Author Topic: building a computer!  (Read 37680 times)

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Offline DJ Omnimaga

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Re: building a computer!
« Reply #30 on: December 23, 2010, 10:20:37 pm »
Darn I wish I knew more about computers. I thought about getting a new video card at one point but I will myself need help choosing the best one for my budget when it's time to do it and make sure I know what other requirements there is, since I'm kinda computer illiterate.

Hopefully someone else can help soon. (Although I don't know how fast a response may arrive since most people will be busy with holidays)

Offline fb39ca4

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Re: building a computer!
« Reply #31 on: December 24, 2010, 05:03:21 pm »
I believe the i7 2600k is supposed to be $300.
I am going to build my own computer as soon as the i3 chips come out, which I hope isn't too long a wait from now.
@DJ: you might have to upgrade your PSU as well, gpus are very power hungry.

Offline DJ Omnimaga

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Re: building a computer!
« Reply #32 on: December 26, 2010, 05:26:44 pm »
What is a PSU? I rememeber hearing something about needing a new adapter or something when using a powerful video card, to prevent short circuits, overheating or something. Not sure anymore

Offline fb39ca4

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Re: building a computer!
« Reply #33 on: December 26, 2010, 08:28:48 pm »
It's a power supply unit, a box you plug the power cord into, and with lots of wires coming out of it inside the computer to power everything.

Offline DJ Omnimaga

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Re: building a computer!
« Reply #34 on: December 27, 2010, 03:58:23 pm »
Ah ok, thanks for the info.

Offline Snake X

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Re: building a computer!
« Reply #35 on: December 31, 2010, 12:02:11 am »
hey does anyone know where to find a raid controller card that will handle raid 61? This is the raid i will go with for my 5 hard disks and I need to be able to find one x.x

edit: heh.. turns out raid 61 needs 8 disks so nvm on that.. still:

I need help finding out what the best solution is to raid my disks (raid 1 or 6 preferred)

- 2 80 GB
- 1 120 GB
- 1 300 GB
- 1 500 GB

1080 GB total and 5 HDD's.
« Last Edit: December 31, 2010, 12:16:14 am by Snake X »
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Offline z80man

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Re: building a computer!
« Reply #36 on: December 31, 2010, 12:52:06 am »
That's quite a variety of disks. I'm not sure what speeds they are, but I'm assuming the 80 gigs are ssd's. For those two I would raid 0 them and place the OS along with your most commonly used programs on there. For the 500 GB you should probaly buy another one of those (I think they run for about $30 these days) and have those in raid 1. The 120 and 300 are probaly best left as is.

List of stuff I need to do before September:
1. Finish the Emulator of the Casio Prizm (in active development)
2. Finish the the SH3 asm IDE/assembler/linker program (in active development)
3. Create a partial Java virtual machine  for the Prizm (not started)
4. Create Axe for the Prizm with an Axe legacy mode (in planning phase)
5. Develop a large set of C and asm libraries for the Prizm (some progress)
6. Create an emulator of the 83+ for the Prizm (not started)
7. Create a well polished game that showcases the ability of the Casio Prizm (not started)

Offline Snake X

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Re: building a computer!
« Reply #37 on: December 31, 2010, 01:30:38 pm »
well first of all, the 80 gig's are not SSD's. I have no SSD's. I am now thinking about raid 51. Basically what I want to do now, is to build a raid 5 array with my 5 disks, buy an 8 gb SSD for a boot disk to write and install os files and win7 on it, then I want to mirror my windows os onto the raid 5 array using raid 1 (to mirror it). The reason I do this, is so I can make absolute sure that the 8 GB will be used for booting on, and then I can mirror that os onto my raid 5 array and write/install all my files on while still keeping my boot drive at the same time. Does this make sense to you? What would be my best option if i wanted to do this kind of thing? Would I be able to select my boot drive in a raid 5 anyways thus just sticking with raid 5 instead of raid 51?  ???
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Offline willrandship

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Re: building a computer!
« Reply #38 on: December 31, 2010, 01:40:08 pm »
I never really saw the point of Raid at all. A new hard drive should last you about 6-8 years with semi-heavy use, and they aren't really super failure-prone.

Also, you will never need to use Raid 0. All it does is make 2 drives act like one, and you have double the chance of getting them corrupted. Why not simply use them as separate drives? you don't really gain anything but a little convienience.

A RAID5 setup will act like 1 disk, period. It also does some mirroring which makes it like Raid 1 somewhat, but you need more hard drives in the setup.

Never Raid larger disks to smaller ones. It will make them all the same size as the smaller if you do.

Why make a 51 array? You will lose a TON of space! Raid 51 means Raiding several RAID 5 arrays into a raid1 array.
« Last Edit: December 31, 2010, 01:40:54 pm by willrandship »

Offline Snake X

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Re: building a computer!
« Reply #39 on: December 31, 2010, 01:48:21 pm »
first of all, its not the smallest size disk. It is [number of disks - 2] * size of smallest disk. In my case, that would be 300 GB which is double what I have now. That would be without the 8 GB ofc. I am thinking though about just JDBODing all of them. I do agree with you about raid 0 (i dont even know why it exists, jboding is much better). So, if I JBOD'd all of my disks (including this imaginative 8 GB SSD that I have bought), would I still be able to make that 8 GB SSD for booting only?
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Offline willrandship

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Re: building a computer!
« Reply #40 on: December 31, 2010, 01:56:16 pm »
Just leave it out of all the arrays. Otherwise, everything will be treated as one disk, and controlling booting will be harder.

I fail to see the point of JBODing either, unless you mean simply using them all independently. JBODing is about on par with RAID0, with the pros and cons. You get pretty much all of its advantages by simply using the drives as separate volumes, and you have fewer recovery issues if one fails, since all the others keep on functioning.
« Last Edit: December 31, 2010, 02:02:24 pm by willrandship »

Offline Snake X

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Re: building a computer!
« Reply #41 on: December 31, 2010, 03:29:26 pm »
The point is with JBODing is with unlike with raid 0, I can have any hard drive failure, but just loosing whatever data is on that hard drive, instead of loosing about 1/4 bits of data that I cant get back and thus leaving the other 3 rendered useless. Yes, I would know that I would leave that SSD out of the array, but how would I install my games and my programs at? I mean lol i cant work with only 8 GB of data.
For the 500 GB you should probaly buy another one of those (I think they run for about $30 these days)

I would love to know where to get these $30 500 GB HDD's at ;D
« Last Edit: December 31, 2010, 03:31:13 pm by DJ Omnimaga »
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Offline willrandship

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Re: building a computer!
« Reply #42 on: December 31, 2010, 03:30:45 pm »
You don't need them JBODed together to access them all. Quick question though: are you using Windows, linux or Mac? If you're using windows, simply point a specific Game's install path to F: instead of C:, or similar.

I'm not sure for macs, but for linux, if you have /bin mounted to a different Partition and /home mounted to a different partition, etc. you can have, say, one drive running your home folder, one that holds the /bin area, where all the executable progs you've installed have a shortcut to, probably also /usr on that one, but so on. It's worth noting that the only one that'll really get huge in Linux is your /home, since the other areas only hold programs that are actually "installed" onto your system, and config files. During the installation on most Linux installations you can set those mount points up during the same time you're setting up your swap space.

Offline AngelFish

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Re: building a computer!
« Reply #43 on: December 31, 2010, 03:31:06 pm »
Here  :P
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Offline willrandship

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Re: building a computer!
« Reply #44 on: December 31, 2010, 03:32:42 pm »
I'm seeing $43 and up there :P not $30