPorkinson said:
ct Name Qty Price Line Total
Intel Core i5 750 2.66Ghz (Lynnfield) (Socket LGA1156) - Retail Intel Core i5 750 2.66Ghz (Lynnfield) (Socket LGA1156) - Retail £139.57
(£163.99) £139.57
(£163.99)
Gigabyte GA-P55-US3L Intel P55 (Socket 1156) DDR3 Motherboard Gigabyte GA-P55-US3L Intel P55 (Socket 1156) DDR3 Motherboard £68.93
(£80.99) £68.93
(£80.99)
Patrtiot G Series Sector 5 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Dual Channel (PGV34G1333ELK) Patrtiot G Series Sector 5 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Dual Channel (PGV34G1333ELK) £68.08
(£79.99) £68.08
(£79.99)
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) £55.31
(£64.99) £55.31
(£64.99)
Corsair CX 400W ATX Power Supply (CMPSU-400CXUK) Corsair CX 400W ATX Power Supply (CMPSU-400CXUK) £34.03
(£39.99) £34.03
(£39.99)
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4550 "Low Profile" 512MB GDDR3 Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4550 "Low Profile" 512MB GDDR3 Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail £28.08
(£32.99) £28.08
(£32.99)
Antec VSK 2000 Midi Tower Case - Black Antec VSK 2000 Midi Tower Case - Black £26.37
(£30.98) £26.37
(£30.98)
Samsung SH-S223C/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM Samsung SH-S223C/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £12.76
(£14.99) £12.76
(£14.99)

total £508.93 inc VAT

beast

I would probably go with this build.

There are other cases you may want to consider:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?&groupid=701&catid=7&sortby=priceAsc

You could also get the cost of the build under £500 by going for the Samsung F3 500GB hard disk:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-081-SA

deusexlumina · 9 Mar 2010 at 22:38

in my view the above spec isn't best for what you need. You stated you need a computer capable of transferring large amounts of data without slowing to a crawl, indicating you need very high HDD speeds. You dont need an i5 for this kind of task, or a dedicated gpu.

If it was me, i'd go for a system based about the 785g chipset, socket am3. get a fast amd dual cpu in there and some reasonable ddr3. The integrated gpu on the mobo will be more than enough for what you need. Then spend the rest of the money to raid some HDD's, perhaps 2 samsung f3 1TB, or 3 samsung 500GB, maybe even an ssd. This type of mahcine will be far more suited to what you're looking for.

DEL 707 · 17 Mar 2010 at 16:15

Sorry for the late reply, we've had a quick meeting about this machine and I have a few more questions.

But I'll give a better description of how we intend to use the machine.
We plug other hard drives in, normally via a USB caddy, we then virus scan the drive, copy over any essential date to a backup drive, wipe the hard drive then copy the data back across.

Depending on how busy we are, we could be doing several hard drives at once.

At the moment we're using USB caddies for ease of use, so are there any USB 3.0 boards out there that we can use?
Or are there any motherboards that support some kind of hot swap system for sata drives? So we can swap drives without having to restart the machine?

Then spend the rest of the money to raid some HDD's, perhaps 2 samsung f3 1TB

My manager was quite interested in this, though I confess I don't know anything about raid systems...
Can you explain how it would work and how it would benefit us?

eddyc · 17 Mar 2010 at 16:45

either usb3 or esata sounds like it is going to be a must.

DEL 707 · 18 Mar 2010 at 13:00

Can any1 recommend a motherboard with those features?

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 18 Mar 2010 at 13:16

An Intel socket 1156 one or an AMD AM3+ one??

DEL 707 · 18 Mar 2010 at 13:49

Either or really.
I'm kind of fumbling around in the dark at the moment.