What computer are you running?

NeverAmI said:
At work I have an HP DC7700 small form factor with Windows XP, intel Core 2 Duo and 2GB RAM.

A Mac G5 (powerPC) with 2GB RAM and dual proc, OSX Tiger

An HP EliteBook 6930p with 2GB RAM and a Core 2 Duo

I have a Intel Core 2 Quad with 8GB RAM and an 8800GT with Windows 7 64 bit

I have an HP DL385 G2 with 12GB RAM running VMWare ESXi with various Windows 2008, Windows 2003, Ubuntu, CentOS, and more virtual servers for playing around. This has a DAS shelf with 16 bays which I intend to fill with UltraSCSI 320 73GB 15K RPM drives when finances allow.

I also have an old P4 loaded with Windows 2003 and a full hardware RAID card which I am using for my NAS. Right now it only has 3 500GB drives but I intend to upgrade to 5 2TB drives eventually, for 8TB of redundant storage.

We have an old school dell tower being used as our router with pfSense which allows WAN balancing of our 2 incoming connections. My roommate works for an ISP and I am good buddies with the head admin so we get perks. :D

I haven't used linux as a desktop for some time, but I still use it for servers all the time.
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Which computer do you use for what? :eek:
 
Yield said:
Of all the kind of threads I didn't think could be derailed...
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:m201:but I didnt mean to...I really have a piece of crap...

and I really was going to post poo...I had one picked out and everything...it was so nasty...

UGH im doing it some more...
 
Yield said:
I was wondering when you were gonna swoop in, NAI!

I was thinking about getting a Raid 0 set-up for my comp, for video editing. I've heard mixed feelings about it. I was gonna get two 500 GB Western Digital Black Hard drives and software raid them. The downside, I hear, is higher chance of failure. Or... two Samsung F3 1 TB hard drives in Raid... I'm not sure though. Can any one comment, if this would be a good idea? Mostly for video editing and compositing HD stuff.
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For every drive you add into RAID 0 you increase your chance for failure. Any single drive failing will ruin the whole array.

RAID 5 can lose 1 drive and continue to function and rebuild when you replace the failed drive, but it requires at least 3 drives to implement and you lose 1 drive worth of storage space for redundancy.

In the end, you need some sort of redundancy to be safe. You can either create redundancy by having the files on two different drives by manually copying them, or by setting some sort of redundant array up.

I would say that RAID 0 would be good for any sort of transcoding/encoding, etc. But you need something else to ensure you don't lose anything important. Even if that is just going to get a couple USB drives. Some say I go overkill with redundancy, but those people have never lost a HDD with important stuff on it. :P
 
NeverAmI said:
For every drive you add into RAID 0 you increase your chance for failure. Any single drive failing will ruin the whole array.

RAID 5 can lose 1 drive and continue to function and rebuild when you replace the failed drive, but it requires at least 3 drives to implement and you lose 1 drive worth of storage space for redundancy.

In the end, you need some sort of redundancy to be safe. You can either create redundancy by having the files on two different drives by manually copying them, or by setting some sort of redundant array up.

I would say that RAID 0 would be good for any sort of transcoding/encoding, etc. But you need something else to ensure you don't lose anything important. Even if that is just going to get a couple USB drives. Some say I go overkill with redundancy, but those people have never lost a HDD with important stuff on it. :P
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What are the actual chances of it going wrong?

If I do a RAID 0+1 I would I have to get a dedicated RAID controller card?
 
Yield said:
Which computer do you use for what? :eek:
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My windows machine at work is usually my stand up station, so sometimes I stand at that. Other times I sit at the mac and I remote desktop into my windows machine, which I then use to run the ESX agent which opens up remote consoles to my virtual test machines which I use to create deployment packages, test applications, and other general testing.

At home, the Core 2 Quad is my primary HTPC, but my roomie has the living room torn apart so I have it in my room now. I also have a dual core Opteron with 2GB of RAM that I am not using right now. I will probably switch that over to my NAS eventually. the P4 is showing its age.
 
Yield said:
What are the actual chances of it going wrong?

If I do a RAID 0+1 I would I have to get a dedicated RAID controller card?
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You have to look on the motherboard specs. Raid 0+1 would require at least 4 drives though.

RAID 5 would be your best bet for redundancy/speed.

RAID 0 will get you the fastest speed but it isn't worth the chance of a drive failing if it is going to be your only storage.

Don't take a chance on holding vital information (not backed up) on a RAID 0.

Maybe your best bet is just to get a RAID 0 array, get a USB drive, and copy your vital files from the RAID 0 to the USB drive, so that they reside on both.
 
Toshiba Satellite A305-S6905 Laptop
Intel Core 2 duo processor T6400
3GB SDRAM, 320 GB HDD

Vista OS
15.4" screen but I have my laptop set up as a desktop. I've got a 19" Dell LCD monitor plugged into the laptop along with a Dell external keyboard and external mouse. I never take my Laptop anywhere because I have too much plugged into it, it's basically going to perform as a desktop from here on out.

I've got 2 other desk tops that played out, a really nice Dell XPS 600 back in October/2005 , it played out in the summer of 2006 and I heard horror stories about Dell sending repaired PC's to the wrong address or keeping them for many months, so I never used the warranty. I paid 3,020 dollars for my Dell.

I'm going to get my Dell repaired this year though, too much life left in it and it cost too much money to piss away. In the summer of 2006 I bought a Gateway desktop that just played out 2 months ago, I think I'm going to trash it as it has over 3 yrs of long use on it.

I really don't care for super gaming systems or lots of bells and whistles, I usually go for the middle ground, when it comes to electronics and high tech gadgets.

