The Official PC building thread - 4th Edition

Impressive to say the least. In lieu of my putting off Sandybridge or similar for a while, I have been exploring my options for SSDs. That's where the large improvements are. Ideally ~128GB would be perfect for me. Currently at ~150GB usage on my 250GB OS partition, but this is also including ALL of my Steam files currently installed which is a hefty 102GB on its own. Will be transferring that over shortly. 128GB would leave me plenty of room for both my OS and a bunch of select HDD whoring games.

Oblivion unpacked from 6 archives at 7GB to some thousands of small files at 10GB I'm looking at you.

 

@sytyguy

You definitely get better throughput with the SATA3 SSD's even though it isn't 2x(+) increase. I've looked at the manufactures information & ratings and it does make a difference to go full SATA3. I'll upgrade this SSD to yours or Russ's and use this one in one of my families PC's or NB's.

Very nice.... :O

 

Mr-Movies,

My speed continues to improve, so I guess it's not done learning yet.



We don't have the same software, but it's all I have. It's still in iDE mode too!

Russ

 

Russ,

There is something wrong with your test metrics that I didn't pickup on originally? Write speeds should be less than Reads. Also it is not a good idea to perform write tests on an SSD in a Benchmark fashion, which is why I didn't post that in my test.

Stevo

 

Russ, that is one fast SSD you have, I don't even compare.

Mr-Movies is correct it appears, your writes are skewed.

 

X25-V - ATTO seems to have difficulty with the write speed limitation on this SSD. Lots of background activity going on during this bench however. Test is reasonably agreeing with the 35MB/s write and 185MB/s read limitation.


WD20EARS from gaming PC - Pretty consistent there, shows how much of a difference there is between SSDs and Eco hard drives! 57.5MB/s write and 60MB/s read, all the way down.


WD1001FALS from gaming PC - Also pretty consistent, at a spomewhat improved 75MB/s write and 80MB/s read.


WD10EADS connected via eSATA - You'd think from those results, that 50MB/s was an interface limitation...


Intel 320 series SSD in server - More consistent SSD results from a system more at idle, 48MB/s write and 195MB/s read.



WD5000AAKS from third PC - thought I'd test this as there seem to be some bad sector issues with this drive. They didn't seem to affect this test though, 74.5MB/s write, 73.5MB/s read...

It's worth pointing out that these mechanical disks are all brimmed to capacity. Were they being tested empty, the results would be a lot higher.

 

Stevo,

I think it because it's in IDE mode. My neighbors does it in IDE Mode, but once he got ACHI installed the writes are now smaller. Even so it's still well below it's max write speed of 490MB/s. It's not the full version of ATTO either, it's the free one!

Best,
Russ

 

I think I may have found my bluescreen/memory issue. The northbridge running at 2200Mhz seems to have been the problem, while running in XMP mode. I dropped to default northbridge settings, with XMP settings. I ran memtest86+ and no errors. It is however possible, that a voltage increase would correct the issue. My board is quickly becoming dated though. So the way I see it, anymore overclocking at this point, is approaching an area of diminished returns X264 is where I like to see gains, and my Quad core really is limited in this area. I'm lucky to shave off 30 - 45 min of a 5 - 6hr job. That's the length of time I generally sleep. I just don't see the point. Perhaps with gaming it could be a thing. But it'd probably only be a couple more frames per second. Which is hardly noticeable.

Man I hate my job. They take forever to issue our W-2's

 

ive got a bit of an issue have you guys every owned a WD7502AAEX or a larger equivilant. it makes this god awful noise...its hard to explain its like the rattling noise you hear from car windows when there slammed or your musics to loud is this a normal sound? it only does it during a read/write cycle simultaneously, and the harddrive is secured. could it be the heads are snapping back and forth very quickly to a different location on the disk.

