Scott Posted January 31, 2010 Share Posted January 31, 2010 We're developing a 5U84 system at the moment, which can house 84 SAS drives, and we're getting 2.5TB drives in this year!! That's a LOT of storage. Is Pot refering to a company though? I read it as 12tb for personal use lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tbourner Posted January 31, 2010 Author Share Posted January 31, 2010 I wanted to come into this thread with a nice budget build but really if you are using it for basic stuff, browsing, email, skype etc I would stick with what you have. 512mb RAM is very low these days, have a look on ebuyer for DDR1 PC3200 RAM, try and get 2 sticks of 1GB which should not cost you much. Secondly I would get a faster boot drive, something like a western digital velociraptor or other 10,000rpm drive. For a fairly modest upgrade your system will be far quicker than it currently is, plus you can use your old boot drive as a media drive or something as well. I am all for upgrading big but wouldnt upgrade till you really need it and for browsing the web ? save your cash for supra stuff for now I was thinking something more like this. But will my current system deal with Windows 7? I wouldn't trust it to run Vista no matter how much RAM I crammed in!! Come to think of it I don't know how much RAM my m-board can handle. It is 4-5 years old now. From Scotts list I could just get the CPU, motherboard (does it have onboard graphics chip?), case and PSU, and with the extras for cooling it comes to £187. I then need to buy Windows 7 (how much?) and wipe my current system and use my current HDDs for now. I've got a DVD-RW drive which is fine and my monitor/keyboard/speakers etc. do what I need them to. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tbourner Posted January 31, 2010 Author Share Posted January 31, 2010 Novatech do a motherboard bundle for £125 with: Intel Pentium Dual Core E5400 2Gb 240Pin DDR2 800Mhz Intel G31 Intel ICH7 Is that better than buying everything seperately? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott Posted January 31, 2010 Share Posted January 31, 2010 Not really. The motherboard is the cheapest of the cheap, the RAM is out of date by quite a long way and the processor is the slowest dual core you can get. It IS an upgrade to what you have at the moment though Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jake Posted January 31, 2010 Share Posted January 31, 2010 I know Windows always want to store stuff on the C drive in My Docs and stuff which I find quite annoyingIt doesn't necessarily. It depends which is the System Drive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wez Posted January 31, 2010 Share Posted January 31, 2010 For my deaktop I run a 128GB SSD for my system/os drive and hardware RAID1 for a pair of 500GB Western Digitals for other crap, I wouldnt bother with software raid. An overclocked Intel E6550 running at over 2.7GHz and 4GB RAM on Win7 does the trick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tbourner Posted February 1, 2010 Author Share Posted February 1, 2010 Now, this PC is only a couple of expensive components away from a bloody fast machine. Seriously, it isn't a million miles off. It can be easily upgraded in the future to be much faster than it is now. You do have a million options though. Scott, which m-board with onboard graphics would you recommend then? Rather than me buying a graphics card? How about this one: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/187987 For a fiver more? Without me playing games or doing any rendering or anything is it really worth getting a graphics card? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wez Posted February 1, 2010 Share Posted February 1, 2010 If you want a PC for just brousing the web and doing documentation etc, ie business stuff you should look at the Acer Aspire Revos with the NVidia ION chipset. I have used a couple of these now and for the £145 they cost they are an absolute bargin, check out the reviews on ebuyer you can plug either SVGA or HDMI into them for a display. http://www.ebuyer.com/product/167153 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ric Posted February 1, 2010 Share Posted February 1, 2010 i priced up the ultimate pc yesterday, 2500quid, do it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott Posted February 1, 2010 Share Posted February 1, 2010 Scott, which m-board with onboard graphics would you recommend then? Rather than me buying a graphics card? How about this one: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/187987 For a fiver more? Without me playing games or doing any rendering or anything is it really worth getting a graphics card? The downfall is the motherboards with onboard graphics aren't as good as the ones that don't have onboard. That is the reason why I selected one that didn't have it onboard. It means it is more futureproof. If you really aren't fussed about upgrading in the future etc then I would just go with the one you selected. For browsing and using office etc it will work fine. Either that or go with the setup Wez has shown, looks a bit of a bargain. If you want a PC for just brousing the web and doing documentation etc, ie business stuff you should look at the Acer Aspire Revos with the NVidia ION chipset. I have used a couple of these now and for the £145 they cost they are an absolute bargin, check out the reviews on ebuyer you can plug either SVGA or HDMI into them for a display. http://www.ebuyer.com/product/167153 That is a fantastic deal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wez Posted February 1, 2010 Share Posted February 1, 2010 That is a fantastic deal. I have run that exact model with both XP and Ubuntu 9.10 and it works very well, you need to get all the correct drivers installed but you can also stick Win7 on them, for Win7 I would up the memory to a min 3GB though. On Ubuntu you can run the 3D cube desktop and with the drivers installed it doesnt bother it all Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tbourner Posted February 1, 2010 Author Share Posted February 1, 2010 I did look at those little PC things but I think I'd rather stick with a normal desktop - I at least want a CD/DVD drive anyway and I don't really want to bother with plugging in an external drive every time. Do we think Windows 7 home or pro? Why is 64 bit better than 32? