My Computer

The pokemon kid

The pokemon kid

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Mathew
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Hey guys, I thought I would show off my computer. Some of the parts are a little old but I will update this thread when new stuff is put in...

Here is my current set up.

Case – Corsair 650D

OS – Windows 7

CPU – AMD 1055T

CPU cooler – Corsair H70

Motherboard – ASUS M4A87TD EVO – AM3

RAM – 8GB Corsair Dominator

Graphics card – Nvidia MSI 570GTX with Zalman cooler

Hard drive 1 – OCZ Vertex 4 - 256GB

Hard drive 2 – WD 1TB 7200rpm

Hard drive 3 - WD 500GB 7200rpm

Hard drive 4 – WD 3TB 5400rpm

Power supply – Corsair AX 850w

Aditional – Phobya fan controller, 4 x Corsair 120mm AF/SP fans, 1 x Bitfenix 200mm Spectre pro.


My Computer - Updated by Mat Teague, on Flickr


My Computer - Updated - Internals by Mat Teague, on Flickr


There are a few things I am looking to change...

CPU to Intel I7 (quad/hexi) and a motherboard to fit. More RAM because you can never have enough. finally a new CPU cooler as this one is getting a little old and the temps seam to be rising, plus the fact it is using liquids and I don't want it to leak...
 
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Wow thats a nice set up, very tidy too.

Did a build last year myself for the very first time, was on a fairly tight budget but got a half decent system now. Also went down the AMD route, with a Phenom II B55 that i unlocked to a quad core, and is running a mild overclock at 3.7ghz.

Also got 8GB of Corsair 1600 Ram, and just a 120 SSD, with a few HDDs

Thinking it will keep me going for a while, but eventually hoping to go down the Intel route, probably an I5.
 
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Thanks, I spent a long time on cable management and sorting it all out. Just need to get rid of that damn red SATA cable, also the german flag coloured fan cables and spray the Graphics cards face plate blue...

I have sort of started on a tight budget then kept adding and adding. It has resulted in this ( which is almost finished...)

Yeh, the RAM which I have got is also 1600mhz. I decided on the 256gb SSD because I had a 40gb on and a 60gb before and they both got filled by my games/ OS. So I thought at least 200GB will do. I now currently have 158gb to play with of free space.

I will be upgrading my processor/ mobo/ CPU fan when the haswell processors come out from Intel.
 
Rip the amd out, pop an i5 in (unless you're video encoding or something that will max out all threads etc you won't need an i7), chuck another 8gb in and you'll be good to go.
 
Well I do a fair amount of video stuff so the hyper threading would be lovely.

Also, i will have to get a new 16gb as I have currently got 4x 2gb...
 
The pokemon kid said:
Well I do a fair amount of video stuff so the hyper threading would be lovely.
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It gives you about 10% quicker encodes, clock for clock.... Much better off with extra real cores, but that's expensive in Intel land. If you do a lot of video, Bulldozer/Piledriver 8 cores may well give you an advantage (slower per core/clock, but more real processors)....

I may well upgrade my fileserver to an 8 core one day to let me do reencodes there...
 
The pokemon kid said:
Thanks, I spent a long time on cable management and sorting it all out. Just need to get rid of that damn red SATA cable, also the german flag coloured fan cables and spray the Graphics cards face plate blue...
Click to expand...

Would this help with the cables? I found cable management took almost as long as the rest of the build! lol
 
Well I have had some serious thoughts about getting the Intel hexi core processor. I am fully willing to pay the money but it depends whether the advantages are worth it compared to the quad core I7's...

When I do upgrade next year, I will be making a file server as I have a few spare hard drives/ this spare AMD kit that arent going to be used. Currently also have all my mobo slots filled. I will be creating a little tv games/ media machine.

I might buy some of that cabling stuff, might not fit some of the larger cabling. But I am going to be buying some blue braided corsair Power supply cabling.

I do have to overclock the system to get notepad to run. That program is so demanding compared to photoshop or crysis...
 
The pokemon kid said:
Well I have had some serious thoughts about getting the Intel hexi core processor. I am fully willing to pay the money but it depends whether the advantages are worth it compared to the quad core I7's...
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If you do a lot of parallel computing (video encoding or some form of computational maths are good examples) the hex core will be worth it. For most normal people, the i5 is the sweet spot.

