case for high end system & RAID advice

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ratherrapid
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case for high end system & RAID advice

Post by ratherrapid » Tue Jan 24, 2006 12:13 pm

just discovered this forum. we're building (having built would be more accurate) a high end office system. QUIET is the first priority. have everything picked out but the case, and finding this to be overly difficult. we are looking at the new Silverstone TJ07, and wondering if anyone has any opinions. (there are excellent photos on the Silverstone website).

The TJO7 advertises special vibration deadening case material allowing MORE 120mm fans. BUT notice the case seems so very open. there is a large vent on top of the case and rectangular vents with two large visible vans on both side pannels near the bottom. Before plopping $400 down on this case (ive yet to see a review), does it make sense that this has to be noisy. This case would sit on my desk three feet from my right hand.
the left side panel with two large hard drive fans visible through the open vent would be to my immediate right. i am rather stupid instead of rather rapid when it comes to computers. so it seems to me that the two HD fans in the open vent are bound to be a constant source of irratation. and, trying to figure out for what fathomable reason they would expose my two 150 GB raptors in raid next to an open vent. BUT, these are questions only, and wondernig if anyone else sees these same potential noise problems with this case. Also considering the view of two constantly spinning fans to my immediate right might be a long run irritation. but, unkown. otherwise this seems such an attractive case--system--Athlon 64 4800x2, asus 32 deluxe MB, 3500 Corsair 2xgb, $100 silent video card, two 150 GB raptors in Raid 0, we'll back up through the network. any thoughts appreciated on this case.

Fat_bloater_dave
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Post by Fat_bloater_dave » Tue Jan 24, 2006 1:24 pm

Yes i Have a Good idea for a case. A much loved favorite arround here is the Antec P180, It is pretty much what all the hip people are useing these days ;)

Eather that or the Antec P150. Take your pic.

There are reviews for Both of them here on this website
For the Antec P180 Look Here and Here

For a review of the P150 look Here

ratherrapid
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tj07 case and antec 180

Post by ratherrapid » Tue Jan 24, 2006 1:46 pm

txs very much fat. ive read the two Antec 180 reviews. very thorough and interesting. im impressed with this site. lots of reading left. seems some issues with the antec. do u have any feel for noise level coming out of an open vent about two feet by 3 inches in a left side pannel (the tjo7) with two 120mm fans in front of two rapotrs with the fans right next to the mesh.

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Re: tj07 case and antec 180

Post by Fat_bloater_dave » Tue Jan 24, 2006 1:55 pm

ratherrapid wrote:do u have any feel for noise level coming out of an open vent about two feet by 3 inches in a left side pannel (the tjo7) with two 120mm fans in front of two rapotrs with the fans right next to the mesh.
Depends wich fans you are useing, i would say though that one 120mm fan would be ample to cool the HDs and if it is a Nexus then at 2ft it would be quiet enough to not be annoying.

I dont know about the 150GB Raptors but the earlyer vertions are ment to be quite quiet whilst idleing Here is a review for the 74GB raptor.. Does the case realy need to be on the table? why cant it be on the floor?

AndyP
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Post by AndyP » Tue Jan 24, 2006 4:25 pm

The silverstone case is not a quiet case, strong, beautiful maybe but too open and too aluminium to be truly quite. It has bags of bling though!

Having two raptors just a foot away from your ear is just going to create a racket - no matter what case you have. The only way you'll not notice them is if your office is noisy (which to be fair most are). This is no reflection on the raptors no 3.5" drive will be quiet enough at that distance without some truly amazing enclosure

If you really are prioritising on quiet get one of the Antec cases, and follow Dave's advice and put it under your desk.

Finally if you are planning on raid 0 your raptors, read the review at Storage Review and don't do it. For real quiet put the other raptor far away from you (in another box), automate a clone to it over your network (when things are quiet) and use it as part (not all) of your backup process.

