Question about special parts in new DAW setup

Posted: Mon Apr 03, 2006 3:52 am

Hello

I am currently setting up a new DAW for my Studio and I think that I have come up with a pretty decent machine so far.

First I will list my setup, afterwards I have some questions concerning special parts of it...

CPU: Pentium D 930 Socket 775, 2x 3GHz, 2x 1024kB Cache, 800MHz

MoBo: Gigabyte Ga-8I955X Royal: i955X/iCH7R • USB 2.0/Firewire 800/2x Gb LAN/SATA II RAID/SATA & PATA RAID/7.1 Audio (ALC882) • 1x PCIe x16, 2x PCIe x1, 3x PCI

RAM: 2048 MB DDR2 Ram, Kingston PC2-667 CL4

Cooling: Zalman CNPS 9500 Cu

System HDD: 2x Western Digital WD360GD Raptor SATA 10.000 RPM 36,7GB 8MB Cache via Raid 0 directly to Motherboard

Audio HDD: 2x Western Digital Caviar RE 320GB SATA II (WD3200YS) 16MB Cache via Raid 0 directly to Motherboard

Data Swap: Some 300GB IDE HDD 7.200RPM

Grafix: PCIe some Nvidia 6200 passiv cooling 128MB dual output

CD/DVD write: Plextor PlexWriter PX-750A

DC/DVD read: Plextor DVD PX-130A

Power Supply:480 Watt TG-450-U22 V2.0 Low Noise (Tagan)

Tower: Server Tower Cooler Master Stacker STC-T01 BTX

Bracket: Cooler Master HDD Bracket for Stacker

So, that`s it...

Now the thing is that the motherboard is really hard to get, its basically no longer available.

I am thinking of switching to MSI 955X Platinum: i955X/iCH7R • USB 2.0/Firewire/2x Gb LAN/SATA II RAID/PATA RAID/SATA RAID/7.1 Audio (ALC882) • 1x PCIe x16, 2x PCIe x1, 3x PCI

because its the only one with 3 PCI slots and all other features...

any thoughts concerning the MoBo ?

Also my first choice for audio hdds was maxtor but i was told that their last series sometimes crashed in raid
so i am going for the WD SATA II but there would also be the option to chose the new seagate NL35.2, they are also SATA II, also 5 year warranty and also 16MB Cache, pretty much the same price too...

any thoughts on these?

Also if you have any comments concerning the whole system please feel free to do so...
i am working on this setup for a pretty long time now and finally managed to come up with the money...

thank oyu very much in advance...

daniel

Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 6:46 am

no comments?

Crying or Very sad

Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 12:42 pm

sounds like a good machine,but watch out for irq issues with any dsp cards such as uad cards and tc eletronic powercore plus hd tdm due to nforce four drivers,installing such cards may make your monitor to not to work,this due to the pci express system

Posted: Wed Apr 05, 2006 4:54 am

hello

i know that there were several issues concerning new chipsets on amd platforms with pci express...

as far as i know they have been solved and never existed with intel in any way...
i do have dsp cards in this system and my audio interface is pci too...

so i really hope this will work

Posted: Wed Apr 05, 2006 11:06 am

raid 0 offers no redundancy, so most people would avoid booting off of it or relying on it for storage... you could lose everything real quick.

i don't know of any exact figures as to what kind of improvement you would get with raid over a single sata drive anyhow (for audio capture). i've even heard of raid slowing things down on single user applications. it's great for server type applications with tons of data being read/written at once, but with single workstation writing just audio data, i don't know, i just don't know...

Posted: Thu Apr 06, 2006 6:51 am

Hello,

this is what we use in our systems;

http://usa.asus.com/products3.aspx?l1=3&l2=11&l3=248&slname=Intel%20975X

Best regards,

Guy Cefalu
Sonica Audio Labs

Posted: Thu Apr 06, 2006 7:56 am

hey guy...

thanks for linking the asus board.
i also chose the same one and that confirms my decision.

what do you think concerning the raid issue?

do you think its worth it or should i just go and use normal sata?

thanks

Posted: Thu Apr 06, 2006 12:56 pm

Hello,

normal SATA. Also, disable the second RAID controller as it is attached to the PCI bus.

My best,

Guy Cefalu
Sonica Audio Labs

Posted: Fri Apr 07, 2006 2:49 am

thanks for the recommendation.

so i will have to connect both system and audio drive to the first controller ?

Posted: Mon Apr 10, 2006 6:04 am

As jcnoernberg stated above raid 0 provides no redundancy. If one drive fails , all data is lost. And since you have a double point of failure, you are twice as likely to have a drive fail. Make sure you have a very good backup strategy! Raid 0 will provide a boost in raw speed, but i would have thought that between the Raptors, and the 16Mb cache on the audio drive, performance would be quite acceptable anyway. 5 hard drives will generate quite a lot of noise and heat as well - i believe Raptors are quite noisy due to the higher speed. I would spend the money elsewhere.

Btw, there is now a 150Gb Raptor.

Posted: Wed Apr 12, 2006 10:30 am

thanks so much for all your help in the past and right now...

i have decided to go with single drives and dont use raid systems...

to be honest i think that it is really better to go with single drives unless you can afford mirrored raid systems for data security, then again you have to deal with the heat and noise of that many drives...

i guess my machine will be pretty up to date without raid too...

also i dont have to record or mixdown huge orchestras at 96khz or stuff like that so i guess i should be fine with what i have...

here is what i have come up with finally...

i can definitly recommend this setup for anybody and its affordable...

Pentium D940 2x 3,2GHz
Asus S775 P5WD2-E Premium i975X
Zalman CNPS9500-Cu Cooler
2048MB DDR2 PC-667 (PC2-5400)
Gigabyte Geforce 6200TC 128MB DDr Grafics card
Seagte NL35.2 250GB 16MB SataII (Audio)
Western Digital Raptor WD360GD Sata 36,7GB 10.000rpm (System)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 250GB 8MB (backup)
Chieftec KF-21-IPF disk swap kit for backup drive
Cooler Master hdd bracket for stacker (another one also in tower)
Plextor Plexwriter PX-716AL
Plextor DVD PX-130A
Alps Floppy disk
Power Supply 520W be quiet blackline P5
Server Tower Cooler Master Stacker STC-T01 BTX

it is 2300 usd incl assembling and testing

i will be using it with rme hdsp pci interface and one powercore dsp card and still have another pci slot free for future uad card or whatever...

cheerz,
daniel

Posted: Thu Apr 27, 2006 3:48 am

hey guy...

any recommendations in what pci slots i should put the rme interface and the powercore?

thanks
daniel

Posted: Fri Apr 28, 2006 7:09 am

this might be abit o/t by now, but to the earlier posters, i didnt spot any nforce4 reference, defbringa mentioned he was actually building an intel based system.

anyway Defbringa,
any pci slot should be fine, provided you disable onboard audio and anything else which would be connected to the pci bus.

twon

Posted: Fri Apr 28, 2006 8:54 pm

If you want to use Raid strategy (and also have money to), go with RAID 1. Mirroring offer security and faster read access to the array. I personaly use it with 2 x 2 160Go WD, 1 array for system and 1 array for data. No use of backup drive.

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