The pokemon kid said:
When I do upgrade next year, I will be making a file server as I have a few spare hard drives/ this spare AMD kit that arent going to be used. Currently also have all my mobo slots filled. I will be creating a little tv games/ media machine.
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Reusing old PCs is a hobby of mine - I have 11 PCs here for a household of 3 although I've run out of reasons to get any more so have bought an embedded PBX to play with this month :cuckoo::geek:

If you're looking at a filesystem for a server, I'd recommend FreeBSD and running the disks under ZFS. Whilst it is a little off mainstream, I had a disk drop out of my array over the weekend and I had it up and running and resilvering without powering the machine down or losing access to the disks. You can even hot plug a drive and it auto resilvers whilst the disk array is still running... Nice :D
 
You know I thought I was fairly clued up with tech stuff but I'm starting to lose track now; the only resilvering I know involves open wallet surgery when the wife drags me to the jewellers.
 
Hahahah. I had one of those - now traded for a newer model ;)

Resilvering is when you have a RAID array where a drive has failed so you replace it with another and it is the process of rebuilding the array (resilvering the disk) back to where it is "whole" again. I'm not sure if it's a ZFS term, but I think it's quite descriptive.

Another plus for ZFS - you don't need to take the filesystem offline to chkdsk the disk filestructure - you can do that whilst the array is running (I check mine weekly) - so if something looks a bit dodgy, you set the disk check going and use the system as normal until it's finished.
 
neil_g said:
Might be a zfs thing, I've not seen it in a perc or hp San environment
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Perhaps more common in ZFS, but comes from the idea that the disk is a mirror and what you are doing is resilvering the mirror.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_mirroring

wiki said:
The copying of data from one pair of a mirror to another is sometimes called resilvering though more commonly it is simply known as rebuilding.
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I'm just used to seeing it written as resilvering - even though I run a RADI5 and I'm not resilvering (duplicating) but rebuilding.
 
I always seem to read mixed opinions on RAID, but then I don't really know much about it to be honest. On a very basic level, I'm sure there's one version which combines multiple drives to act as one? And the other is a mirror copy type thing as a backup? (but I worry that any faults/viruses etc will also duplicate?)
 
gman said:
I always seem to read mixed opinions on RAID, but then I don't really know much about it to be honest.
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Worth reading up about it to be honest. Briefly though there are three types:

  • Striping data across disks. Increases throughput compared to a single disk, but is less robust as you have 2, 4, 5... drives - any one of which can fail and the array is dead.
  • Mirroring data. Holds 2 copies of the same data. More robust (a drive can fail and you still have your data) but no speed increase.
  • Striping with error correction. You assign one or more disks to error correction data (actually it is distributed, but you lose 1,2,3 etc.. drives worth of capacity to error correction data) and you get extra throughput plus less reliance on a single disk failure. More disks failing than the error correction allocation and you have lost the array

RAID0 is the first of these, RAID1 is the second, RAID10 and RAID01 are combinations of the first two. RAID5, RAID6, RAIDZ (which is what I use and is like RAID5), RAIDZ2, RAIDZ3 are variants of the third.

They ALL have issues once you look into them, but I think RAIDZ (which is ZFS' implementation of RAID5) is about the best bang for buck. It has the advantages of RAID5 without its disadvantages as far as I can see.
 
arad85 said:
Perhaps more common in ZFS, but comes from the idea that the disk is a mirror and what you are doing is resilvering the mirror.
Click to expand...

makes perfect sense..

arad85 said:
Worth reading up about it to be honest. Briefly though there are three types:

  • Striping data across disks. Increases throughput compared to a single disk, but is less robust as you have 2, 4, 5... drives - any one of which can fail and the array is dead.
  • Mirroring data. Holds 2 copies of the same data. More robust (a drive can fail and you still have your data) but no speed increase.
  • Striping with error correction. You assign one or more disks to error correction data (actually it is distributed, but you lose 1,2,3 etc.. drives worth of capacity to error correction data) and you get extra throughput plus less reliance on a single disk failure. More disks failing than the error correction allocation and you have lost the array

RAID0 is the first of these, RAID1 is the second, RAID10 and RAID01 are combinations of the first two. RAID5, RAID6, RAIDZ (which is what I use and is like RAID5), RAIDZ2, RAIDZ3 are variants of the third.

