Advice needed on hard drive configuration for new build

Hello,

 

I have been following a number of recent threads on this forum that have provided great discussion on different approaches

to hard drive configuration on PCs for PS work. These include (for reference):

 

http://www.photo.net/digital-darkroom-forum/00Q5Ds

 

http://www.photo.net/digital-darkroom-forum/00QBfp

 

http://www.photo.net/digital-darkroom-forum/00Q5Au

 

However, I have been struck at the level of disagreement on what constitutes the best approach to hard drive configuration

in terms of scratch, RAID arrays, and the like. My inquiry revolves around two arenas -- comments on the build choices I

propose here, and more specifically, the hard drive configuration. I do have a budget of about $1200 or so but for a

compelling reason, I could stretch that a bit higher. This machine will be an all around PC but it needs to be able to handle

CS 3 and 4 and will be used to process 5D (or successor) composite raw files. Multi-tasking is a must. I want as much room

to grow as possible for the price and want as high of a performing machine as possible for the money. I will run Vista 64 bit

and am concerned with stability, ease of maintenance and configuration, performance, and redundancy. This is my first

build but I'm not a complete newb -- I've modified but that's about it.

 

This is the build I'm considering:

 

Case: Antec 300 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129042

 

PSU: Antec TPQ-850W ATX12V / EPS12V (package deal with case) $179.94

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371009

 

MoBo: GIGABYTE GA-EP45-DS3R LGA 775 $134.99 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?

Item=N82E16813128344

 

Processor: Intel Q9450 Yorkfield 2.66 ghz 45nm 12mb L2 cache quad core processor 1333 Mhz FSB $349.00

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115042

 

Memory: 4x G.SKILL 2GB (8GB TTL) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) F2-6400CL5S-2GBPQ - $163.96

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231121

 

Video card: I plan to use my current Matrox Millenium P650 64 mb graphics card for now.

 

Monitors: I plan to use my existing two monitor set-up (CRT and LCD) for now.

 

Comments appreciated.

 

So.....for the hard part....

 

Hard drives: Some say for best performance you should separate your OS from your apps (on different physical drives).

Some say that you should put your OS and Apps on a single velociraptor while others say you can get as fast with a striped

set of Caviars or Barracudas. Some say you MUST have a dedicated photoshop scratch on a separate physical drive and

others say not (Adobe says you should). Still others state that you should have a dedicated scratch, and raid 1 your storage

drives....the lack of agreement is maddening! BTW, I plan to mirror backup my OS and apps so I think that they could be on

a RAID 0 array if that's really that much more performance. Otherwise, stability, ease, fast, etc....

 

Some ideas I've had include:

 

1x 300 gb velociraptor for OS and Apps $299.00 2x 500 gb Seagate 7200.11 Barracudas in RAID 1 array for data $169.98

 

or

 

1x 300 gb velociraptor for OS and Apps $299.00 another fast drive for scratch (?) 4x 500 gb Seagate 7200.11 Barracudas

in RAID 0+1 array for data $339.94

 

or

 

4x 500 gb Seagate 7200.11 Barracudas in RAID 0+1 array for OS, Apps, and data (with partitions??) $339.94

 

All of this is predicated on the assumptions that RAIDed 0+1 Barracudas are pretty damn fast and are probably as fast as

similarly configured raptors or a single velociraptor.

 

How do you configure your apps, OS, scratch, and data? Drive read/write times are the bottleneck here, correct?

 

What to do? I ask that if you chime-in, please substantiate your recommendations and provide some sort of rationale for

your preferences.

 

You've been kind to read this far -- thank you!

 

Eric

I run a E8400 (at 3.6GHz), 2Gb RAM with 2 x 320Gb 7200.10 barracudas

I have the Windows XP on a partition on one HD and use the other HD as a scratch disc

It handles multiple 250Mb PSD files no problem.

 

The fact is computer hardware these days is plenty fast enough to handle large files. Unless you are dealing with 1-2 GB size files and above on a regular basis (in which case a move to SCSI and 64bit OS is a must) then you will not have any problems. IMO RAID set ups are not worth the hassle unless you really need the performance, in which case a dedicated SCSI controller is a better solution.

