[clue-tech] Need new hardware (was two monitors)

[Jack Parker]

The deed is done and running over there in the corner.  They only had 1 SATA
3 drive, I have to wait until Monday for the other three.  Thanks for your
interest and encouragement - for the sake of others going through the same
process:

ASUS A8N5X motherboard.  AMD 3000+ chip.  2GB ddr400 RAM.  Cheapo video card
(MSI NX6200TC) (this motherboard has no AGP slot).  For now, 1 WD 160GB SATA
drive.  (the board will take a dual core chip, but I held off)

Pulled apart a P2 I had lying around in a decent case (11 device bays)
(anybody want a P2 motherboard?  Has a couple of ISA slots, 384MB of memory
even!  ;-) ).  New motherboard slipped right in, walked through the manual
plugging everything together...

rats old 300W power supply power connector doesn't fit - back to the store.
Back with a 480W.

The case, CDRom and floppy are recycled - everything else is new.  I could
have bought a new case w/ power supply for what I paid for the power supply,
but I don't WANT neon lights.

Started at 1:30, including two trips to the store.  FC4 finished loading at
5:15.  FC4 had no trouble at all figuring everything out.  It's very snappy.
I am going to wait for the other drives before proceeding (I'm still
thinking through the RAID scenario.  What I'd really like to do is hold out
60GB from each drive and stripe the rest - have to research that).

So far I'm out $616.  The three additional drives will set me back another
$261 (total $877).  I was surprised at how cheap they are.  $87 for 160GB
SATA 3 vs $69(?) for 80GB SATA 1.5.

Did I do better than Dell?  The price for a P4 with 4x160 and 2GBRam was
$1,250, although their memory is faster (667 vs 400).  I guess the kicker is
that I don't have to wait 2 weeks for it to arrive.

Erik,

Seek time is very important for the indexed access typical of the OLTP
world.  In the DSS world (where I live), you tend to boil the ocean, grab
large datasets and mash them against other large datasets in memory.  So
lots of memory and good transfer rate are key.  I'm kind of kicking myself
for not getting more memory - ah well, there are two more slots.  I'll let
you know how the RAID works out (or doesn't).

j.

-----Original Message-----
From: clue-tech-bounces at cluedenver.org
[mailto:clue-tech-bounces at cluedenver.org]On Behalf Of erik at ezolan.com
Sent: Saturday, June 03, 2006 5:34 PM
To: CLUE tech
Subject: RE: [clue-tech] Need new hardware (was two monitors)



> There's a difference in SATA drives?  (google).  Cr*p.  I have the 1.5s.
> The Dell system configurator isn't indicating what the drives are there,
> but
> for $129/160GB, they must also be 1.5s.  Thanks for pointing that out.
> Transfer rate makes such a difference.

I'm not familiar with database tweaking, I didn't think that hard drive
transfer rate would make such a big difference. I always thought databases
were more vunerable to seek time. You can get four new 3GB/s hard drives.
Just get a cheaper case, with a 120mm fan on the front that will blow
directly on the drives.

And a motherboard that will support 4 3GB/s SATA hard drives.

> You've given me the strength to explore the 'roll your own' option.  My
> only
> concern there is compatability - but even that looks to be a non-issue at
> this point.  I'll let you know how it comes out (although I'm still open
> to opinions).

Let me know what you decide, I'm very curious. I built a RAID box once,
and it went horribly because I went with a cheap, closed source Promise
RAID card. Lesson learned.

Erik Z
_______________________________________________
clue-tech mailing list
clue-tech at cluedenver.org
http://www.cluedenver.org/mailman/listinfo/clue-tech