Computer Build Resource Thread - Page 1420

On March 19 2013 06:51 Belial88 wrote:
Different systems are different, ram overclock (not huge but at the level we are talking about, a factor), different software, streaming optimizations, internet connection (i have a pretty good internet connection). I don't feel comfortable continuing the conversation if it's going to get heated. I think most people will agree you gotta put an SSD on any modern build these days, even if it's just some junk $30 patriot 32-64gb ssd just to put your OS on and then throw everything on a HDD. That, and a phenom ii will stream starcraft at 720 very smoothly.

I mean my athlon ii stream looked vastly superior to the overwhelming majority of pro streamer's streams. I just had set up my stream way better than most of them did. Destiny, for example, has a really good stream (and a beast system to boot). Plenty of pros have i7s and all the latest and greatest, and you can see their streams look like crap.

both athlon ii, pentium, and an i7, is going to dip into the 20s'-30s in a big battle, just an athlon will have a minimum of 23 and an i7 will maybe have a minimum of 35. The intel chips are also going to have a much more solid average fps through most of late game as well. But as long as fps stays above 25 you can play just fine, and if it stays above 30-35 it will be smooth. Higher will of course be smoother and better looking but I definitely streamed smoothly, with no hiccups or issues, on an athlon ii. My phenom ii was quite a big step up, and I streamed very well on that. Then the i5 and i7 were huge steps up but I mean it was a rather small increase given the price hike.

On March 19 2013 06:23 Craton wrote:

Sorry, I don't know what you mean by this. I'll just explain your options:

Option 1: SyncToy
You set up folder 'pairs' and then every time you run the program all the files from the 'source' folder will be copied to the 'destination' folder (maintaining hierarchy). You can easily automate this to run once a day (or any interval, really) through Window's Task Scheduler.

Upsides are that you can use any side or speed disk for a backup, including an external / thumbdrive (it will copy over a bit slower on one of these than an internal drive, but that probably isn't an issue if you schedule it for a time when you're not using it (e.g. overnight or at lunch). You can manually sync at any time. Only files that are newly added, deleted, or modified are moved to the 'destination' folder during the sync, so it's usually pretty fast (maybe not so much for you with large media files).

Downsides are that you only save the files you specify and you'll still need reinstall any programs that were installed on that drive. If the drive you're backing up just has assorted files, this isn't an issue at all, but if it's e.g. your boot disc this could be a big pain (especially with how licensing works on some software).

Option 2: Mirrored Drive
There are two ways to mirror a drive: a RAID array (typically RAID 1 in your case) or a Window's mirrored volume. Both function in more or less the same way for the user, though they're a bit different behind the scenes. Performance is pretty even as a whole, with each having better/worse performance in certain categories (it's close enough that it's not a huge deal which you use).

Windows mirrored drives can be pretty seamlessly moved from one system to another, while HDD ones might have issues. I'm not overly familiar with recovery on RAID arrays, but I've read that the differences between controllers on different motherboards can sometimes cause issues, but again this is only when you're moving from one system to another, not just replacing a failed drive.

Window's mirrored volumes have some reservations when it comes to the mirrored drive also being your boot drive. I think you can get it to work, but there's some extra legwork involved. It's easiest if you have one boot drive then two other drives that are mirrored (just takes a few clicks). Someone else might know more.

Performance-wise you'll generally get the speed of the worst disk because they both have to do everything. Iirc RAID 1 has slower writes than a single disk, but reads are good (not sure if equal / better / worse). Typically a RAID 1 controller can use differently-sized disks, but only the space of the smallest one will be usable. Windows 7 should be the same in this regard.

Better RAID controllers have the ability to finish writes when power is lost to maintain data parity between drives. I don't think this is common on consumer-level stuff. You can always get an uninterruptable power supply if you're really paranoid, but we're probably overkill at this point.

You'll have to see if your motherboard has RAID support (0/1 is pretty common) and plug into the right hubs (some motherboards will have RAID support on e.g. the first 2 ports but not the rest). Windows 7 mirrored shouldn't matter how things are plugged in. For you, I think Windows mirrored volume is probably the best of these two options.

Option 3: Disk Image
A bit of options 1 and 2. You won't have real-time backups, but you will have the entire drive recoverable (you can do just pieces of the drive if you want for more frequent jobs). You can automate this to run on intervals, though I think it takes a fair bit of time. You could set this up to do something like a full drive backup once a week/month and a nightly backup on the folders that change frequently (e.g. your work files).

http://serverfault.com/questions/34995/windows-disk-imaging-for-backup-with-auto-scheduling

--

For what it's worth, I use a mix of #1 and #2. I two 3TB drives mirrored that contain all of my big media files (mostly videos) that would be very hard to replace. I also have folder pairs for regularly backing up certain files from my C drive.

I think you would probably be fine with an infrequent image of your disk (monthly is pretty good) and a frequent backup of specific work folders (e.g. a nightly SyncToy run). If you're just looking to protect from simple drive failure, this is pretty quick and easy.

Keep in mind that none of these solutions will project you from force majeure events. The best option here at the very minimum, is to store your monthly image offsite.

And finally, don't take everything here as gospel. I'm sure I got a few details wrong.

We've also been told by a trusted source that Haswell has more clock headroom than Ivy

On March 19 2013 07:02 niteReloaded wrote:

(Nite here again)
Alright, this will be useful, thanks!

Do you think you could recommend us a good build to buy? That was the main reason of my post, but we got sidetracked into talking about backup, which is important of course, but the main priority is finding out a good build to buy so that we actually start working on that computer, and have stuff to make backups of :p

I wrote our main preferences in the 'nested quote', if you (or if someone else wants to help out) can check that out? We basically need a power PC for video editing, so if you can recommend a good setup we'd be thankful.

If you could assemble it on www.protis.hr it would be awesome, but if it's too much to ask let me know and I won't bother you anymore...