 

It sure sounds like the heads are rattling/shuttering some. You better make sure your backed up, if you still have warranty on your drive initiate a RMA with WD and get your drive replaced. If not you should think about replacing it soon as a head crash will be inevitable if that is your problem.

I have that drive, several actually, and have had no problems at all but then that doesn't help you or mean you don't/won't have problems of course.

One other thing that is could be is the bearings as they could be getting bad too but either way it is time to replace it before worst things happen.

 

Ive already RMA'd 2 of these dame things in 3 months....im just going to buy a seagate scew these f%$king performance drives. ive already paid dame near 100 Bucks in 2 Day shipping fees.

 

That's some bad luck for sure. 3rd time was apparently a charm for me. My V-Raptor appears to be better than both of the previous drives. I'd still like an SSD though. But I'm leaning more toward blowing my Ca$h wad on a camera this year. I'm sick of using a cheap point and shoot. I want the real deal now. And the pictures I've seen people take with high dollar camera's are nothing short of breathtaking! I want that LOL!
A canon T3i for instance, or a Canon 60D. Not decided yet...

I have expensive habits/hobbies

 

Canon is the way to go Nikon just isn't the camera of choice anymore, more pros use Canon.

A man with your wallet should be looking at the EOS-1Ds Mark III, guarantied great pictures from that camera.

But if you are really bent on Nikon you might want to go for the D3X as it is a pretty decent camera too.

I've been a Canon user most of my life and also Olympus too but I did make a big mistake and got a Minolta peace of crap last time, what a mistake I will not make again. I definitely could see getting the 60D as it is a decent mid-low end true SLR camera. Most likely I'll buy the 7D though, one step up from the 60.

 

I've been told that the lens (more or less) makes the camera. The T3i/T2i is a very decent starter camera for me. I have been tempted for the 60D though, because it's supposedly a quicker camera. I've been scouring the proper forums on this This is a building thread, sorry I brought it up. I tend to ramble at times LOL!

LOL!!! My wallet isn't that big

 

Not totally true as you can use the same lens on both these days depending on what you are looking at. Your also right speed for sports shots depends on camera body more importantly than the lens although it too is important, but also program functions, mega pixels and a few other things enter in.

It's a digital camera and can be tethered by one of our computer builds so not to far off the mark. LOL

 

i Went From RAID Mode to AHCI Mode.....and that rattling sound quit....how the hell does that work <.<. i notice SMART Wasn't passing through the RAID Controller when i ran diagnostic tools with AHCI..SMART Passed through. Odd i think it has something to do with SMART but its just a drive monitoring tool.

 

I would doubt the SMART had anything to do with it and would suspect the RAID tool(s) or the media it's self.

Run the WD Diag tool on the drive(s) and see if it finds bad sectors and marks them or comes up with some diag codes. The RAID system could have been trying to pound on a bad sector(s) which possibly caused extensive read/writes...

 

DXR88,

I have 2 questions for you. Have you experienced and Data loss or corrupted files with the drive? What is your case made of? I've seen a few Aluminum cases where the case actually amplifies the drive noise. They make rubber bushings that go in between the bay slot and the drive that will quiet that situation down, if this is the case. I don't think it's spindle bearings, because they generally make noise all the time when they are bad. Just saying.

Best Regards,
Russ

 

He is running RAID so unless the RAID completely breaks down I doubt he will see data loss, of course that depends on his RAID structure too i.e., RAID 5 vs. RAID 0, but he may need to rebuild his RAID as it could be corrupted which will cause everything to work harder, as it seems to be doing possibly.

So really to get down to tacks we would need to know the whole story/configuration, is it external or internal?, are there mixed drives and sizes?, what RAID level are you running?, is your RAID controller software based? Server card? Desktop PC MB controller? and so on and so on...

I thought it sounded fishy when he said it was his third drive that he had issues with. Although one could have that kind of bad luck it is highly improbable.

RAID dictates more expense and more complications so to resolve issues it isn't always obvious, simple, or easy.