(Fry's)(SSD) Samsung 850 evo 500GB, $139

[Docjon]

with free shipping. Enter Fry's Sunday sale code at checkout, from your Fry's Saturday email. If you don't already get their sales emails, you might want to go to their site and create an acct and get it sent to you, with the holiday sales season starting soon.

http://www.frys.com/search?query_string=8310197

[Larva]

That's a great deal! Thanks for posting Doc!

At that price you could get two of them and do a 1TB striped RAID array. You'd get some of the performance benefits of more expensive drives, and still get 1TB without spending more than $278.

One thing I do agree with Paladin on is that RAID1 isn't nearly as useful as it sounds for home computers. You pay a price in performance for the redundancy. And if something happens to the BIOS sometimes you can lose the whole array anyways. Also if a file gets corrupted, you just get a backup of the corrupted file on both drives. Many companies still do offsite backups of their SAN's and NAS's so that a virus or fire doesn't wipe the companies systems and databases out.

To be fair RAID0 does have it's own risks - only one drive goes and you lose everything on both. But you should be backing up weekly anyway regardless of whether you are running RAID or not.

Food for thought. I'm considering getting one of these to install lessor played games on (Battefield 4, Bad Company 2, etc).

[Docjon]

That's a great deal! Thanks for posting Doc!

At that price you could get two of them and do a 1TB striped RAID array. You'd get some of the performance benefits of more expensive drives, and still get 1TB without spending more than $278.

One thing I do agree with Paladin on is that RAID1 isn't nearly as useful as it sounds for home computers. You pay a price in performance for the redundancy. And if something happens to the BIOS sometimes you can lose the whole array anyways. Also if a file gets corrupted, you just get a backup of the corrupted file on both drives. Many companies still do offsite backups of their SAN's and NAS's so that a virus or fire doesn't wipe the companies systems and databases out.

To be fair RAID0 does have it's own risks - only one drive goes and you lose everything on both. But you should be backing up weekly anyway regardless of whether you are running RAID or not.

Food for thought. I'm considering getting one of these to install lessor played games on (Battefield 4, Bad Company 2, etc).

Well, shitballs. You fucking wet blankets are just bound and determined to shit in my Wheaties, aren't you?

I can still get much of the benefits of RAID1 by setting up auto-backups, I guess. My schedule's a little erratic sometimes - one week I'll be up until 7 in the morning, another I'll GET up at 7 in the morning, so auto backups are kind of a pain for me. Maybe I'll set up script/batch files that I can click on when I'm going to bed and do it that way.

If you get down to it, having the backup drive be inside the computer puts it at greater risk as well. Perhaps using an external drive off the USB port would be safer, or just pay someone and move my backups online. Nothing's perfect, all you can do is measure the risks and minimize them. In the ~35 years since my first computer, to my knowledge I've only had one issue that would have caused all HD's to die at the same time, and that was a lightning strike while using a cheap power strip.

I WAS concerned about the possible performance hit from RAIDing. I don't really know how much that would affect things. The raided drives were going to be only for data, multimedia, and a few hundred GB of overflow games that I can't fit on my SSD.

Paladin suggested hardware RAID. I was going to take that into consideration when buying my motherboard, though I am also aiming for more PCI slots this build, and thought a RAID card might come into play instead. Nothing's in stone yet. I'm just gathering info, letting it germinate and using that info, along with what I am presented with when I go to buy, to inform my decision.

[Larva]

Paladin suggested hardware RAID. I was going to take that into consideration when buying my motherboard, though I am also aiming for more PCI slots this build, and thought a RAID card might come into play instead. Nothing's in stone yet. I'm just gathering info, letting it germinate and using that info, along with what I am presented with when I go to buy, to inform my decision.

The more workload you can offload from software onto hardware, the better. Large corporations usually utilize pretty fancy hardware for redundant storage. It's not uncommon for enterprise servers to cost $20,000 and there are plenty that cost even more. And they usually don't just do simple 1:for:1 RAID 1 mirroring either, they often have multiple redundant drives so that it would take multiple drive failures to bring the system offline. The key of course is finding something a solution that is affordable for your home desktop.