I agree with Mr. Howard's post above. I too am running an E8400, but I haven't overclocked mine (by the time I got all the components to play well together, I was too exhausted -- and thankful that everything finally works! -- to think about working on overclocking! My hat's off to you!). I've got 4 GB of RAM. (See my post late 24 July about the /3GB switch.)

 

I've got a couple of SATA II drives that I'm really happy with. The scratch disk is on a separate physical drive from the software disk.

 

I can do lots of work real fast with this setup and I've got absolutely no complaints.

 

I think that it's silly to build a workstation-style computer to work on PS files smaller than 500 MB, unless it's for a business. And in that case, you'll need to be working on a lot of files every day to justify it even then.

 

Take the extra money and pour it into something else -- calibration equipment, ink, paper, take your significant other out for a nice dinner -- or hey!, how about the best back-up DVD system and best archiving DVDs you can get. That's a part of the workflow that's all too often ignored or short-changed; if it's necessary but onerous, make it as pleasant and easy and reliable for yourself as you can.

Just think about your use case: You want to work on 14MB Raw Files, probably with mutiple layers in Photoshop.

Typical file sizes will be between 100 and 400 MB (PSD file format) I'd say. You have plenty of RAM, which Photoshop

will only use 4 GB of it, even on Vista64/XP64. Modern desktop harddrives are fast enough, so that writing 400MB to

disk happens in a very small amount of time.

 

For your system, get a very fast drive, like the Velociraptor or the cheaper and still very fast Western Digital

WD6400AAKS (640 GB). The access and seek times are important here, not the sequential transfer speed. The fewer

platters in your hard disk, the higher rotational speed, the better (in theory). The same things apply for a scratch disc -

you need fast, random access.

 

RAID is never, EVER a means of speeding up your system. Raid 0 is a no-go, if anything goes wrong, your system or

data is gone - you COULD use it for the scratch disc, take two very fast drive, and get one logical drive, which is 20-30

percent faster... But two times the money, 20 percent speedup? I wouldn't do that...

 

RAID1, even with an expensive Hardware Raid controller (not the cheap pseudo-stuff you find on motherboards!), is

slower than your single hard drive. RAID is not for backup purposes, but for reliability. If you absolutely need to continue

working, because you make money with your photography, and have no replacement machine, then you take RAID.

 

For data storage, get something big, Samsung Spinpoint F1 1 TB, for example. All 1 TB models are quite fast

(sequential read/write speed) and comparatively inexpensive. You only save your image once, after you've modified it. It

does not matter if that takes 3 or 4 seconds.

 

Finally, I have to agree with Michael, unless you're a big pro, spend more money on your photographic equipment, and

less for the computer stuff. Btw, do you have any backup devices? This is very important! Get some external drives,

eSata or Firewwire, and make backups!

Comment on Manuel's RAID-0 info:

 

This is interleaving so for "two times the money" you get twice the space. Or, you buy drives half as big for the

same space. As he says, RAID-0 is less reliable than a single drive, but single drives can go, too. Backup has to

provide recovery from failure in any case. (See my articles co-written by Uwe Steinmueller on backup at

http://www.outbackphoto.com.)

You don't really *need* RAID for picture editing.

<p>

Get the <a href=http://www.sharkyextreme.com/hardware/article.php/3740156>Seagate drive</a> with perpendicular

recording and make regular backups. I would do it as follows:

<p>

1) sys drive

<p>

2) Internal "work/data drive'

<p>

3) external backup drive (change when full)

<p>

4) backup to blue rays or DVD as well (pay attention to the new, upcoming Pioneer optical media which will allow

16 layers for a total of 500gb in a DVD/CD sized disc).

<p>

AS for reliability, my stats are as follows: in 9 years I have had 12 drive failures. One was an IBM system

drive that came with my old G4 (Desktars were notorious about that) and the rest were Maxtors! I also use

Quantum, WD and Seagate.

<p>

Needless to say, I will no longer buy any Maxtor drives.

