Gaming Rigs: Recommendations?

[Kocken926]

Optical drives don't have to be internal.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135256

I've got a similar one that has proven a godsend for those stupid netbooks that are too small for a drive and need the OS wiped.

Yes, getting one of those is a good investment. I have one, but for some reason it needs to be plugged into two USB slots at once with a banana cable (or whatever it's called in english), so I had to get an USB hub as well...

Seriously though, why would it need 2 USB ports?!

[freakachu]

Yes, getting one of those is a good investment. I have one, but for some reason it needs to be plugged into two USB slots at once with a banana cable (or whatever it's called in english), so I had to get an USB hub as well...

Seriously though, why would it need 2 USB ports?!

spinning a physical disk takes a lot of power compared to how much you get out of a usb port. thus, 2 ports for the needed to get the lovely power. my keyboard does the same thing actually to power the LEDs(fully backlit) and other stuff on it.

[Kocken926]

spinning a physical disk takes a lot of power compared to how much you get out of a usb port. thus, 2 ports for the needed to get the lovely power. my keyboard does the same thing actually to power the LEDs(fully backlit) and other stuff on it.

I thought that too at first, but if that's true in this case, why did it work when I plugged both USB ends of the cable into a hub, that in turn was only connected to a single USB slot on the laptop?

[Amaxter]

Bulk transfer yes, read/write oh hell no.

RAID 0 is striping, which means you send half the data to one drive and half to the other, writing to the same spot on the disk at the same time with even bits going to one drive and odd to the other. It doubles the transfer speed you can get out of a logical drive.

Unfortunately you still have seek time, which on a SSD is 0ms vs whatever your drives are rated at. If you have a lot of smaller files to transfer, an SSD will fly circles around the best HDD.

I have an SSD in my work laptop, 5 year old dell running win7. It boots in less than 30 seconds.

No what I meant was is two SSDs in RAID 0 faster than one normal SSD?

[Neowulf]

I thought that too at first, but if that's true in this case, why did it work when I plugged both USB ends of the cable into a hub, that in turn was only connected to a single USB slot on the laptop?

When you're talking a switched power provider like a USB port it's not that the port can provide X watts and no more, but it can provide X watts while staying under tolerances.

Draw more than it is rated for and the PWM circuit will start producing more waste heat than the part was designed to shed normally.

It works because you're overdriving the power circuit and dramatically increasing its failure chance.

No what I meant was is two SSDs in RAID 0 faster than one normal SSD?

It will be yes, but you are doubling your chance of a catastrophic failure. With RAID 0 there is no fault tolerance, if one drive goes out you lose all your data.

You have to weigh the speed and storage bonuses (0 uses both drives as one so it adds the space together) vs more than double chance of failure. Most people who run what you plan do a normal main drive and a RAID 0 array for swapfile and game file storage. The system stays running on a safer drive while the speed critical stuff runs off the array.

[Amaxter]

When you're talking a switched power provider like a USB port it's not that the port can provide X watts and no more, but it can provide X watts while staying under tolerances.

Draw more than it is rated for and the PWM circuit will start producing more waste heat than the part was designed to shed normally.

It works because you're overdriving the power circuit and dramatically increasing its failure chance.

It will be yes, but you are doubling your chance of a catastrophic failure. With RAID 0 there is no fault tolerance, if one drive goes out you lose all your data.

You have to weigh the speed and storage bonuses (0 uses both drives as one so it adds the space together) vs more than double chance of failure. Most people who run what you plan do a normal main drive and a RAID 0 array for swapfile and game file storage. The system stays running on a safer drive while the speed critical stuff runs off the array.

Ok cool, so I'll probably get a 1 TB 7200 RPM Western Digital HDD and 2 128 GB Samsung Evo 840 SSD's in RAID 0. How do I set up RAID 0, or is it automatically done by the OS if I have two identical drives?

[Neowulf]

The motherboard you have selected in your part picker does support RAID 0 so you're capable.

The actual setup will require changing BIOS settings before you even begin to install the OS. How exactly you do it is unknown, every manufacture has a different BIOS setup, some have the raid in setup and others a separate config dialog during POST.

Wouldn't be automatic because there are a dozen other ways to use two+ identical drives. Your chosen motherboard supports RAIDS 0/1/5/10.

No RAID- Drives are independent.

RAID 0- Striping, data is split evenly between multiple drives. Requires 2+ drives. Multiply space and transfer rate by number of drives (assuming identical drives). No data protection.

RAID 1- Mirroring, read/writes data to multiple drives simultaneously. Requires 2+ drives. No performance gain but if one drive fails the system keeps going with no data loss.

RAID 5- Striping with parity, stripes data across all but one drive, extra drive stores parity data. Requires 3+ drives. Good performance gain with fault tolerance, if one drive dies the data on it can be recalculated from the remaining drives until a replacement is put into place and data rewritten to it. Total storage is drive space x (number of drives - 1).

RAID 10- Striped mirror, creates multiple groups of striped drives and mirrors data across them. Requires 4+ drives, always an even number. Combines the speed of striping with the fault tolerance of mirroring, though expensive to create and generally considered inferior to RAID 5 by professionals.