I did RAID 10 for a week, then lost the array during a BIOS update - it changed my mind about mirrored drives and RAID in general, at least for home. Luckily I'd backed up the whole thing on an external USB drive days before so I didn't lose anything. I reconfigured the array as a pair of 1.5 TB drives in RAID 0, then left my other two 1.5 TB drives as regular drives for manual backup storage. That way a RAID failure wouldn't effect the redundant drives. Also the semi-manual backup process helped protect me against file corruption - I discovered some corrupted code files while doing my backups and was able to restore them. RAID 1 would have simply copied my corrupted files onto the redundant drives. In RAID 1 or RAID 10 files are redundant, but so is file corruption.

I guess it's like anything: with so many options you just need to target your own specific needs. There really isn't a one size fits all solution for file redundancy, especially when cost is a major consideration. Your appetite for risk is another major consideration.

[Prophet]

Rather than stripe them, I would pool them together in Windows using storage spaces. Less chance of data corruption. And the real world speed gains of a striped RAID are almost nill.


But as far as RAID its self goes, software RAID is trumping hardware these days. Systems like ZFS, for example, is WAY better than any hardware RAID. You do not need enterprise/NAS drives to take advantage of ZFS. Hardware RAID requires enterprise/NAS drives for proper low-level functionality. More important for redundant RAID arrays.

In general, I never recommend striped RAID. It's generally a bad idea and offers very, very little real-world gains.

[Larva]

In general, I never recommend striped RAID. It's generally a bad idea and offers very, very little real-world gains.

Doesn't that depend on what you want to use it for?

[Docjon]

But as far as RAID its self goes, software RAID is trumping hardware these days. Systems like ZFS, for example, is WAY better than any hardware RAID.

Jesus Christ, that's it. I'm going back to my C-64.

[Lexx]

C128 and the Atari are two boxes I wish the fuck I'd kept, both were more fun on a $ per hour basis.

[Docjon]

C128 and the Atari are two boxes I wish the fuck I'd kept, both were more fun on a $ per hour basis.

I have never known the ins-and-outs of a computer like i knew the c-64, and I've never done any programming since I switched from my Amiga to the "IBM-Compatibles"

I might like to do some programming on my current machine, but I couldn't for the life of me think of anything I'd like to do that hasn't been done better in every single way. Most I did was a couple skins on the AIMP MP3 player. Never had the desire to do anything else. It's all been done, at least anything I could achieve, anyway.

Hey Lexx, nice to see you dropping by and contributing. No sarcasm intended.

[Paladin]

Hardware RAID requires enterprise/NAS drives for proper low-level functionality. More important for redundant RAID arrays.

Hardware RAID requires what exactly??? WTF are you talking about?

A RAID card or built in RAID in your BIOS does not require anything special at all. The hardware does all the work completely separate from the OS.I don't run anything special on my desktops at work, all my workstations use RAID1 and run normal, standard windows Pro or Enterprise with no extra anything. They do have Intel monitoring software installed and I can rebuild from there etc.... but that is not required. I can do everything from the BIOS manager if need be.

ZFS...Go away... you are thinking of Linux again.. We are discussing Windows here NOT Linux. Z-Raid is not on the table.
Seriously stop bringing up Linux information in a Windows discussion. No one here uses Linux except you, it does not apply dude...Not being mean but lets stick to discussing what Doc, Lexx, Lurch and Larva will actually be using. Mentioning ZFS is useless. I don't hate Linux overall, I tinker with it, but don't use it as much as you since we don't support it at work. Windows and MAC OS only. I am the Windows guy. i i
I have no need for Linux at home so don't use it much.

I would LOVE to use ZFS and if it was ever able to be ran on Windows that would be an awesome day. But it won't....
Soooooo lets move on... Mmmmm kay... i i

I still don't recommend RAID for home use but it is not difficult to use a RAID card. I was never a fan of striping.. It was useful back in the day when drives were small to give you larger storage volumes but it is really not needed now days.

Now if you want to discuss reliability then lets discuss why we all really should be using ECC memory. I intend to use that when I build a new system.

[Larva]

Maybe we shouldn't debate hardware anymore... seems to be more touchy than politics for us. There aren't enough of us left to read this stuff to even bother putting effort into these debates. If we make a post, we're lucky if 3 or 4 other people even read it, 5 others max. I'm just trying to put things into perspective. I rarely even see people in comms anymore, even on weekends. The forums seem to be the only activity we have left. Food for thought.