I agree with Giampi, and essentially use that setup. I've gotten away from optical media, and rotate external HDs instead, although with prices slowly coming down on BR it may be something to reconsider. DVDs, even dual layers, are just too much work given the sizes that these files can become, especially if you are saving with all your layers to allow for possible future re-edits. I keep backups of my original RAWs, my final image in psd with all layers, and flattened, pre-sized tifs for printing (it only takes a few minutes to make them, and saves the hassle of returning to the original image to resize (and recrop if you change aspects) every time you need a copy of an 8X10 or 11X14 or whatever, of the same image. I don't know anything about the new Pioneer system coming out, but it does sound like a nice solution for optical storage (if affordable).

 

Giampi, BTW, Seagate bought Maxtor, so hopefully it's not going to be as much of a risk going with that "brand" as it once was, :)

If you use a RAID, don't use the one on a Mother Board.

Eric, as one who's "been there" and "done that" I can tell you that you're overanalysing this to death. Sure, you can put in multiple RAID arrays of raptors - seperate OS, scratch, app, and data drives - but at the end of the day all of these things will make very little difference to average image processing.

 

It's one of those areas where people extrapolate the "sound-good" theory, but the reality is quite different - and the reality is that no hard disk drive gets within a bulls roar of the speed at which you can move data in RAM - and as such the system will hardly even touch the drives so long as it has enough RAM. In many ways it's like saying that a 400km/hr Bugatti Veyron is better than a Ferrari F40, when the reality is that for city driving a Peugeot 308 will get you there just as fast.

 

If you're starting with a 32 bit OS then you're wasting you time going above 4GB - 32 bit apps can only address a max of 3GB (in either a 32 bit or 64 bit system) - if you want to be setup for CS4 then you'll need a 64 bit OS and then - and only then - does RAM above 4GB come into play - but (unless you're working on multi GB images) even then you won't see any performance gains.

 

I'd suggest gettting a quad-core CPU with 12MB cache - a standard 400GB SATA HDD - 4GB RAM - load up WinXP 64 - and then go buy a new lens with the difference.

 

Hope this helps,

 

Cheers,

 

Colin

Great responses – thanks to all!

 

Clearly I was over-specifying the drive configurations s given my needs. Last time I looked seriously at PC performance, you really couldn’t over-develop a home system. Times have changed.

 

I understand the 4 gig limit and it’s good to know I could add RAM later when usable.

 

I am looking to CS4 and think that a quad core and 64 bit OS is worth doing now.

 

As for drives, again, I can modify this set-up as needed. I do want a snappy system and I have had the pleasure of having drives crash before so I’m not entirely ruling-out a fast OS/Apps drive and a raid 1 setup for the data drive but I may just continue a disciplined manual mirroring regime from one data drive to another. The backup discussion is very much appreciated. I will be looking into optical solutions as well as esata for backups stored off-site. Marc’s articles were very helpful (and convincing).

 

I will re-think this build and may start more conservatively regarding the drives knowing I can always move them around and reconfigure that system if I think it needs improvement.

 

Thanks for the reality checks guys!

What'd you come up with, Eric?

Hi Garrison, I was hoping that you'd chime-in :)

 

I'm thinking this setup:

 

Case: Antec 300

 

PSU: Antec TPQ-850W ATX12V / EPS12V (package deal with case) $179.94

 

MoBo: GIGABYTE GA-EP45-DS3R LGA 775 $134.99

 

Processor: Intel core 2 Quad Q9450 Yorkfield 2.66 ghz 45nm 12mb L2 cache quad core processor 1333 Mhz FSB $349.00

 

Memory: 4x G.SKILL 2GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Desktop Memory Model F2-6400CL5S-2GBPQ - Retail $163.96

 

Hard Drives: 1x 300 gb velociraptor for OS and Apps $299.00

2x 500 gb Seagate 7200.11 Barracudas in RAID 1 array for data $169.98

 

Not sure about the RAM

 

Not sure on optical drive(s) yet.

 

Vista home premium 64 bit.

 

Portable HDs for backup via ESATA.

 

I may go 2 X 2gb RAM for now.

 

May not go RAID 1 but have two data drives.

 

Acronis for mirrors.

 

Q's:

 

Is it okay to use RAM not specified by the MoBo manufacturer? If so, how do you spec it out?

 

Is this power supply too big?

 

Thank you!

