Quick HDDs & Gfx Spec Check Please? :)

[NVP]

Hey,

Would you guys mind looking at my spec below and let me know if these are good to buy and fit for my purpose?

System Drive: OCZ Vertex 2E Bigfoot 120GB 3.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive

Apps & Games Drive:
I want to RAID0 two of these drives, will the speed be sufficient? - Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache

Media Drive:
I want to RAID5 four of these drives, will they be OK for this? - Samsung SpinPoint F4 EcoGreen 2TB SATA-II 32MB Cache

Graphics Card:
Going to buy this gfx card but please voice any criticism - Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 6970 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card

DVD Writers:
And then just two cheap DVD Writers to replace my white ones as they don't match the case - LiteOn IHAS324-32 24x DVD±RW ReWriter SATA (I know there's no need for two but meh, they're cheap)

I'd appreciate any opinions about any of the hardware and my RAIDing ideas, also would someone be able to recommend a decent RAID Controller please?

Thanks very much, and happy New Year

 

[hellarda]

why do you want to RAID those two 500gb drives? why not just use one 1tb drive? the speed difference will be negligible.

also would be cheaper taking into account the raid controller etc

 

[NVP]

Is it a stupid idea? My friend suggested it as I know little about RAID, but I assumed the speed difference would be a noticeable increase.

A review of that drive states "Bought 4 of these, set up 2 Raid 0 sets and get 250MB/s read and 230MB/s write(tested with HD Tune Pro)."

 

[ScottMC7000]

7 Hard Drives ( including the solid state one ) and a 2 DVDRW drives ?
How many PSU's are you going to running ? You would probably need a minimum of 2 for that lot lol. Don't forget you have another two cables for the graphics card which imop is over the top even for todays games and wouldn't touch it with a barge pole if I wanted to do anything other than game with it though if you want to play games like Need For Speed Hot Pursuit which is one hell of a fast and amazing game it's probably going to give you problems with it's drivers. If you are doing anything besides gaming such as graphic work, don't use ATI graphic cards ever. More trouble than they are worth.

 

[NVP]

Got a 740 Hiper Type-R (I think 740), will that be sufficient or should I upgrade? My case (Lian-Li PC-X2000) has 6 hot swappable bays so power connectors should be fine. Gfx at mo has 2 pwoer connectors too so should be alright.

Can you elaborate about the driver problems you mentioned?

 

[ScottMC7000]

Got a 740 Hiper Type-R (I think 740), will that be sufficient or should I upgrade? My case (Lian-Li PC-X2000) has 6 hot swappable bays so power connectors should be fine. Gfx at mo has 2 pwoer connectors too so should be alright.

Can you elaborate about the driver problems you mentioned?

The Hiper are generic PSU's and I've been told that you shouldn't use them in power rigs.

Found this

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/181912-10-hiper-type-blew

Ok, maybe a gun did this

And oh, they have gone under apparently, service wasn't good either.

at least you didnt have to go to the hospital, but it sounds like it was a pretty close shave. My buddy had the same exact psu DETONATE on him. when he flipped the switch the thing went up and a piece of something flew out and lodged in his hand. he had to have 7 stiches.

Can you elaborate about the driver problems you mentioned?

I don't have an ATi card ( had one in the past though in 2001) but I know many people that have done and it's never been good. The drivers have always been flaky. Open GL was never properly implemented by ATI so with every card that gets released there has always been some problems in not just games but in more professional applications such as Photoshop, as well as 3D programs like Cinema 4D. I use Cinema 4D, After Effects and Photoshop. Never had any real problems using Nvidia graphics card drivers and pretty much this applies to every game I've ever played using them.

The latest Cinema 4D R12 program, graphical bugs caused through ATI Graphic cards and their drivers



http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=47&t=918519

 

[NVP]

That is scary, but sounds like an isolated incident. If it can't cope I'll get another one but will stick with it for now.

I've had ATI & NVidia cards for the last 10-15 years alternating between each and not really noticed more problems on one brand than the other, as long as I can play my games at a high res I'm sure it'll suffice.

Any opinions on the Hard Drives & RAID set-ups? Any idea on a suitable RAID Controller?

 

[ScottMC7000]

I've never gone down the road of using a raid setup although it was an option when I had my Athlon 64 3500. I've always tended to store all my important data on external drives or secondary internal drives. I've never felt the need to complicate things really.

But you have been warned now about using that PSU with all that expensive new gear you are wanting to get. Do you really want to take that risk with this new graphics card ? Anyway it's your money

Ok, here's a few threads on here about the PSU you have.


http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17685465&highlight=hyper


http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?p=8727829

 

[NVP]

I've currently got most of my media on loads of externals but I'm wanting to RAID it (with recovery) so that I can access the media from multiple stations on my network without any slow downs, plus I thought I'd take advantage of all the hot swappable bays in my case and stop the desk clutter.

I think most of these PSU issues are with the 580W, I've had mine for a few years now with no problems and haven't found any major issues with it online, so I'll cross my fingers and take the risk but cheers for the concern

 

[ScottMC7000]

I think most of these PSU issues are with the 580W, I've had mine for a few years now with no problems and haven't found any major issues with it online, so I'll cross my fingers and take the risk but cheers for the concern

Quote from one of the threads in my last post

Mine exploded, I still have the shrapnels in my skull. Twas like 'Nam, it was.

