SSD & GFX recomendations

morbidpete · Post by **morbidpete** » Wed Sep 12, 2012 12:27 am

Hello,
Final parts I need for my current build.

Specs:
Xeon W3530 @ 2.8 (quad core w/ HT )
12 gigs DDR3 (6x 2gig PC-10600)
GeForce GT 430 Oc'ed
2x dell 19" ultra sharps

Just need recommendations on a semi decent GFX card and an SSD brands, Looking @ 120 gig on the SSD. My board only supports SATA II, So I'm guessing the super super crazy fast SSD are over kill. Looking to spend a few hundred.

morbidpete · Post by **morbidpete** » Wed Sep 12, 2012 1:12 am

Just snages 2x of these

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 227791-L0F

OCZ Vertex 4 VTX4-25SAT3-128G 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

for raid-0

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Wed Sep 12, 2012 6:39 am

Intel or Crucial M. Nothing else, period!
Especially...yuck..OCZ...couldn't pay me to use any of their stuff.

Purpose of this machine? RAID 0 will be shooting yourself in the foot, especially with the exceptionally high failure rate of SSDs.

Post by **Philip** » Wed Sep 12, 2012 6:55 am

I agree with YOSC on the SSDs, that's what I ever buy as well. I have both Intel and Crucial M4, couldn't be happier.
I'd also add Samsung 830 series to the list though.

morbidpete · Post by **morbidpete** » Wed Sep 12, 2012 2:47 pm

I was under the impression OCZ was good stuff :-( The review where very nice. Well, I'm going to stick with them, Cheap. As far as the Raid-0, I'm ok with that, acronis does a full backup nightly to an external 2TB, and I have folder redirects enabled thru GP and they redirect tot he servers raid 5 that get backed up offsite. So not scared on data loss. Will keep in mind next purchase.

Now what about GFX card? I have an intel board, dual PCI-E x16 (SLI maybe) but 1 card should be fine

Mark · Post by **Mark** » Wed Sep 12, 2012 3:11 pm

i have been running raid-0 SSD for over a year now no troubles what so ever, i do have true image makeing images every week just in case though.

running some older corsair drives that were a good deal at the time, but man those new drives are so much faster and the prices have really come down, that i am looking at a 256GB single drive maybe.

not sure on whats good for GFX cards these days

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Wed Sep 12, 2012 3:24 pm

morbidpete wrote: Cheap. As far as the Raid-0, I'm ok with that, acronis does a full backup nightly to an external 2TB, and I have folder redirects enabled thru GP and they redirect tot he servers raid 5 that get backed up offsite.
Now what about GFX card? I have an intel board, dual PCI-E x16 (SLI maybe) but 1 card should be fine

Still hard to make a recommendation on what GFX and hard drive setup without knowing the purpose of this computer.
For some blondie to run MS Word?
Some engineer to run a design software like SolidWorks?
Some brunette to enter payroll in ADP or Quickbooks?
Some gaming rig?
Graphics designer in the marketing department?
Video editing workstation using Pinnacle Studio?

morbidpete · Post by **morbidpete** » Wed Sep 12, 2012 3:25 pm

Mark wrote:i have been running raid-0 SSD for over a year now no troubles what so ever, i do have true image makeing images every week just in case though.

running some older corsair drives that were a good deal at the time, but man those new drives are so much faster and the prices have really come down, that i am looking at a 256GB single drive maybe.

not sure on whats good for GFX cards these days

Thanks for the input, the one time I need GFX recommendations, Brent is not around. Yes I said it!

morbidpete · Post by **morbidpete** » Wed Sep 12, 2012 3:27 pm

YeOldeStonecat wrote:Still hard to make a recommendation on what GFX and hard drive setup without knowing the purpose of this computer.
For some blondie to run MS Word?
Some engineer to run a design software like SolidWorks?
Some brunette to enter payroll in ADP or Quickbooks?
Some gaming rig?
Graphics designer in the marketing department?
Video editing workstation using Pinnacle Studio?

Its my general Desktop, I purchased a 3d printer, So I haev been messing around with cad rhino solidworks, I so some very light gaming in Diablo III, Also been doing a lot more video editing with after effects, So a GPU that will work with CS 6 would help alot. I think I will do some research tonight

also taking recommendations for blonds and brunettes to fill the previously mentioned rolls! :P

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Wed Sep 12, 2012 3:30 pm

My opinion...and in my experience....for graphics workstations....I'd go with 2x separate spindles....rather than two in a single RAID.
You want to SPLIT your virtual memory/pagefile across two different drives...so that it can concurrently work across two drives. So setting Windows virtual memory to run on C and D drive, system managed, wins for performance. This is a rule for servers...that can benefit workstations that do disk intensive work...such as graphics workstations.

morbidpete · Post by **morbidpete** » Wed Sep 12, 2012 4:02 pm

YeOldeStonecat wrote:My opinion...and in my experience....for graphics workstations....I'd go with 2x separate spindles....rather than two in a single RAID.
You want to SPLIT your virtual memory/pagefile across two different drives...so that it can concurrently work across two drives. So setting Windows virtual memory to run on C and D drive, system managed, wins for performance. This is a rule for servers...that can benefit workstations that do disk intensive work...such as graphics workstations.

My plan:

Place the SSD's in Raid-0 for OS and apps
keep my current raid-0 (2 WD 10K barracudas) as temp files and scratch (page) to minimize ware on the SSD's
and use one of the 1-2Tb drives I have laying around for long term storage.