[Docjon]

Well, if we're never in comms, and we act like children in the forums, what's the point. I'm a LOT tired of nearly every goddamn thing I talk about ending up being a bitchfest or threadshit of one sort or another. I just wanna BS with friends, and IT NEVER TURNS OUT THAT WAY.

Prophet and I just hang out in comms one day a week and surf/dweeb/game/script/whatever the hell he does separately, and we occasionally exchange thoughts and BS every 10 or 20 minutes. He's basically my best friend now. No offense to Prophet, but that's a little sad.

I actually got thrown out of my last clan, the one I co-founded. Well, I got kicked out of leadership anyway, and then I left. I was so sick, I was just miserable all the time. I wasn't the best person to be around, so I brought everyone down. If I'm doing that again, I wouldn't be overly hurt if I needed to step away awhile. I know I hurt and am in pain, and having done it once, it won't shock me if it's happening again. You can't stick around and ruin everyone else's good time. Let me know if I'm being overly grouchy, and I'll back off awhile. I can always get FO4 running again. . .

I was kind of hoping to get folks in comms for a game this weekend. We haven't hardly made an effort - no one wants to try new games, even FREE ones.

[Larva]

I wasn't the best person to be around, so I brought everyone down. If I'm doing that again, I wouldn't be overly hurt if I needed to step away awhile. I know I hurt and am in pain, and having done it once, it won't shock me if it's happening again.

Nah it's not you. It's not any particular individual. We're a mature group now (translation = old, grumpy & opinionated). Our grouchiness is a team effort. Go team!

Yeah, I mean we all know each other well enough to know what each other's opinions are of things. It's like we don't need to even bother debating about anything anymore, because we already know how everyone else feels. Just like it's a good reason not to debate politics or religion... nobody is going to change everyone else's mind.

I'm not innocent. I'm overwhelmed about the challenges in my daily life & try not to take it out on anyone here. I just raise the white flag. I don't care anymore: you guys can like SSD, HDD, Tape, Stone Tablet, Intel, AMD, Nvidia, or Atari.

Groups are supposed to be about enjoying mutual hobbies. Perhaps one of these days or nights we should just play some games - we can even invite friends & family and stuff. It's supposed to be about fun.

[Paladin]

I won't respond in this thread again.

To make things easier I won't respond to anything tech related unless asked directly.

Problem solved.

[Docjon]

I won't respond in this thread again.

To make things easier I won't respond to anything tech related unless asked directly.

Problem solved.

Or we could talk about technology, it's various pluses and minuses as if we were adults, without bitter, belligerent religious fervor, and without getting married to our opinions so that anything that challenges them must be responded to by pistols at dawn. We could make an effort to stay on topic and not wander far afield like I guess Prophet did with the Linux stuff that no one here is going to adopt. . . or we could at least acknowledge it ourselves when we do - like a simple, "I know no one here really uses Linux, but if you did, this is what's happening there, and it's kind of cool. . ."

And we could be a bit more pleasant when we remind ppl when they're going off topic, that might be awfully goddamn nice, I'd think.

While Prophet and I at least show up on weekends in case someone gets a wild hair and actually want to game, I've hardly gamed with you guys all year. If we can't game, if we're gonna act like kids and snipe at each other for no good goddamn reason, why put ourselves out? I can, and do, strike up conversations on plenty of message boards. I come here because I like it here, or at least I have, historically.

Maybe we should take a step back and think about why so many non-controversial topics end with snippiness, whether we should be letting that happen, what the causes are and what we can do about that. I can get my fill of ppl getting angry around this very house, as well as any message board you'd care to mention. This is supposed to be OUR board, where we enjoy ourselves.

Not everything needs to have battle-lines, and I enjoy hearing various viewpoints. This is not a debate forum, guys. We decided that when we've tacitly avoided subjects like religion, politics, gun control, LGBT rights, etc. There's no need to carry that sort of attitude into other subjects. Do what I do - bitch your fool heads off on other forums under pseudonyms, THEN come here to BS, as much as possible, anyway.