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DHB

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Help building new basic budget PC
« on: August 12, 2009, 12:19:26 pm »

My ancient (almost 7 year old) PC is finally kaput, it appears, and I want to build a new system for primarily Lightroom and PS CS2, but cheap. Since it has been so long since I built my current one, I’m a bit out of the loop.

The old one was a Pentium 4, 2.4 GHz, 2 Mb RAM. It actually worked OK, but slowly, for LR, and not bad for PS. But if I could double my speed in LR, that would be nice, and if I could quadruple it that would be a treat. Faster than that would be fabulous.

So it seems I don’t need to be on the “bleeding edge”, but need a good, fast machine that will be solid for me for a few years, running Windows 7 when it comes out, XP until then. Here’s what I’m thinking:

- Processor: Intel Core2 Duo E7500 Wolfdale 2.93GHz LGA 775

- MB: ASUS P5QL/EPU LGA 775 Intel P43 ATX Intel Motherboard

- Video Card: EVGA 256-P2-N753-TR GeForce 8600 GT 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card

(Video cards are a mystery to me. I’ll never play games or do serious video on this machine, so I’m hoping it might fit the bill. And it’s cheap).

- RAM: 8Gb (4 x 2Gb) DDR2 667

- HD: I like the idea of an SSD for my OS, VM, and PS Cache. Can these go on the same drive, ideally? If not, which should be on a separate one? I also like the idea of my programs being on an SSD. Should this be a separate one? Any particular brand or type of SSD that is recommended? Do they install and run just like a regular HD? If I do just VM and PS Cache, how big do I need?

For data and image files, I was going to use a good, fast, 500Gb- 1Tb SATA drive, probably WD. I was then going to dump images for archiving and backup to external or removable SATA drives, which is similar to what I do now with a USB to SATA converter/dock. What’s the easiest way to swap SATA drives in and out? I don’t mind the idea if just running the cables from the MB out of the case and plugging them in, but a slightly more elegant solution is OK, too.

If I recycle my nice Antec case and 400W PS, and my peripherals, I can do this system for just over $400, not including an SSD, which I still need to figure out. I like this price.

Any suggestions or fatal flaws I’m missing?

Thanks for your help!

David
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Christopher

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« Reply #1 on: August 12, 2009, 01:07:01 pm »

Most of it sounds pretty fine I will mainly focus on the SSD topic.


Windows + Programs can be on one drive. However I would split up the scratch disk on a second drive. Then all images on the third drive.
Now I don't know how much experience you have with RAID set ups and all that stuff, but I will just right some of my thoughts.

Yes a SSD as first drive is a good idea, but there are to main questions, how much space do you need on that drive and are you willing to pay so much money.

I mean you got get two fast 100GB harddrives in RAID 0 as main drive, which is quite fast. I'm not saying they are as fast as a SSD but on the other hand they cost perhaps 1/5th of one SSD drive.

The same goes for the scratch disk, the difference is only that this disk or SSD can be a lot smaller. So it is cheaper.


Last we come to the final larger drive. Now honestly if you use ONE single HDD you kill your whole system and you really don't need any SSD drives. If you are used to backing up on reg. basis than I would go at least with a RAID 0 set up. Something like two 500Gb HDDs.


Well i hope it is clear what i wanted to say, but after beeing awake for 29 hours without sleep I'm not so sure, so I will come back to your questions after a good sleep.
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Christopher Hauser
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John.Murray

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« Reply #2 on: August 12, 2009, 04:55:29 pm »

Although at this point possibly a budget buster - you might want to consider a newer chipset, such as Intel's X58.  As CPU's are going multicore, the memory archtecture of older Intel chipsets (ie: Front Side Bus) is becoming increasingly restrictive.  Using a larger L2/L3 cache only partially solves the problem.  The X58 uses the newer I7 processors that incorporate their own memory controller, allowing much better bandwidth and scaleability.

You'll find pricing getting down in the $200 range for the mainboard, you'll also need DDR3 memory.

Here's a nice overview of the architecture:

http://www.lostcircuits.com/mambo//index.p...&limitstart
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DHB

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« Reply #3 on: August 12, 2009, 09:44:43 pm »

It looks like the biggest potential bottleneck is the hard drives. I understand the theory behind RAID, but am hoping to avoid it for two reasons. First, I want to keep this thing simple, and not have to double the number of HDs I have to buy and manage.

