Re: question about storage
Jim Green put forth on 2/19/2011 10:16 PM:
>> Just stay away from the WD Green drives, or any 512/4096 hybrid drives,
>> for your sake. :)
>
> Thanks! also lets say I am building a quad/hex core desktop box for
> computing. I'd like listen to ur advice about cpu and motherboard, I am not
> partial to intel but I do prefer a quiet and debian friendly box that
> can hold 4x2T data can simulate things relatively fast.
Very few people understand what parallel processing is, how few
desktop/workstation applications are written to use it, and that it is
required to make good use of more than one CPU core, specifically in a
workstation environment. (In the server space just about every
application can take advantage of multiple cores). Desktop multitasking
can take advantage of more than 1 core, but it's difficult to push more
than 2 cores using multitasking alone. Ron will list exceptions, but
that's what they are, exceptions, not the general rule. The number of
people actually making good use of 4 cores in desktops is a tiny
fraction of 1% of all users.
Whether it's Intel or AMD silicon, in a given process technology, the
more cores and more cache you add to a chip, the greater the transistor
count. This translates into greater current draw, and thus heat
dissipation, especially with high clocked multi core chips. As most
workstation cores sit idle 99%+ of the time, having a quad/hex core CPU
simply wastes more electricity and generates more heat. A side effect
of this is typically noisier fans needed to cool the chip. Thus,
quad/hex core systems aren't going to be quiet.
Americans (of which I am one) tend to always want more, bigger, faster,
even when we don't need such and can't make use of it. I don't
subscribe that philosophy. I always recommend to people to buy a high
clock dual core workstation and avoid quad/hex systems _unless_ they
have a specific application that threads well over 4 or more cores, and
that this is a _critical_ application. Otherwise, again, you're simply
wasting electricity and generating more heat and noise than you need to,
and oh, spending more money.
If you don't have such an application as described above, but you think
you still need more than a single core (for instance when Firefox grinds
your single CPU box to a halt while navigating /. comments), the chip
I'd recommend then would be the following based on the combination of
frequency, thermal dissipation, and cost:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103903
Dual core 3 GHz 2MB L2 cache 65 watts $61
If you have a critical application that scales to 4 or more cores, I'd
recommend this CPU based on the same criteria, but weighting heat
dissipation higher than cost:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103907
Quad core 2.6 GHz 6MB L3 cache 65 watts $180
The bulk of AMD's desktop quad core CPUs are 95-125 watt light bulbs,
which is simply ridiculous for a desktop CPU. This 65 watt model costs
more because it's a 65 watt model and is thus in higher demand. It's
currently out of stock at Newegg. But if you _need_ a quad core, AMD,
this is the one to get. Both of these chips are certified to work in
the Gigabyte board I listed earlier:
http://www.gigabyte.us/support-downloads/cpu-support-popup.aspx?pid=3497
Regarding the 8TB or storage, you'd get a PATA DVD/ROM drive instead of
SATA as I listed previously, and since this is now a workstation build,
we'll do a burner, along with 4 x 2TB HDS 7.2K rpm drives w/native 512
byte sectors (no advanced format nonsense), and you'd grab two more of
the SATA cables I listed previously.
Qty 1: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136221
Qty 4: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145298
http://www.hitachigst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/techdocs/6A7E7E6848832B7786257603007AAF5E/$file/DS7K2000_DS_final.pdf
If you want 4GB ram instead of 2GB:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148262
If you want 8GB:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148347
Stick with the InWin deskside pedestal server chassis. It's
inexpensive, has 5 tool less slide out HDD trays with excellent airflow
over the drives, and it's pretty quiet, and it'll have 3 free 5.25" bays
for mounting more DVD drives, fan/system controllers, etc, along with a
kinda useless 3.5" front bay.
If you want to go all out and get silly you can even put a 12 core 2.2
GHz AMD Magny Cours chip in here atop a quad memory channel SuperMicro
server motherboard, 32GB RAM, dual GbE ports, an nVidia PCIe x16
workstation graphics card, a 512MB LSI Logic PCIe x8 hardware RAID card
with 5 x 2TB 7.2k RPM Seagate Constellation SAS drives in a hardware
RAID5 yielding 8TB net space and breathtaking read/write performance
(for a single user workstation anyway). This system will set you back a
bit. The drives and RAID card are $1900, the GPU $3800, the RAM about
$1000, mobo $250, CPU $1300. Ignoring the case/PSU/optical drive that's
about $8250 if my math is correct.
The sky is the limit (or your credit line).
--
Stan
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