So based on your recommendation, I'll still keep the ssd's in raid-0 for the host, separate the barracudas and split the page and temp files onto those 2 drives. Might as well use them as I have no other use for such small drives (74.3 gig each)

morbidpete · Post by **morbidpete** » Sat Sep 15, 2012 8:27 pm

Drives came in, Did a fresh install, Everything is working great, Its absolutely crazy how fast it is now, Went with my last plan on how I installed. I found a nice adapter on amazon that let me mount the 2 ssd's in 1 3.5 bay to save room. I'm just so blown away by the speed, My old raid-0 was 97mbs-130mbs, These ssd's are hitting 497-502mbs! And that's SATA II (SATA III drives but i only have SATA II ports) Very impressed!

morbidpete · Post by **morbidpete** » Sat Sep 15, 2012 8:44 pm

Old Raid (2 barracuda 10k Raid-0 )

Access times

Read speed

New SSD Raid-0

Access times

Read Speed

Post by **Philip** » Sat Sep 15, 2012 11:06 pm

Sweeet!

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Sat Sep 15, 2012 11:51 pm

OCZ makes very good SSDs, stonecat is jsut old fashioned and remembers the old OCZ company.

OCZ vertex line, Crucial M4s, and the Kingston HyperX 3k series are the SSDs to grab for now. The Corsair Neutron line might be the next big thing though.

morbidpete · Post by **morbidpete** » Sun Sep 16, 2012 3:24 am

YARDofSTUF wrote:OCZ makes very good SSDs, stonecat is jsut old fashioned and remembers the old OCZ company.

OCZ vertex line, Crucial M4s, and the Kingston HyperX 3k series are the SSDs to grab for now. The Corsair Neutron line might be the next big thing though.

these are Vertex4's

Mark · Post by **Mark** » Sun Sep 16, 2012 8:50 am

looks very fast, i bet it feels fast as well

try AS SSD benchmark for another tool and make sure the drive/array is aligned, this tool will check that for you

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Ben ... mark.shtml

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Sun Sep 16, 2012 10:20 am

YARDofSTUF wrote: and the Kingston HyperX 3k series are the SSDs to grab for now. .

Ewww...Kingston..right down there too! Yuck!
Have replaced a few of those. Won't touch their memory, won't touch their SSDs either.

Crucial M and Intel SSDs have the reliability track record.

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Sun Sep 16, 2012 12:59 pm

YeOldeStonecat wrote:Ewww...Kingston..right down there too! Yuck!
Have replaced a few of those. Won't touch their memory, won't touch their SSDs either.

Crucial M and Intel SSDs have the reliability track record.

The 3k uses a higher quality NAND. Has some great benchmarks as well.

morbidpete · Post by **morbidpete** » Sun Sep 16, 2012 2:47 pm

Mark wrote:looks very fast, i bet it feels fast as well

try AS SSD benchmark for another tool and make sure the drive/array is aligned, this tool will check that for you

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Ben ... mark.shtml

I manually did the formating and junk ussing diskpart during the setup

cre pri par align=1024 (i was told 1024 due to raid-0, 2048 if no raid)

downloading now

morbidpete · Post by **morbidpete** » Sun Sep 16, 2012 2:51 pm

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Sun Sep 16, 2012 4:34 pm

Excellent benchmark results. 4k read and access time on the read side are not the best, still ok, but the rest is all great. A very speedy drive.

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Sun Sep 16, 2012 5:10 pm

YARDofSTUF wrote:The 3k uses a higher quality NAND. Has some great benchmarks as well.

Doubting that.

You can Google-Fu for hours upon end, and you'll find just about all forums where "those with experience" with them nearly unanimously hold the Crucial M4 head and shoulders one of the most reliable (along with Intel). I've never had to RMA a single one of those 2 brands. We have had to RMA a few Kingcraps, A-Datas, Transcends, Samsungs, ...I'll think of a few more brands in a bit. We deal with a LOT of SSDs now...in healthcare ultra portable laptops, as well as edge firewall appliances (which work them the hardest by pounding them with log file writes 24x7) Kingston is budget memory brand...so are their SSDs. If someone gave me a Kingston SSD for free...I'd spend a few hundge of my cash on a Crucial or Intel for use in my own rig before using a Kingston. I'd sell the Kingston for 25 bucks...or give it away...(of course after stating I'm not responsible for its warranty).

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Sun Sep 16, 2012 5:52 pm

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/07/ ... sd_review/

A good review of the HyperX 3k. I do consider the Crucial M4s to be the best, at least for my use. The M4s tend to have faster read speeds where as the HyperX and the OCZ Vertex are faster for writes.

morbidpete · Post by **morbidpete** » Sun Sep 16, 2012 6:39 pm

YARDofSTUF wrote:Excellent benchmark results. 4k read and access time on the read side are not the best, still ok, but the rest is all great. A very speedy drive.

I think it is because they are SATA II and not SATA III, I was looking into a hardware SATA III Raid PCI-E x16 card, Not sure if I will grab it or not

Post by **Philip** » Sun Sep 16, 2012 8:26 pm

Here are some ideas : http://www.speedguide.net/articles/ssd- ... weaks-3319

morbidpete · Post by **morbidpete** » Sun Sep 16, 2012 8:30 pm

Philip wrote:Here are some ideas : http://www.speedguide.net/articles/ssd- ... weaks-3319

Thats what I used during the windows install w/ diskpart,

But I did forget about indexing and background defrag! Thanks!