Second is my anticipated workflow. What I’ve been doing lately is to load image files from CF cards from jobs directly on 1TB external SATA drives on my USB dock. I work them in Lightroom and PS directly on the external drive. This way, large jobs and projects stay together with their LR database, and I can switch the drives around whenever I want, and make backups of them regularly.

BUT- This is really slow, especially with Lightroom. I attributed this to my obsolete system in general, and also to the USB/SATA dock. I hoped that running the SATA image file drive as an internal drive would speed things up dramatically, and the nature of SATA seems that they are easily removable, like cartridges, to swap around when I want to.

I was also hoping that with enough RAM and/or fast cache/scratch drives, the HDs wouldn’t be working so hard in the first place. I am amazed at how hard Lightroom works my system.

So I was thinking a really small SSD or other fast drive just for cache, and maybe OS & PS.

Does this train of thought make any sense? Or will this system be a dog with regular SATA drives handling the image files?

Thanks for the help so far. Keep the ideas coming!

David
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PeterAit

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« Reply #4 on: August 14, 2009, 12:37:19 pm »

Quote from: DHB
It looks like the biggest potential bottleneck is the hard drives. I understand the theory behind RAID, but am hoping to avoid it for two reasons. First, I want to keep this thing simple, and not have to double the number of HDs I have to buy and manage.

Second is my anticipated workflow. What I’ve been doing lately is to load image files from CF cards from jobs directly on 1TB external SATA drives on my USB dock. I work them in Lightroom and PS directly on the external drive. This way, large jobs and projects stay together with their LR database, and I can switch the drives around whenever I want, and make backups of them regularly.

BUT- This is really slow, especially with Lightroom. I attributed this to my obsolete system in general, and also to the USB/SATA dock. I hoped that running the SATA image file drive as an internal drive would speed things up dramatically, and the nature of SATA seems that they are easily removable, like cartridges, to swap around when I want to.

I was also hoping that with enough RAM and/or fast cache/scratch drives, the HDs wouldn’t be working so hard in the first place. I am amazed at how hard Lightroom works my system.

So I was thinking a really small SSD or other fast drive just for cache, and maybe OS & PS.

Does this train of thought make any sense? Or will this system be a dog with regular SATA drives handling the image files?

Thanks for the help so far. Keep the ideas coming!

David

Why not use a single standard disk for the OS and PS? Booting and loading PS happen only rarely, so if they are not super-speedy it's not such a big deal.

For the PS scratch disk, add some extra RAM and set up a RAM disk. This would, if your motherboard can accommodate the needed RAM, be a lot cheaper than a dedicated SSD.

Then get an eSATA card and an external RAID enclosure for your image files.

I am planning a new system and will likely go this route - although I'll use an internal RAID 0 for OS and PS if the budget permits.

Peter
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kab

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« Reply #5 on: August 17, 2009, 11:52:59 pm »

Quote from: PeterAit
Why not use a single standard disk for the OS and PS? Booting and loading PS happen only rarely, so if they are not super-speedy it's not such a big deal.

For the PS scratch disk, add some extra RAM and set up a RAM disk. This would, if your motherboard can accommodate the needed RAM, be a lot cheaper than a dedicated SSD.

Then get an eSATA card and an external RAID enclosure for your image files.

I am planning a new system and will likely go this route - although I'll use an internal RAID 0 for OS and PS if the budget permits.

Peter

RAID0 for main/system disks is not really a good idea.  RAID0 is a bit of a misnomer:  Striping is a *non-redundant* array of *dependent* disks (NADD?), and if one disk fails, then all the data is unavailable, your pictures are gone, and your system no longer boots.  RAID0 multiplies the chance of failure by the number of disks: If one disk has a 5% fail chance over x yrs, then 2 *dependent* disks have (nearly) twice the chance of failure, something just under 10% (why not 10%?  eh, exercise for the reader...;-).  So, not a great idea for your system disk.

RAID0 is an excellent strategy for real-time video capture, working scratch areas, e.g., your PS cache should be on a RAID0 array, and anything else that needs maximum speed of access -- but don't put your OS or your precious original picture files there.