By the way I have a shuttle zen with a suspended 2.5" drive and one panaflow 80mm super quiet fan running so slowly that you can almost see the blades moving around. Thats on my desktop 1.5ft away from me on soft rubber silencing feet and its still noticeable. If it was under my desk I probably wouldn't even no it was there, when it was my htpc (and noisier) I couldn't even tell it was on until I got within four feet of it. Distance really is one of the best weapons against noise.

ratherrapid
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tj07 case

Post by ratherrapid » Tue Jan 24, 2006 4:39 pm

i was already to get the tj07 in the mail till i came onto this site and thought "whoa, big fella". think u r right andy. how could a case that open be anything but noisy. it has, what, 5 or 6 big fans, and even silent, that's lots of fans, seems. they advertise the case as combo metal---aluminum and steel no vibrations. maybe someone has a different thought because it is the type of case that you might avoid hiding under the table and display. atx cases seem aesthetically challenged. that's one thing Dell has gotten right. this xps 400 BTX i have is completely quiet and nice looking. even wondering of stripping everything out of their and trying to fit my components. txs for the comments.

ratherrapid
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tj07--and raptors

Post by ratherrapid » Tue Jan 24, 2006 4:45 pm

forgot to add--there's a review at hothardware.com on the new raptors in raid 0--20-40% faster than anything else. blown away by that one, so, we'll give the raid 0 a try since we have other backup.

AndyP
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Post by AndyP » Tue Jan 24, 2006 5:13 pm

in 'almost' the same way that silentpcreview.com is the place for knowledge about all things quiet, StorageReview is the place for all things storage. The review at hothardware is a bit lightweight in comparison. Really there is an awful lot to be learnt about how artificial benchmarks like sandra and hdtach give a distorted view of what the drives operation will be like when you are actually using it

all explained here http://www.storagereview.com/articles/2 ... DFD_1.html

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Post by NeilBlanchard » Tue Jan 24, 2006 6:47 pm

Greetings,

You could do a whole lot worse than the Evercase 4252. I built an Athlon 64 4000+ (Newcastle, so this is hotter than the 4800+ X2), 4GB RAM, two RAID 1 arrays (four HD's), and the whole system is quiet. The HD seek noise is the only thing audible whe it is under the desk in a quiet office. I used a SeaSonic S12 500watt PS, a Thermalright XP120, two Nexus 120mm (one exhaust and one on the CPU) and one 92mm in front to cool the HD's a little better.

Image

The Evercase 4252 is on the SPCR recommended list:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article75-page2.html

BTW, the newer Raptors (with the fluid bearings) are actually pretty quiet -- check the recommended section.
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article29-page2.html
They are probably a lot quieter than the Seagates that I used in the above machine.
Last edited by NeilBlanchard on Wed Jan 25, 2006 9:48 am, edited 1 time in total.

ratherrapid
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case

Post by ratherrapid » Tue Jan 24, 2006 10:18 pm

evercase 4252. interesting. noice it has MB limit of 12" x 9.6 which is exact size of my proposed Asus A8n Premium. guess this fits? txs very much for the info. im tempted to buy the evercase as a starter till i figure out what im doing. this seems a great value given the recommendation. andy--i read the storagereview review of the 150gb raptors first. but, its hothardware that tested raid 0. blew away everything according to the review. my pair are "enroute":):) hey. raid 1 seems like such a waste here. we back up to a network so we can enjoy the luxury. nice site neil. txs for the info. good to see there are alternatives to the newegg cases. and focusing on quiet--now, if they would add just a little bling.

Erssa
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Post by Erssa » Tue Jan 24, 2006 10:28 pm

AndyP wrote:in 'almost' the same way that silentpcreview.com is the place for knowledge about all things quiet, StorageReview is the place for all things storage. The review at hothardware is a bit lightweight in comparison. Really there is an awful lot to be learnt about how artificial benchmarks like sandra and hdtach give a distorted view of what the drives operation will be like when you are actually using it

all explained here http://www.storagereview.com/articles/2 ... DFD_1.html
Finally if you are planning on raid 0 your raptors, read the review at Storage Review and don't do it.
Please clarify for me, what specifically lies behind that link, that suggest he shouldn't go for raid-0, because I seem to have miss it. Generally speaking, if you give an advice for somebody and tell him to do or not to do something, it would be polite to give him the specific reason and after that, point him towards the link to gain more deep knowledge. Reasons? First of all you might give an useless/wrong link, like in this case, and waste the time of the people you think you are helping.

Btw. I parsed through the article just for the fun of it. It doensn't mention raid-0 even once. Not that I didn't already know it, since I am familiard with storagereview.com and other major hardware sites.

AndyP: Nothing personal, I'm talking in general.

That link gives absolutelu no reason not to choose raid-0. I would suggest for OP to go with the raid-0, because striping gives undeniable advantages to read and write performance, and has only 2 disadvantages.
1) Reliability, not a factor in this particular case, since they make backups.
2) Noise for the extra drive. Doesn't count as a disadvantage, if you need the space anyway.