 

Eric

Hi Eric,

Well, lol, I’m not really sure either! As up until this week I thought I was building an Octa-core but have now

decided against it. I will however be piecing a quad core together in the next week or so and am in the middle of

researching a parts list too. I already have a P180 Antec case and will put a new mobo, cpu, and ram into it.

Heck, it’s so cheap right now and see no reason why not to replace my three year old dual core.

 

 

I had a coffee meeting with my techie today re my change of direction and so we haven’t had a chance to bounce

emails yet before I order the parts for my quad build. I’ll be going with the same cpu as you, the q9450. But so

far I will probably go with an Asus P5Q series mobo. Most of the gaming forums go with the q9450 and a P5 board

of sorts. There are some bios updates needing on some of the P5 boards (P5E? P5K?) but not sure as I’ve just started

my research. I’m going to over clock mine to 3.4 as it’s proven to be rock solid doing so when cooled properly.

 

 

I’ll give you my parts list in a couple days and maybe we can double check each others build? I’m putting in 8

gigs of ram as well but will try to use less sticks as you and perhaps go with

 

2X CORSAIR XMS2 DHX 4GB (2 x 2GB)

240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400).

 

I have to confirm if there is faster ram (10333) that will work with

mobo/cpu still. If so, I’ll go with it.

 

 

I like what I read about the Antec 300. Is there two 300 cases, one a “mini”? If so, double check to see if your

video card fits. There’s many concerns with people asking how to fit their gear into this case and have noticed

that some have had problems. The case side fan might interfere with a cpu cooler/fan if you go with one. Which I

think you should. There’s nothing wrong with

too much power supply and I think 850 is just enough for

what you are going to be doing. As well, the only two power supplies that have failed on me, have both been stock

Antec ones that came in Sonanta combo deals. I think an Antec 900 and a PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 Quad 750W

ATX V2.2 EPS12V 24PIN would be a better route if you can afford it.

 

You should try to put in less sticks of ram as 2 x 4gig sticks will run better than 4 x 2gig sticks. I firmly

believe you should purchase good ram like Kingston or Corsair. For a few bucks, I don’t think it’s worth cutting

corners on ram. Just a simple error here can casue a nightmare of problems and days of searching for the problem.

 

 

I’d like to see you add a cpu cooler and extra fans. I like the Sythe fans. They are excellent quality and quiet.

Both these items are small insurance for a hot running cpu.

 

Hard drives. For OS and apps, I think either you go 2 X Velociraptor in RAID O, or 2 X WD Cavair 16mb cache

drives in RAID O. I say this because the 2 $100 WD Cavairs in raid will be faster than a single $300

Velociraptor. So I say save $100 or more depending what size Cavairs you go with. Fair warning, I’ve had trouble,

as others, getting Acronis to do an image over a striped drive. Acronis said it did it fine but a forum thread

gave me the knowledge and then tested my back-up, and sure enough, it was corrupt. If I hadn’t read that forum, I

would have sat here thinking it was good. I had my techie go in and strip out buggy code from Ghost 2003 and then

put it on a cd for me. It’s been a life saver. Getting back to drives, I’m thinking of yanking out my 4x 250 RAID

O set up and replacing them with a single

 

 

Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS 640GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s

 

 

For my scratch, I’ll raid two of those 250’s. I’m due for another 750 as well and will buy the new

 

 

Western Digital 7501AALS Caviar Black 750GB SATA2 7200RPM 4.2MS 32MB

 

 

The speed on that Black line 750 is supposed to be incredible. This will be for my working files. I keep two

other 750’s in the same box but they have the sata cables and power supply cables off unless I need to go into my

library then I power down and connect and re-boot. It also just makes good common sense for them to be powered

off if they’re not in use. You have to remember that the more files you have on a drive, and the more drives with

more files, the more indexing takes

place with Windows and will slow you down.

 

Buying all this stuff will get a great deal on an OS and I'm thinking of dancing with the devil and going with

Vista64. I've been using XP64 since it came out and love it. But not sure what Adobe is going to do in a few

months with CS4 and which way they will go with a windows 64 version. Hopefully both XP64 and Vista64 as XP is so

much smaller and quicker. The adventure continues.