RAID1, 5, 10 etc are better options for your OS/pics because each will reduce the chance of failure substantially, by duplicating data in various ways across multiple disks.  One disk dies, and the data is all still present, probably even live; you lose nothing (though it's time to stop and fix the problem before more disks die).  RAIDn divides the chance of failure over the number of disks.  RAID1 is mirroring, literally duplicating everything from one disk to the second with every write; odds of losing your data with those 5% disks becomes something less than 1% (since both would have to fail simultaneously - but if they are identical disks in the same enclosure, then other factors come in to play, e.g., you drop the enclosure and kill both disks, so it does not really drop all the way to 0.25%).  It's somewhat slower than having a single disk, although most modern RAID1 devs will allow *reads* from any (in-sync) disk, so read times can be close to RAID0.  Higher RAID numbers get fancier with redundant error checking/correcting, etc, and are generally overkill for home use.

It's also perfectly reasonable (even best practice) to partition 'spinning' disks to have a RAID0 volume and a RAID1 volume across similar areas of each disk.  On a two-disk system, a small RAID0 volume for PS cache, swap and the like, and a RAID1 volume for OS and user data/pics, will perform faster and more reliably than putting all the OS and data on one disk and the PS cache on the other disk.  Of course, getting the RAID0 / PS cache onto separate disks may yield even better performance.

Alternate strategy is spinning disks as RAID1 for system and user, and use (part of) a small HDD for PS cache.

Note that RAID does not replace backups**.  If you accidentally overwrite or remove a precious file, RAID will just propagate and multiply your error really fast.  

**Well, you can do "backups" with multiple mirrors, and then take some offline or read-only until you "know" the system is stable, at which point you take a current mirror off and resync an old one to current state -- it's a strategy that is more applicable to servers w/ hot-plug disks than home systems, though Drobo (at least) will let you do it.

Don't use a RAM disk for PS cache; just add the RAM and let PS use it (preferences -> performance).  A RAM disk will be idle or of marginal use for most applications.  The PS disk cache is for *after* it consumes all the RAM you've got!

hth,
-- kab
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Christopher

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« Reply #6 on: August 18, 2009, 12:32:48 am »

Well I think it depends. If you only do normal stuff your comment is fine, but need a lot more speed. I have my whole System running under raid 0. Why ? Because everything else is to slow. Is there a higher risk ? I don't really think so.

I have the following standpoint. First of all once a OS system is finished you could make a complete mirror image and update that if you change anything. I personally don't even bother with that. Setting up a full system takes me around 3-4 hours, which isn't bad. I mean I use three different workstations all running a similar setup I had three raid 0 partitions fail on me, in a few years, but for me that is nor a problem. Here backing up is the main concern. I have around 5-6 different backups at all time. Two which get updated every 5-6 months with the important images. (finished work). Two which hold everything from every week. One which holds the newest stuff.

Let's get back to the topic.

I personally would die using a RAID 5 or RAID 1 system for image storage. I work a lot with large files, P65, and even a lot larger panoramic files. So i often have to load and save 4GB or even 8 GB files. No do that with a RAID 5/1 System for a week and than do it with a 6 drive RAID 0 System. Well You will never want to go back to a different solution. I know it is a lot more risky, but on the other hand not really. (If you back up)

So in the end I would say it depends a lot on WHAT you need. if you just work on single 24Mp SLR files than you can be very happy with RAID 1/5 as storage, but not when you really need speed.


One more NOTE:

A lot of people think their raid 5 or raid 1 system is a great backup and save, but it is not. It might be save for a hard disk failure, but when a motherboard fails for example it can be very difficult to rescue anything on any raid disk.
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Christopher Hauser
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kab

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« Reply #7 on: August 18, 2009, 01:07:02 am »

Quote from: DHB
It looks like the biggest potential bottleneck is the hard drives. I understand the theory behind RAID, but am hoping to avoid it for two reasons. First, I want to keep this thing simple, and not have to double the number of HDs I have to buy and manage.

Second is my anticipated workflow. What I’ve been doing lately is to load image files from CF cards from jobs directly on 1TB external SATA drives on my USB dock. I work them in Lightroom and PS directly on the external drive. This way, large jobs and projects stay together with their LR database, and I can switch the drives around whenever I want, and make backups of them regularly.

    owwww.... LR/PS over USB... that's really gotta hurt!

