The Official PC building thread - 4th Edition

Yup did, so if you have no programs to install or just a couple it can be less than a half hour to backup, like 20 minutes, so again slow doesn't enter in and a backup image is still much faster.

I have on one of my PC's over 300-400 games and I always have my profile on another drive, I setup shortcut's for Quick Launch on the Task Bar, and customize Icons & Branding of the PC's. Besides ton of programs for the Arts, CAD work, Office stuff, Programming, and other stuff.

It's up to you what you want to do but your excuses don't fly, it is still better, safer, and faster to image your system and have your OS stand alone with profiles and programs on other drives.

 

This PC is somewhat of a "control hub" for 3 other PCs and two laptops. It NEEDS OS integration with several programs, ie context menus, file associations, the like. In the end it ends up being a lot quicker for me to simply reformat with a USB drive and install everything fresh. I have used a disk image before and while convenient, DOESN'T SERVE MY PURPOSES.

I can change a lot of directories but I can't change where games save, nor can I change where programs keep inis or cfgs, so I end up needing an up to date backup of My Documents and several other folders anyway. This is something an image CANNOT do.

Yes, I have all of my games and non-essential programs on other drives. That was never an issue. There are only some 20 programs that need re-insalling and again they fit on a flash drive that costs no money to write to and can be used infinitely. Optical media has its uses but practical it is not. I need to keep my stuff updated, and even rewritable optical media is just not practical (read)FOR MY USES.

Likewise Shortcuts are not a big issue as I use RocketDock, which has a portable ini and can be transferred to other installs easily. Again, this ini is something I need an up to date backup of, something which an image is not practical for. Likewise my desktop is constantly changing, and a full image of my OS drive is not practical for tracking these small changes. It is much more practical for me to make a backup at the time of reformatting.

And what's more, operating this way doesn't require me to use storage space keeping outdated images of my OS.

And excuse me but my excuses? I'm not making any excuses. I'm telling you what is. Please don't turn this conversation into another one of those. Nobody here is making "excuses" for anything, nor should I have to be made to feel like my replies to you are "excuses." If you don't understand what I'm saying, or don't agree with my methods of doing things, please feel free to ask me to elaborate. I am willing to expand as much as needed to come to an understanding.

 

Actually it is something an image can do and does. True Image can/will keep your images up to date with incremental updates and will keep track of ALL changes including links, ini's and so on.

Again storage space is pretty lame it really doesn't take much space at all.

Excuses, storage, time, and can't do up to date recovery are ALL lame excuses, that is what it is!

Again if you don't want to backup that is fine but your reasoning is suspect at best.

Sorry to disagree but thems the facts.

Great deal on True Image right now at NewEgg.

Acronis True Image Home 2012 - 1 User For System Builder - OEM ($50+$2shp)

 

Well i'm definitely seeing my Quad core as dated now. Flash based games seem to hit the CPU a fair amount. And when I'm encoding/transcoding, it can cause a fair amount of lag. So either I need a dedicated encoding box, or a 6 - 8 core beast The temp agency finally got me the job I wanted! I don't know if it'll last, I hope so. If it doesn't, I'll begin strongly considering pumping gas/petrol. I prefer a seriously easy secondary job my primary kicks my butt LOL! Finally, I'm seeing light at the end of the tunnel ♥

 

I always use a dedicated machine for transcoding, however you can dial back your transcoding to use only 2 cores and leave the other 2 for daily use during your transcoding. That might mean no flash games though? LOL

CONGRATS!!!!! Way to go on the temp job and even if it is short once they get you working they seem to keep you going with something else when your job is close to up. There may be lags of off-time but your in the door now and that is a good thing.

Way to go Kevin....
Stevo

 

I know I can dial it back. But I also prefer a little schedule integrity when it comes to encoding Thanks for the encouragement

 

Im planning to build a quality gaming PC.

Budget: < 2000?

Sadly Im not very knowledgeable concerning pc hardware, so advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance, Tyrgalon

ps. Made a own thread, but can´t post the link as a new member :/
http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_jump.cfm/931578/5691638 edited by ddp

 

Tyrgalon

You can build a darn good gaming rig for $2000. You can easily spend a lot more too. We have members with multiple Dual Video cards, in CrossFire or SLI, and that can fluff up that price tag real quick.

