A New Computer - What Should I Get?
Written on May 15, 2008 – 1:59 pm | by jaygaulardcom |
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This one is for those people out there who know about computers. When people are searching for a new computer, they usually ask me what to get. I say something like, “I design websites, what the heck do I know about computers?” That usually gets some mean look and the person walks away. I haven’t been known for my bright attitude at times.
Well, I usually do ok, but I am getting a little tired of buying computers. I want my next one to last. I bought the one I am working on about 6 months ago. I am going to keep this one for something, but I need a monster. Here is the issue…I work with tons of files. One of my sites has 59,000 image files that I need to copy/paste, delete, move, whatever. That’s just one example. I also have very large files that I need to open/close, etc… My problem isn’t the need for processor power to run huge applications or for gaming, I just need something for big, and lots of files. Uploads and downloads are my middle names. I have been working on getting the fastest servers available and now my bottleneck has become my PC.
Here is what I am thinking:
- Dell Precision T7400 Workstation
- Quad Core Intel® Xeon® Processor E5405 (2.00GHz,2X6M L2,1333) (Do I need a 2nd processor?)
- Genuine Windows Vista® Business, with Media (I’m willing to move on from XP. Plus, Vista actually puts the computer in sleep mode, like I never got XP to do. Big power savings.)
- 3 Year ProSupport for End Users and 3 Year NBD On-site Service (This is important because I want someone in this house if the computer breaks.)
- 256MB PCIe x16 nVidia NVS 290, Dual Monitor DVI Capable ( I know absolutely nothing about video cards.)
- 4GB, DDR2 SDRAM FBD Memory, 667MHz, ECC (4 DIMMS) (I want more.)
- C23 All SAS drives, RAID 5, 3 drive total configuration ( I also know nothing about RAID. I basically want the speed of SAS drives, the speed of two drives working together and the redundancy of a third drive. I don’t know the difference between RAID 0 and RAID 5.)
- Three 146GB SAS Hard Drives, 1 inch (15,000 rpm) (How much faster are SAS drives than SATA drives?)
- PERC6/i SAS/SATA Hardware RAID Card - For Connecting Internal Hard Drives
- Dell 1505 Wireless-N PCIe Card
So there you have it. I already have a monitor, so that’s cool. I think I can save a few bucks by switching out the SAS drives for SATA drives. It depends on what I find out about them. I want more RAM, but didn’t see the option for more. I am wondering about another processor and the video card.
Well, any advice? Am I missing anything?
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Tags: application, applications, bottleneck, Business, computer, Computers, dell precision, dual monitor, files, gaming, genuine windows vista, hard drive, hardware, intel xeon processor, memory, processor power, raid 0, redundancy, server, servers, sleep mode, video cards, vista, windows, windows vista, xp
4 Responses to “A New Computer - What Should I Get?”
By Bertha on May 15, 2008 | Reply
Wow…that’s a lot of acronyms. Buy whatever and recycle your other one. By recycling I mean donating. By donating I mean giving. Probably the best person to give it to would be your younger sister.
By jaygaulardcom on May 16, 2008 | Reply
Maybe…some day.
By Hannigan on May 16, 2008 | Reply
Jay, call me before you order this please.
Get the 64bit Operating system and you can go past 4GB of RAM. I doubt you will have issues with your programs. Adobe installed fine for me as well as FTP programs. The computer I have can go up to 64GB of RAM if I wanted.
Might as well get a second processor, moving files does require processing.
Video card is fine, you can even go less since you don’t deal with gaming or making massive image files for magazines. Basically if you aren’t doing rendering or gaming you don’t need a high RAM video card. Typically the bigger RAM video card you get the more RAM it takes from your PC’s RAM and uses it for itself. I have a 512 video card and 4GB of RAM, so my pc now has 3.5GB of RAM because my video card stole the rest!
SAS is faster. If you could get SCSI they are even faster than SAS.
RAID 1 is a mirror. You have 2 drives that are identical.
RAID 0 is crap, just 1 drive with a RAID stripe and its faster for data, but no redundancy.
RAID 5 is what you want. That or RAID 10, which you probably cant get on a pc yet. RAID 5 is 3 or more drives, enabling you to drop one and not lose your stuff.
***NOTE***
There is 1 catch to RAID 5. You basically lose 1 drive in space to hold the RAID config. So your three 146GB drives (which are really 132 when installed) will yield you 264GB of hard drive space. Best bet is to just figure out how many GB you want and just make that work out in 2 drives and order 3 of them in RAID. If you want space go with the 300GB or 500GB in a RAID 5.
Also, you really should consider getting off wireless with this computer. No matter what they say wireless N still works off the same 802.11 protocol which maxes out at 54Mbps, half the speed if wired by cat5. Don’t believe the 108Mbps hype, it merely puts out a 54Mbps B and G wave at the same time, so yes its putting out 108Mbps, but you can only connect to 54Mbps! Check out your Wireless NIC properties, guarantee you it will only say 54Mbps. If you want faster speeds run a wire through the walls to your desk, it will increase your download and upload speeds, unless you are happy the way they are.
Also, if you ever do run a wire, run CAT6 for gigabit speeds. Although your switch/router probably is only 10/100Mbps, using CAT6 with a 100Mbps wire will actually max out the CAT5 giving it anywhere between 200-400Mbps…better than just the 100Mbps.
By jaygaulardcom on May 16, 2008 | Reply
Good info. I am definitely going to call you about this. It will be probably next month.