Thursday, May 15th, 2008
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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Tuesday, December 18th, 2007
Well, I recieved my Seagate 250GB FreeAgent Desktop Drive today. I am still wondering about that little drive they installed with my computer. What the heck is that thing for?
Anyway, this one is 250GB, which should be good for a while. I mean, for around $79, I feel pretty satisfied.
Right after I got it, I pulled it out of the box. I plugged it in and immediately installed the software, which was already installed on the drive itself. I went through the motions and it was all done, just like they said in the product reviews. I set up my system to run full system backups once per week and did my first one today manually. It was very easy. One of the concerns with this external hard drive is that there is no on/off button. There isn’t. I read one review where the person said there is. They are on crack.
Everything seems fine with the drive. There is the faint yellow strip light going down the drive and not much sound at all. It took an hour or two to do the full backup, but that’s a bunch of stuff to go the a USB cord. If I run into any problems, I will let you know.
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Thursday, December 13th, 2007
I run Windows Vista. I have a C: drive that can hold 290GB. I also have a D: drive that can hold 7.68GB. This D: drive is also known as the “Recovery” drive. Windows Vista has a fancy feature where you can set up a backup schedule to back up all your files and stuff from the C: drive to the D: drive. I think this is really nice.
There is only one problem. After I set up the backup schedule with all the recommended settings, I ran the backup. About half way through, I received a message informing my that the D: drive was full. Hmmm…that’s really interesting. Am I doing something wrong?
The reason this puzzles me is that this computer is only a few months old. Why in the world would Circuit City sell a computer with a large hard drive and a tiny backup drive? At this very moment, I remain puzzled. There has got to be something I am missing.
Oh well. I went on CircuitCity.com today and browsed through the external hard drives. I came across the “Seagate 250GB FreeAgent Desktop Drive” and thought it was a great deal. I could plug this external drive into my computer and have it run as the backup drive, once a week or so. I can even put it on the scheduler. That’s pretty cool. With the 250GB capacity, things should be good.
Here are my concerns…I am still wondering if I was doing something wrong with the current backup drive. Also, I am hoping I don’t run into any snags with this new drive, such as, “Oh, this drive won’t hold those types of files” or something like that. The drive is only $79 and change, so it’s worth the gamble, I guess. I plan on using the external drive for a full system backup and restore (if need be).
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