Price obviously isn't a factor. The price of the hw totals quite alot even without the case. For which I would recommend (without personal experience) P150. I think the rubber suspension would help to reduce the HDD noise, which is the hardest part. I also think that the OP could go with a motherboard with integrated graphics too. It doensn't look like you would be needing the features of the A8N32 SLI. It won't be any faster in office performance then say A8N-VM CSM that I happen to own (although I don't recommend it for personal reasons). With IGP there would be less heat in the system and more room for airflow, then with a discreate graphics. Besides his hardware has enough kick in it, so he probably won't overclock and void his warranty anyway.

I'm running late so...
My 2cents

geofelt
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Post by geofelt » Wed Jan 25, 2006 4:35 pm

For what it's worth, I have an antec p150 sitting next to my desk at desk height and about 3 feet from my ear. It is quiet enough for me. My two hard drives are spinning, and I can't hear them, and when they are working, I can't really hear them either. The design of the P150 is such that the noise should be similar when listened to from either side.

The 150gb raptors should serve you well. As to the value of raid 0, well it depends on your application and usage pattern. Raid 0 is good for sequential reads of large amounts of data. In most cases, it will not help. The storagereview.com benchmarks indicate that most of us will fit the office application pattern. Benchmark tests like hd-tach are artificial, and not indicative of what your experience will be.If you need 300gb of data, then raid 0 is a handy way to expand the virtual size of a single drive. If you will actually use less than 150gb, then go with only one drive.

ratherrapid
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antec 150

Post by ratherrapid » Wed Jan 25, 2006 5:12 pm

just read the review of Antec 150. txs for the report. though compared to the 4525 Ever Case maybe the antec is price challenged. the Ever is selling on new egg for thirty five bucks, lol. interestingly from what i see of the TJ7 installation instructs, it might be fairly easy to dampen the sound on that nice case. trying to decide whether i want an oldmobile of a porsche 911. checking the bank acct. :) ya--raid 0 vs. raid 1 can get political. does it depend on what youve got on your hardrive and how much you need or like the speed.

Erssa
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Post by Erssa » Fri Jan 27, 2006 1:22 am

I'm still going back to the benefits of the raid-0 configuration...

Check out this article from anandtech. Especially you AndyP.
Anandtech wrote:The RAID-0 array topped even the best performing drive that we have seen yet, Western Digital's 74GB 10,000RPM Raptor. We are itching to see the performance of a RAID-0 array with Raptors! The RAID-0 array also cuts the write service time in half from 8.67ms to 4.67ms.
Anandtech wrote:The File System Tasks include File Zip/Unzip/Copy operations. We didn't see much consistency here as the unit was all over the charts in the time that it took to complete the various operations. We did, however, see an improvement in the RAID-0 array over the single drive setup in all of these benchmarks. The RAID-0 array completed the required operations up to 3 seconds quicker in the File Copy tests and almost 10 seconds quicker in the File Zip Tests, and also topped the 74GB Raptor in some cases.
I too am itching to see the performance of the 150gb raptors in raid-0 configuration.

Edit: Anandtech have removed the article short after the release, so the link is currently broken.
Edit2: The article is there. Feel free to check the benchmarks.
Last edited by Erssa on Wed Feb 01, 2006 3:27 am, edited 2 times in total.

ronrem
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Post by ronrem » Fri Jan 27, 2006 2:05 am

I was very impressed with a recent review of the I-Star Nitro AX case,a full tower that has the best of the Antecs without some of the negatives. ocmodshop and modthebox have good reviews and there are user reviews at newegg too. It has extra thick steel,has a very well designed aluminum door instead of the lightweight plastic door on an Antec. Full tower,which means plenty of space for drives AND soundproofing.

For that X2,you can use a Ninja heatsink with a good,undervolted 120mm fan. Assuming the PSU helps exhaust,a single case fan,rear exhaust,will give decent cooling.

Stripping Raid does give speed...but here we are talking about TWO 10k rpm drives running full time...obviously that is louder than one,or a pair of especially quiet drives. There is copper strapping used to secure copper water pipe sold at plumbing supply places. Cut to length. screw to the sides of each HD,and you have a heatsink. Get some elastic band or cord and hang,suspend the HDs,attaching the elastic to the copper strips. This isolates the vibration of seeks. I'd use a Raptor 150 for OS/software,get a Samsung 200 SATA2 (quieter) for storage.