My Toshiba laptop I just bought last April and its still under warranty, I keep it plugged into a bad ass surge battery back up by Cyber Power. The main reason my Dell went out is I had a power surge when the power people were working on a transformer outside my house, and it took a zap and always ran weird and would freeze after that. I recommend to ALL to get a high quality surge protector with a battery back up power supply.
 
I have had 4 or 5 drives go bad on me throughout my personal computing years.

We just had a drive go bad at work today, but we have a lot of drives in various servers.
 
Slayerwolf said:
I really don't care for super gaming systems or lots of bells and whistles, I usually go for the middle ground, when it comes to electronics and high tech gadgets.
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No doubt, I can understand some people's enthusiasm, but paying out the nose for bleeding edge then waiting for bug fixes just doesn't seem logical to me. :P
 
NeverAmI said:
No doubt, I can understand some people's enthusiasm, but paying out the nose for bleeding edge then waiting for bug fixes just doesn't seem logical to me. :P
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I think that is what's so frustrating about the graphics card industry. On one hand the high end cards that are made are technologically amazing but if it doesn't actually play the games properly or well enough to justify the price it's just purely illogical.

NeverAmI said:
You have to look on the motherboard specs. Raid 0+1 would require at least 4 drives though.

RAID 5 would be your best bet for redundancy/speed.

RAID 0 will get you the fastest speed but it isn't worth the chance of a drive failing if it is going to be your only storage.

Don't take a chance on holding vital information (not backed up) on a RAID 0.

Maybe your best bet is just to get a RAID 0 array, get a USB drive, and copy your vital files from the RAID 0 to the USB drive, so that they reside on both.
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Hmm, thank NAI, I'll definitely think some more about it.
 
What operating system are you running? Windows, Mac etc.

Main pc, duel boot of windows 7 64bit and ubuntu 9.10 mostly running ubuntu, execpt for games.

File Server is, Server 2008 running ad and exchange 2007

Shitty old dell laptop running xp

Desktop or Laptop?

errm both


What are the specs of your computer? (Most interested!)

main pc

Intel e6750 2.66ghz @ 3ghz
8Gb Ram
Nvidia 8800GTS
74gb Raptor system drive
500gb data drive

Server

AMD x2 4800+
3gb ram
onboard video
74gb raptor system drive
4x500gb data drives

Laptop is an old dell d600 i got from ebay for
 
Mine is a self built machine, built it 2 years ago now.

Windows XP

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 1.8ghz @ 2.8ghz
Mobo: Asus P5N-E Deluxe Mobo
RAM: 4GB Kingston DDR2 RAM 800 mhz
CPU Heatsink: Arctic Cooler Freezer Pro CPU Heatsink
GPU: ATI Radeon HD 4850
Sound: 7.1 channel creative labs
1x 160 GB 7200 rpm Hitachi Deskstar
1x 320 GB Same as above
Akasa 400 watt PSU
Antec 900 case

It's pretty shit! Upgrades are gonna be:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400 2.6ghz (overclock to 3.4/3.6ghz)
Titan Fenrir CPU Heatsink
Either a 1 TB Samsung F3 Hard drive or 2x 500gb WD Blacks
OCZ Modular 600 watt PSU

Windows 7 64 bit
 
x2 5600
ASUS M2A-VM HDMI motherboard
4GB 3200 DDR2
4870 1GB
2x500GB HD in RAID0
...some new highly-rated 500W modular power supply
XP x64

I use a cheap USB external case for a standard 3.5" HD to back everything up regularly. I had doubts about the speed boost of the RAID until I ran apps on a similar machine but with a single SATA drive. No longer, heh.

If you're after raw encoding speed, go quad-core (looks like you are) and hardware RAID0. You will max the processor easily encoding anything of decent resolution and need the hardware offload for the RAID to maintain the best throughput. Go integrated as well, otherwise you will bottleneck on the PCI bus transfer rate.
 
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Windows 200 sp5 (which is sp4 given the Fred Vorck treatment)
Intel Pentium Dual Core 2.6GHz
Asus P5Q-VM motherboard
2GB RAM
640GB Hard disk

Soon I'll install Windows 7. I'm being lazy and procrastinating that, though.
 
Lenovo S10
2.5GB ram (2gigs usable :()
N270 1.6ghz atom processor :D
intel internal GFX
Windows 7 professional

I did used to have a nice amd system I built, but it died.
I will eventually get a new laptop once I get the funds. I am def a computer enthusiast though. Love overclocking hardware, inventive work space setups, etc..
 
Yield said:
I find looking and thinking about computers very stress relieving, maybe something to do with Ti? Takes me away from my emotions.

Anyway since we all use computers to access the forum it would be interesting to see what we are all running. Answer these questions so I can be nosey about the kind of computer stuff you all use and so we can laugh (or cry in jealousy) at the hardware you are using:

What operating system are you running? Windows, Mac etc.

Desktop or Laptop?

What are the specs of your computer? (Most interested!)
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I like the extreme mobility. It's weights almost nothing.
 
I'm seriously considering a big upgrade to a Core i5 system. I looked at Core i7 but I could save over
 
I have an Eepc (is known as both a laptop and a netbook O_o). It says ASUS on the side, so I guess that's the make? XD
It's some form of Linux (but not Linux mint) and has been set up for me by a friend who kind of changed the original look so it now has a real desktop, not just a menu (in the process deleting my 10 page story).
Specs.... it had 8 GB (not sure if that's hard drive or memory, probably the former). I don't really know any others ^^"

You now see my great knowledge of computers...
 
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