 

Also, if you can wait, on Aug 10 Intel is supposed to announce a massive price drop on their quad’s.

 

Cheers,

 

G

 

Here I once had a quad settup with four 200Mhz PPros.

If you feel like throwing a bit more money at the problem, the Seagate Cheetah 15,000 rpm drives are real nice. For larger medium format film scans loading and saving files take serious time, so I thought it worth the bucks. (I got a frantic call from my accountant asking why a SOHO translator needed an enterprise server class PC with three drives, though.)

Not sure if you came back, Eric. Or if you've ordered your gear yet. But here is what I've decided to go with.

 

 

2 X Western Digital Caviar SE16 640GB SATA2 7200RPM 16MB Hard Drive in Matrix Raid 0

 

 

2 X G.SKILL F2-8500CL5D-4GBPK PC2-8500 4GB 2X2GB DDR2-1066 CL5-5-5-15 240PIN. 8 gig total.

 

Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro LGA775 2500RPM 45CFM

 

ASUS P5Q Deluxe Motherboard

 

Intel Q9450 Quad Core Processor LGA775 2.66GHZ Yorkfield 1333FSB

12MB OEM. Will over clock to 3.4. Seems safe on air.

 

It's about $900. I have case, power supply, dvd burner, scratch drives and storage drives.

 

Best of luck,

 

G

As for a memory you may want to check out Crusial. I have bought all of my memory from them. If you do call them, talk to one sells person, and then another. Their onions do seam to differ sometimes. They have stood behind their produces every bit as good as B&H has.

 

As for as what memory for what mother board goes, I don't think it matters as much as being sure that you buy them as a pair. That's were a repeatable company come in. If you don't buy a pair, they won't work nearly as good.

 

You don't have to buy from Crusial, and they don't mind. They are more then willing to help. I believe they even have some free test programs for memory.

 

P.S. I think (and I very may well be wrong) If you only buy 2 GB's you will be limiting your self to only 6 GB's total. You have to buy in pairs, that I do know.

 

http://www.crucial.com/

As for a memory you may want to check out Crusial. I have bought all of my memory from them. If you do call them, talk to one sells person, and then call back and talk to another. Their onions do seam to differ sometimes. They have stood behind their produces every bit as good as B&H has.

 

As for as what memory for what mother board goes, I don't think it matters as much as being sure that you buy them as a pair. That's were a repeatable company come in. If you don't buy a pair, they won't work nearly as good.

 

You don't have to buy from Crusial, and they don't mind. They are more then willing to help. I believe they even have some free test programs for memory.

 

P.S. I think (and I very may well be wrong) If you only buy 2 GB's you will be limiting your self to only 6 GB's total. You have to buy in pairs, that I do know.

 

http://www.crucial.com/

I'm sorry, it's spelled Crucial

Well, here’s what I ended-up with:

 

Case: Antec 300 $59

 

PSU: BFG Tech ES-800 Continuous 800 watt Hybrid (worth checking-out this PSU in that it stays in the highly efficient zone even when using a fraction of it's rated output -- that is evidently rare) $89

 

MoBo: Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3R LGA $122

 

CPU: Intel Q9550 Yorkfield $349 (This drive was over $500 last week and is now the same price as the Q9450 was last week due to big Intel price drop)

 

RAM: 2 x 2GB Corsair DHX PC2-6400 $75 (these reviewed very well and spec'd out well too).

 

Drives: 2 x WD Caviar 640 GB $170 (what can be said?)

 

DVD Burner: LiteOn $29

 

GPU: EVGA e-GeForce 8600GT 256mb DDR3 $49 (this presented the most difficult element of the build research. I finally stumbled on this card which has extensive positive review for vista stability which was my chief concern.

 

Vista 64 bit $100

 

Acronis TrueImage (have)

 

about $1050 after rebates. I will add a Velociraptor in the spring for OS and Apps and RAID 1 the two caviars at that time.

 

Still need a monitor….

 

This has been an immensely drawn-out research project that I hope will be over-shadowed only by how easily and effortlessly the build goes together next week! HA!

 

Thanks for all of the help everyone!

 

Cheers

 

Eric

Thank you, Charles, I suck at spelling too!