Get a front panel unit able to monitor temps at various places and fan control,then you can fine tune. You MAY want a slow fan near the HD's or not. A fan ought to NOT be on the surface nearest you,and unobstructed. The same fan on the back,in the floor or inside the case will sound quieter.

Should be a VERY fast computer but a few minor trade offs will let her be pretty quiet too.

ratherrapid
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Post by ratherrapid » Fri Jan 27, 2006 12:01 pm

the new raptors have been tested in raid 0. see hothardware.com. compares to single 74gb, raid 74gb, single 150gb, and various other drives. txs for tip on I-star, im checking it out! that "fan close to you" situation is what nags about the new TJ07. there are two 120mm quiet fans exposed in the low rectangular vents over the HD cage on both side pannls. + as a recent graduate from the DELL boards (to aid in assessing my knowledge) im unable to fathom the low vent on both side panels on the TJ7 right being situated over the HD cage. why would they design that case that way. am i correct in presuming that the open vent would allow most all HD noise to escape the case OR will the fans in front of the cage dampen the sound. and yet, on this very forum under the TJ7 thread, someone posted that Silverstone claims the TJ7 is quieter than the TJ6. wondering how this can be with open vent on top and both sides.

nick705
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Post by nick705 » Fri Jan 27, 2006 1:05 pm

Erssa wrote: Please clarify for me, what specifically lies behind that link, that suggest he shouldn't go for raid-0, because I seem to have miss it. Generally speaking, if you give an advice for somebody and tell him to do or not to do something, it would be polite to give him the specific reason and after that, point him towards the link to gain more deep knowledge. Reasons? First of all you might give an useless/wrong link, like in this case, and waste the time of the people you think you are helping.

Btw. I parsed through the article just for the fun of it. It doensn't mention raid-0 even once. Not that I didn't already know it, since I am familiard with storagereview.com and other major hardware sites.
I suppose we're going off-topic here in the merits of RAID 0 (or lack of them) but I have a feeling this might have been the link he meant to provide.

You might also like to check the linked Anandtech article (here's an extract from the summary):

Final Words
If you haven't gotten the hint by now, we'll spell it out for you: there is no place, and no need for a RAID-0 array on a desktop computer. The real world performance increases are negligible at best and the reduction in reliability, thanks to a halving of the mean time between failure, makes RAID-0 far from worth it on the desktop.

There are some exceptions, especially if you are running a particular application that itself benefits considerably from a striped array, and obviously, our comments do not apply to server-class IO of any sort. But for the vast majority of desktop users and gamers alike, save your money and stay away from RAID-0....

...Bottom line: RAID-0 arrays will win you just about any benchmark, but they'll deliver virtually nothing more than that for real world desktop performance. That's just the cold hard truth.


If you do a search for RAID 0 on the StorageReview forums, you'll see that it meets with almost universal disapproval from the more longstanding members there (including the site founder himself). I wouldn't claim they're absolutely the last word on the subject (I don't personally have enough knowledge to do so), but I'd certainly agree with AndyP that they're one of the most authoritative sites in this particular field.

AndyP
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Post by AndyP » Fri Jan 27, 2006 4:04 pm

Sorry about not replying - and for stirring up a bit of a hornets nest :-). I don't post very often because I don't have the time to follow up - perhaps I should not have posted this time.

Erssa
My apologies for giving the wrong link. Having recently read all 15 pages of the Storage Review, review and then all the discussion afterwards I got a little forgetful about what was where. However the link I gave was the starting point to 'the' comprehensive review of the product in question and did lead eventually to the specific advice I quoted

If you look at post 25 in this thread
http://forums.storagereview.net/index.p ... opic=21621
you will see the evidence I'm talking about

If you follow all the stuff in this discussion you will come across alot of stuff about the myth of Raid 0 and High End SCSI drives in desktop computers. Of course this being the internet you have to read critically, but it seems to me that Storage Review really know what they're talking about

Nick thankyou for the defence :twisted: and that link, excellent stuff.