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrRalphMan Posted February 1, 2010 Share Posted February 1, 2010 For my deaktop I run a 128GB SSD for my system/os drive and hardware RAID1 for a pair of 500GB Western Digitals for other crap, I wouldnt bother with software raid. An overclocked Intel E6550 running at over 2.7GHz and 4GB RAM on Win7 does the trick Do you run a seperate RAID controller or one built into the MB? I had a RAID setup running from a MB controller, when the MB died that was it. No more Raid setup. Even another MB with Raid onboard would not read the disks. Fair enough it was striped and not mirrored, yes I know.. , but I now have 2x200GB SATA drives in a mirrored setup, but would not be 100% sure that if they were swapped to another MB that they would work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tbourner Posted February 1, 2010 Author Share Posted February 1, 2010 I thought all RAID setups were dependant on the controller, and if you swapped it you'd need to delete the arrays and start again? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustGav Posted February 1, 2010 Share Posted February 1, 2010 I thought all RAID setups were dependant on the controller, and if you swapped it you'd need to delete the arrays and start again? It all depends on the vendor, some store the RAID definitions on the controller, some on the disks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wez Posted February 1, 2010 Share Posted February 1, 2010 Do you run a seperate RAID controller or one built into the MB? I had a RAID setup running from a MB controller, when the MB died that was it. No more Raid setup. Even another MB with Raid onboard would not read the disks. I use a seperate controller for the Raid 1 set, the onboard RAID controller is used in AHCI mode with a single SSD attached, the other four onboard SATA channels dont support AHCI so only used for my DVD burner Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wez Posted February 1, 2010 Share Posted February 1, 2010 I did look at those little PC things but I think I'd rather stick with a normal desktop - I at least want a CD/DVD drive anyway and I don't really want to bother with plugging in an external drive every time. Those Acer units also come with a VESA mount, you can fix them to the back of your screen which is pretty slick, as for CD/DVD drives I would have one always connected sat next to the monitor, compared to a full PC case you are using up a lot less space. Do we think Windows 7 home or pro? Why is 64 bit better than 32? I went with Pro as ultimate didnt offer any additions that I wanted to use and I have never liked the home additions. As for why is 64bit better, essentially it enables you to move twice as much information around, its not new technology, there was even a 64bit version of XP, although not well supported but other OS and systems have been 64bit for a long long time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/64-bit Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrRalphMan Posted February 1, 2010 Share Posted February 1, 2010 I'm using 64bit on my Laptop and I wouldn't move back to XP now.. Don't think that 32bit v 64bit on a home setup really gives you anything, apart from being able to access more then 3gb of Ram. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DamanC Posted February 1, 2010 Share Posted February 1, 2010 Fuck me! Some of you lot don't half splurt some shit out. Trev - We build custom PCs for a living, not a hobby. Make you mind up what you want it to do and im sure we can build you something for the same price as what you can build it for. See sig Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ric Posted February 1, 2010 Share Posted February 1, 2010 Are u a trader? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DamanC Posted February 1, 2010 Share Posted February 1, 2010 Are u a trader? Me? No, why would I want to be? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ric Posted February 1, 2010 Share Posted February 1, 2010 i thought you had to be a trader for advertising companies on here, maybe im wrong Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DamanC Posted February 1, 2010 Share Posted February 1, 2010 Advertising? I'm trying to point the bloke in the right direction so that he doesn't end up with some steaming turd. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wez Posted February 1, 2010 Share Posted February 1, 2010 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tbourner Posted February 1, 2010 Author Share Posted February 1, 2010 I'm trying to point the bloke in the right direction so that he doesn't end up with some steaming turd. Seriously, I can put it all together myself I just need advice on what to buy. Or is that what you're offering? Seems silly paying for advice when there's so much available for free though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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