They ALL have issues once you look into them, but I think RAIDZ (which is ZFS' implementation of RAID5) is about the best bang for buck. It has the advantages of RAID5 without its disadvantages as far as I can see.
Click to expand...

should be pointed out that none are substitutes for backups. mirroring while "technically" 2 copies of the data should only be treated as 1 (as if you delete/corrupt etc both copies are affected).

yadda yadda.. :D
 
neil_g said:
should be pointed out that none are substitutes for backups. mirroring while "technically" 2 copies of the data should only be treated as 1 (as if you delete/corrupt etc both copies are affected).

yadda yadda.. :D
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TaaaDAAAAAAAAAA*... :D



*Note the value of investments can fall as well as rise, and past performance should not be used as indication of future returns
 
The pokemon kid said:

My Computer - Updated - Internals by Mat Teague, on Flickr
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Same case as me :)

KFQCF.jpg
 
Thanks for the info on raid! I am not sure what configuration i am going to have yet. I might well buy some of those hard drives from WD which are made for raid... Also I would need a RAID card right?

Nice set up :) I have been thinking (probably very stupidly) to set up a custom cooling loop within the new set up. have the graphics card and CPU enclosed within it... am I stupid?
 
Do you overclock both processor and GPU? If not, it's a lot of hassle to go to. Less noise, but a serious learning curve if you've never done it before.
 
The pokemon kid said:
I might well buy some of those hard drives from WD which are made for raid... Also I would need a RAID card right?
Click to expand...

you dont really need specific raid drives, ive been running normal samsung 2tb's in my NAS for 2 years and only just had my first failure.

as for a card, that very much depends. a dedicated card will take resources off of the motherboard however can be pricey depending on the amount of drives.

most modern motherboards will do a form of RAID but normally limited on ports.
 
If you go ZFS, you just need SATA ports. It's all automatically done in s/w, not part of the BIOS/OS (so you can move the disks into another system running ZFS and you can import the disks if you need to). My Athlon II x630 can keep 4 striped disks very busy with a very low CPU load (I think about 25% of 1 CPU and that includes the network traffic at 100MBytes/sec).
 
arad85 said:
If you go ZFS, you just need SATA ports. It's all automatically done in s/w, not part of the BIOS/OS (so you can move the disks into another system running ZFS and you can import the disks if you need to). My Athlon II x630 can keep 4 striped disks very busy with a very low CPU load (I think about 25% of 1 CPU and that includes the network traffic at 100MBytes/sec).
Click to expand...

see now my arse starts twitching when software raid is mentioned..

:lol:
 
I dont currently have any sort of overclock running. but I have been thinking about ramping it up on my current processor. It is currently running at 2.8GHz so I recon I could make it up to about 3.5GHz or so... The CPU is also out of warranty. There also isnt an overclock on my GPU as I have never had to need to really.

Okay, well I was more thinking of when I expand the amount of drives...

That sounds great though as it will mean I can hold six drives inside the little server :)
 
neil_g said:
see now my arse starts twitching when software raid is mentioned..
Click to expand...
You should read up on it. It has been designed as an enterprise file system by Sun (now Oracle). You can maintain it completely without taking it off line, expand it simply by adding disks to the pool, it uses atomic writes so nothing is ever lost if the power goes out (no need for battery backup) stores the error detection as packets, not stripes has journalling, snapshotting, deduplication (where you can reference a single data item in many places at once) can cache on SSDs automatically (you just add them as a L2 cache)... yada, yada...

You will also never run out of space. The Z used to stand for zettabyte. A ZFS file system can store up to 256 quadrillion zettabytes (ZB), where a zettabyte is 2^70 bytes

When I was building my server, I was looking at hardware RAID and figured ZFS was significantly better and more reliable. Take a look for yourself http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZFS

Once you start using it, you truly see the potential - for example my resilver process over the weekend was (I had to change disk3 for disk5 in "pool" storage):

zpool replace storage gpt/disk3 gpt/disk5
zpool offline storage gpt/disk3
zpool detach storage gpt/disk3
zpool remove storage gpt/disk3

That was it. Machine stayed up, the "pool" storage remained fully accessible, as soon as I'd done the replace, the resilver started and was fully self healed 6 hours later (2.5TBytes of data). Disk3 taken out of the array and returned to being a "standard" disk (and is now being hammered on a read/write test).
 
neil_g said:
no i know ZFS gets a very good write up. im just stuck in my ways working with hardware raid and not having any bother with it :)
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Ahh... old fashioned fuddy duddy. Explains a lot :p :lol:
 
Does FreeNAS use ZFS? Just read the Wiki article you linked to.. it sounds interesting.
 
Well I might well be sorting out a RAID config sooner than I thought... My dad is giving me his NAS for no apparent reason so I will get to play with that. Should be pretty fun :)
 
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