Since you are building a gaming PC, I would recommend a SataIII SSD for your boot drive. 120GB drives are now as low as $105 at Newegg, but you have to shop carefully. That same $105 drive costs $120 when bundled with a 3.5" mounting bracket, and Acronis Disk Cloning software, well worth the extra $15

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820211569

I've installed a couple of the Adata drives, and they are fast. I have a SataIII Patriot Pyro 60GB in my AMD 6-core, and it's as fast as the Adata.

Then there's your video needs. Perhaps the best buy in nVidia video cards today is this GTX 550 Ti: I found one on sale for $90 at Newegg, back in March. Just keep in mind that you can easily spend many times that for a top end Video card.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125409

I can't really comment much on Ati cards, because most of the cards I've bought have been nVidia

You might wonder why I didn't start with the CPU? It's simple, because all of the above components show what you choose to do with your computer. These items echo your needs, so you can tailor the Motherboard, CPU, Memory, into all that it can be! Besides, you'll have a better idea of how much power supply you'll need as well!

We all used to run out and buy the next, latest and greatest CPU, and make it into a gamer. Today with so many different Video, CPU and Memory options available, it helps keep you focused on what you are trying to accomplish with your build, without a lot of chance of making expensive mistakes.

Best Regards,
Russ

 

2 grand? Damn, did you come to the right place, you'll have fun doing it to.

 

I wouldn't say 'cure', more 'treatment'.

 

To allay any fears/suspicions, just added a new WD30EZRX to my system over eSATA using my Icybox. Picked up by the system, formatted as GPT, 2.72TB showing correctly without incident. As easy as any other disk, but I will say that AHCI is enabled for my eSATA ports already, so that could potentially be a stumbling block for some.

As it happens a local store in london I can visit on the way to work happened to be the only place currently with any stock of the 3TB WDs, and not only that, it was only £1 more than the current best price, at £145 (equivalent of $195 pre-tax).

 

So your icybox recognizes it. Good to know. External cases/enclosures that support 3Tb+ seem to be either rare, or item descriptions simply don't specify whether it can handle it or not. Newegg definitely needs to upgrade their site. At least last time I checked!

 

Well, this is eSATA, so there isn't really anything for the external enclosure to do. By the looks of it though, USB2 doesn't care either.

 

If there are multiple drives in the external it has a controller regardless of whether it is e-SATA, Ethernet, or USB so there can be more to it then you think, quite a bit as a matter of fact.

If it is just one drive and connects direct than there is nothing to it of course.

 

Good deal on the drive Sam. For a while there my WD1001FALS was about $250 at newegg when I had only paid about $80 for it new at time of purchase.

Movies is right BTW, if it's a multi-drive enclosure it has some sort of controller hardware. I shudder to think the kind of cheap crap they put in enclosures, both drives and controller hardware alike. Interestingly My WD MyBook has a full speed WD Caviar Black though cbf'd to check which model. It's fairly new and at the time of purchase wasn't much more than a barebones HDD of similar quality.

Even though it's USB2 it seems to gain a decent boost through USB3 due to being on a separate controller. Have never seen USB2 hit the 60MB/s max because the controller is almost always handling something else at the same time. Have seen 26-ish MB/s on several drives and multiple AMD/Intel based PCs. Apparently my board is supposed to have multiple USB controllers to avoid this bottleneck. It helps a lot with more than one device transferring, but not with single devices which max at 26-28MB/s always.

USB3 on the other hand frequently hovers around 40-60 on the same drive, which is what USB2 should theoretically be doing. Interesting. My PC has been in AHCI mode from day one BTW, though I don't think USB cares either way.

 

IT's conceivable, depending on the circuitry, and the path of the eSATA protocols, that eSATA is routed differently on the chip/controller. A sort of passthrough. Now obviously a hard drive utilizing the USB protocols in an enclosure, is gonna need a certain level of communication on the chip. So this would greatly depend on design, at the circuitry level

 

I'm not up to date on storage at all so external storage really escapes me. Also for the most part I'm not seeing differences with USB3 that can't be explained by the separate controller. I understand the drive is USB2, but with other drives as well rated for USB3. I'm sure when the tech improves USB3 will be amazing. Though am rather more partial to the superior eSATA myself. Should really look into a multiple drive eSATA enclosure...

 

eSATA is always going to be superior to USB3, but USB3 just makes things a bit more tolerable for those that can't use eSATA for whatever reason, assuming it ever becomes popular - still a bit slow on the uptake for most manufacturers.

Correct about the dual enclosures needing controllers, but in this case it's a simple single-drive hotswap box.
Also, despite being rated for 480Mbps, the maximum you can ever transfer on USB2 is 240Mbps. Not really sure why that is if I'm honest.