X99 Linux Photography workstation help

[joeyjojo]

Thanks Neil, just ordered one Samsung 250 SSD for now, will see how it goes, need to find the best way to set it up with Linux.

Search for enabling TRIM in your distro of choice - it used to be turning on the discard option but it seems like running fstrim on a weekly schedule is preferred these days. Schedule it for some time when the machine is on but not in use ideally.

If you're feeling very pedantic you can also set up your partitions to align with the SSD memory.

 

[Poneros]

Nothing wrong with Samsung 850s and using the 840 as a reason why would be similar to me saying avoid Crucial as their M4 drives suffered from a bug which stopped them after X amount of hours.

Not quite. There's more distance between the M4 and current Crucial SSDs than there is between the 840 and 850. That's why I wouldn't go Samsung now rather than ever.

 

[Admetos]

My thoughts / brain dump on components!

1) Kingston make some of the most reliable memory, OCUK confirmed they have the least returns from Kingston.

2) PSU, I still think Seasonic X Series PSU's are the best.

3) Western digital black best desktop / workstation drives.

4) Gigabyte boards have some of the least returns at OCUK.

5) Silverstone make a nice workstation case called the FT-02 that rotates the board 90 degrees and is sound proofed.

6) Samsung make some of the most reliable SSD's but get the Pro versions with the more reliable memory.

7) Artic cooling make a quiet reliable PWM CPU cooler called the i30 CO. The CO stands for continuous operation and the fan is designed for 24/7 server environments.

Edit almost forgot. I found IC Diamond paste the best I've used also.

 

[BusError]

I'm a photographer, and I built something very similar recently (see sig).. The only difference is that I offloaded the big storage on a HP Microserver with 4*2TB disks running as RAIDZ, via Gigabit ethernet. That provides reasonable redundancy/security for the files.

Oh I still use a Crucial SSD for the system, I don't use it for anything crucial (AHA) as I don't trust them at all.

Otherwise I'm fairly happy with the 5930k, even if it's actually a bit slower than my overclocked 2600k.

For graphics cards, I used a rather run of the mill nvidia; if you don't run games, it's LARGELY enough for the GPU power needed for 2D edits..

Oh, as for screen (you haven't mentioned) you should also splash out, the recent screens (like my BenQ's) are really truely excellent..

 

[corvus]

Apologies for my tardy reply.

Search for enabling TRIM in your distro of choice - it used to be turning on the discard option but it seems like running fstrim on a weekly schedule is preferred these days. Schedule it for some time when the machine is on but not in use ideally.

Thanks Joeyjojo, was wondering which way would be the best option, there is a lot of info out there but its not always easy to find which advice is the most up to date.
I'll probably go with Open Suse, thats the distro that I have been using for a couple of years now. Have also downloaded Fedora and the latest Linux Mint to try, usually takes me a couple of weeks to fully decide which distro I'll finally go with.

Thanks Jason, only two items on your list ended up in my basket, namely the WB black drives and the Samsung Pro SSD. I do like Kingston, their memory does seem good,and their CF card reader is by far the best I have tried, on this occasion however I went with the TeamGroup Elite 32GB. I was going to try the Gigabyte MB but they were out of stock when I ordered so went with the Asus Delux, if it lasts half as long as my last Asus board I'll be very happy!

Hi BussError, thanks for your reply, its interesting that you built something similar, I'm hoping that I have made the right choices. As well as the two internal WD hard drives I also use WD external drives as an extra precaution and back up. I'm not sure I will trust the SSD completely but hopefully I will always have a backup (or two) or most images before I even start to process them.
I went with the Nvidia 970 Strix partly due to its passive fan when not under load but if needed it should still be capable of running some interesting games and simulations if I so choose.
My monitor is pretty good, I upgraded that a year or so ago to a Dell UltraSharp U2413 61cm (24') PremierColor LED, very pleased with the way it renders colours, it seems very accurate and perfect for my macro work with plants and insects.

Adrian