Quote
BUT- This is really slow, especially with Lightroom. I attributed this to my obsolete system in general, and also to the USB/SATA dock. I hoped that running the SATA image file drive as an internal drive would speed things up dramatically, and the nature of SATA seems that they are easily removable, like cartridges, to swap around when I want to.

I was also hoping that with enough RAM and/or fast cache/scratch drives, the HDs wouldn’t be working so hard in the first place. I am amazed at how hard Lightroom works my system.

So I was thinking a really small SSD or other fast drive just for cache, and maybe OS & PS.

Does this train of thought make any sense? Or will this system be a dog with regular SATA drives handling the image files?

Thanks for the help so far. Keep the ideas coming!

David

Regular - or rather, moderately high-end - SATA drives are plenty fast enough, the bottleneck is how you get to them.  A good eSATA dock, analog to your USB version but much faster, will run you ~$40-80:  eSATA ups the price, but is worth it, because that external disk will run at speeds similar to your internal disks.  Voyager Q is delightfully retro cute, but you should check out web reviews "hard disk docks" for Vantec, NexStar and others.  Beware that there are lots of little quirks, shop carefully.

For still image editing, you don't need to go overboard on really high-performance disks:  Pick something from http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2009-3....chmarks,50.html that is above average speed, but also lower-power startup/run (external docks may not have sufficient power to spin-up some power-hungry drives) and *quiet* -- at least, I find a whining disk more annoying than it's worth -- or whatever else strikes you as crucial.  WD 1Tb "Green" is a nice compromise, YMMV.

If you're doing video, then you'll want higher-end internal disks and SSD's, but these are really overkill for LR/PS stills.  Yeah, you might get a marginal speed improvement, but it's on the wrong side of the cost-benefit curve.  Your big initial speed improvement is from all that RAM you've installed.

Yes, your OS/Apps/pics and PS cache can all live on one SSD - only issue is space.  You would get far more bang for your buck with a small SSD for PS cache, working pics and maybe the LR/PS/Bridge apps, and leave the OS and most of your data on normal disks.  Fast SSD's are SATA-bus bound -- that is, they can r/w faster than the bus can consume/deliver data.  Although I'm tempted too, I think SSD are not yet worth buying for this type of use.  

I want an SSD for my Hypervisor Color (portable disk + media reader that I use to dump my daily pics while traveling) but for the reliability, not the speed.

How many drives can that ASUS case take internally?  I've got 5 disks / 4Tb in my Linux box, and only use a HD dock for backups and archiving -- everything "live" can live on internal disks for months.  But older cases don't have as many SATA controllers/connectors, and I don't know what it takes to add one.

RAID is not scary, and offers a lot of advantages for a very modest expense and effort.

If I were starting now, I would propose something like the following:
  - At least 4 large internal disks, maybe 1 small SSD
  - If an SSD, use it for PS cache, swap, and editing apps
  - else, RAID0 stripe on two disks for PS cache; RAID0 stripe on other two disks for swap
  - RAID1 mirror of the OS and user space on the two disks that don't have swap
  - RAID1 mirror of picture data on the disks that don't have PS cache
  - Additional space for online incremental backups (my preference, so recovery of a recently lost file takes seconds rather than finding a backup)
  - External eSATA dock for archive and backups - not live editing

Any one disk can die completely without the system skipping a beat (assuming Windows has a decent RAID).

Download new images to internal disk for editing and development.  Generally, perform most work on internal disk.

Automate backups of OS, data, pics to eSATA-mounted disk.  On Linux, I can keep doing incremental backups until the disk is ~90% full and then it warns me and I switch disks (about once every 6-8 wks).  I try to do full backups monthly.

Use a good deep backup or disk cloning tool/strategy to archive images separately from normal backups, including the entire (in my case, ACR) LR/PS database along with the images.  The resulting disk should be directly mountable later on your dock and usable in LR/PS for any subsequent edits, or can be copied/restored back to internal disk if needed for a longer period.  Working from that eSATA disk should not incur much performance penalty, except that it isn't being mirrored/backed up automatically.

my 2 cents,
-- kab

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