ROFL

 

[hellarda]

sorry for not getting back sooner.

when i RAID 0'ed 2 SATA 1tb drives i didnt see any performance boost at all. However it seems that if you RAID more drives (ie >4) then you will see a slight performance boost, however youve then got the costs of buying more HDD etc.

What do you mean by recovery? if you mean you want to be able to recover files if something goes wrong then you're going to want to use RAID 1

Or if you really want to buy at least three HDD of the same type then you can RAID 5 'em which would be the best of both worlds

 

[Danthus]

Hiper PSU's have a pretty bad reputation to be honest.

 

[hellarda]

Hiper PSU's have a pretty bad reputation to be honest.

+1

 

[linktoinsanity]

Hiper PSU's have a pretty bad reputation to be honest.

I've had two blow in a row on me and the 2nd one took out the P4 motherboard it was attached to as well. I would strongly recommend NOT going with Hiper.

Recommended PSU brands from personal experience:

-Coolmaster/Antec (for a cheap PSU that just works for cheaper systems)
-Zalman (Quiet and reliable, but relatively expensive)
-Corsair (Not as silent as Zalman, but pretty powerful and no problems with my 1000W as yet)

And I do think you are going overboard with drives. Just get one of those DVDRW, waste of SATA channels otherwise, don't bother with RAID0 on those seagates, just get one 500GB/1TB depending on size needs. As far as RAID5 goes it may be a good idea with those Samsung F4s if you want to keep your data extra safe.

The SSD looks good. I'd get the 2.5inch version myself, but personal preference as I'd like to be able to reuse it in a laptop once faster PC SSDs became available.

 

[NVid'did'it]

Wouldn't a Seagate Momentus XT 500gb do any good?

 

[NVP]

sorry for not getting back sooner.

when i RAID 0'ed 2 SATA 1tb drives i didnt see any performance boost at all. However it seems that if you RAID more drives (ie >4) then you will see a slight performance boost, however youve then got the costs of buying more HDD etc.

Cheers for the response, I've read up a bit more on these particular Seagates and it looks like you can get on average >200mb/s using RAID0 which is extraordinarily fast for such cheap drives.

What do you mean by recovery? if you mean you want to be able to recover files if something goes wrong then you're going to want to use RAID 1

Or if you really want to buy at least three HDD of the same type then you can RAID 5 'em which would be the best of both worlds

I was going for RAID5 four of these drives for storage to allow for quick simultaneous access and good recovery, but I understand I need a RAID Controller to be able to do this?

Hiper PSU's have a pretty bad reputation to be honest.

I've had two blow in a row on me and the 2nd one took out the P4 motherboard it was attached to as well. I would strongly recommend NOT going with Hiper.

I've already got the Hiper, been using it for years flawlessly *touches wood*

And I do think you are going overboard with drives. Just get one of those DVDRW, waste of SATA channels otherwise, don't bother with RAID0 on those seagates, just get one 500GB/1TB depending on size needs. As far as RAID5 goes it may be a good idea with those Samsung F4s if you want to keep your data extra safe.

I prefer having 2 Disc Drives in case I need to do a direct copy.

Do you guys really think I should not bother RAID0 the 2 500gbs? Reviews say it makes a big difference, unless there are bigger hard drives around which come close to the speed?

I think I will definitely RAID5 my 4 storage drives, are those good drives to go for? Could you possibly recommend a RAID Controller? I'm clueless.

The SSD looks good. I'd get the 2.5inch version myself, but personal preference as I'd like to be able to reuse it in a laptop once faster PC SSDs became available.

Oh, I thought I had linked the 2.5" as I only have 6x3.5" bays so needed to remove my floppy drive to fit the 2.5" SSD. Gonna be sad to see my floppy drive go, it's the only thing left from my original build 10+ years ago

Wouldn't a Seagate Momentus XT 500gb do any good?

Could you elaborate please? They seem quite expensive for a 500gb, are they much faster?

 

[hellarda]

I was going for RAID5 four of these drives for storage to allow for quick simultaneous access and good recovery, but I understand I need a RAID Controller to be able to do this?

yes sorry i didnt read the 1st post properly

yes you would need a controller, unless your mobo has it built in which i would doubt

in regards to the momentus drives, they seem to be faster

if you watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kss98VdhSj0&feature you will see

 

[NVP]

yes sorry i didnt read the 1st post properly

yes you would need a controller, unless your mobo has it built in which i would doubt

in regards to the momentus drives, they seem to be faster

if you watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kss98VdhSj0&feature you will see

My mobo is the ASUS P5Q Deluxe and it says it has: "6 x SATA 3Gb/s Intel® Matrix Storage Technology with RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 support"
Will that suffice or is it better to get a dedicated controller?

Also, I didn't realise the Momentus was a hybrid, I have heard there are some issues with the new hybrid drives though. I think I might just stick with two of these cheap Seagates as for the price and RAID0 speed they offer I think it is worth it, if for some reason I can't get the speeds that others have reached then I can always buy something better.

 

[hellarda]

the experience ive really had with controllers is in a server, so i really don't know about the built in ones. however i would assume that a dedicated controller would be better if you can justify the price

 

[NVP]

Hmm... I think I'll try it with the onboard Intel Matrix Chipset and see how it goes. Can always buy a controller later on if necessary.