Its very easy to fall into the trap of thinking you can't live withot new hot hardware x, and to pick up support for a rash purchase with 'lightweight' reviews from certain hardware sites. Particularly when your thinking about purchasing your new power rig (or your new super silent rig for that matter). Just wanted to add a bit of a warning and suggest some further research before buying - been burnt to often by my own shopping habit :oops:

All best

AndyP

ratherrapid
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Post by ratherrapid » Fri Jan 27, 2006 9:33 pm

i am having a hard time buying storage review & anatech poo poo of the raid 0, particularly after the hothardware.com review of the new raptors in raid 0. but, will, as spectator, leave my comments at that. i'll soon, unless i get run over by a truck, be able to give a full report. maybe try single raptor then compare to Raid 0. txs for recommend of I-star case--it seems to have rave reviews and nothing negative.

FollowTheMusic
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Post by FollowTheMusic » Fri Jan 27, 2006 10:44 pm

I made a similar post a week or two ago, looking for a quiet full-tower case. Unfortunately none of the cases out there are perfect. I have settled on the Lian-Li PC-V2100. Yes, it is aluminum, but reviews seem to indicate it is very solidly built. However, I plan on extensive mods to really drop the noise as much as possible.

Ronrem, thanks for suggesting the I-Star. I ultimately rejected it for a few reasons: one, the vents seemed like a problem. Two, I am looking for a big case -- the Lian-Li's huge, which I consider a plus. Three, I didn't really like the look, kinda silly but whatever.

I will document my mods to the Lian-Li and post a full review, including SPL measurements. Probably take a coupla weeks though. Good luck!

Erssa
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Post by Erssa » Sat Jan 28, 2006 5:46 am

AndyP wrote:Sorry about not replying - and for stirring up a bit of a hornets nest :-). I don't post very often because I don't have the time to follow up - perhaps I should not have posted this time.

Erssa
My apologies for giving the wrong link. Having recently read all 15 pages of the Storage Review, review and then all the discussion afterwards I got a little forgetful about what was where. However the link I gave was the starting point to 'the' comprehensive review of the product in question and did lead eventually to the specific advice I quoted

If you look at post 25 in this thread
http://forums.storagereview.net/index.p ... opic=21621
you will see the evidence I'm talking about

If you follow all the stuff in this discussion you will come across alot of stuff about the myth of Raid 0 and High End SCSI drives in desktop computers. Of course this being the internet you have to read critically, but it seems to me that Storage Review really know what they're talking about

Nick thankyou for the defence :twisted: and that link, excellent stuff.

Its very easy to fall into the trap of thinking you can't live withot new hot hardware x, and to pick up support for a rash purchase with 'lightweight' reviews from certain hardware sites. Particularly when your thinking about purchasing your new power rig (or your new super silent rig for that matter). Just wanted to add a bit of a warning and suggest some further research before buying - been burnt to often by my own shopping habit :oops:

All best

AndyP
How unfortunate that I have the time for doing follow ups ;). How unfortunate as well, that I also have taken the bad habit of going off-topic in threads, I apologize for that, although in truth, I enjoy the chance to practice my english skills, which had gotten a bit rusty from lack of use.

AndyP, no need to apologize. I didn't reply because of the wrong link. I replied, because in general, I think that some hard facts need to be given before pointing someone to go after more information. Time = money after all :). My intentions were not to sound aggressive. So my apologizations as well.

I'd never get raid solutions for my home computer, because I don't see it worth the price. But judging from the OPs listed hardware, money isn't the issue in this particular case. And in working environment the extra money spend on hardware might actually pay itself back in the time it saves for the employees.

I have just couple of comment on the anandtech link nick705 quoted. If I a person would do a search for that quote, he would find out, that I myself have used that same quote in a debate against raid-0 here in SPCR :).
But there are couple of things to remember here. That test is around 18 months old and the raid-controller used in the test was intels integrated chip. The test back then also had very little real world benchmarks. Things advance as time pass. I managed to get a peek at the latest raid-0 benchmarks on seagate.9 160gb drives, before they removed the article, and the raid-0 seemed to have some good realworld benefits. But yes, I agree as well, that in most cases raids aren't worth it.

As I said before, this is machine is used for work. And the balance on the price/performance doens't work quite the same way with work computers as with the computers we build for ourselves. One of the reasons why corporates choose Windows over Linux in their computers is that even if Linux would have the same required programs available for free, that Windows has for the cost of an arm and a leg, in most cases it will be cheaper in the long run to go with windows. Reason? Simply because the extra work spent in support and upkeep of Linux will overtake the preliminary cost of windows based platforms. That is a plain fact. Yes, there are situations where linux will be cheaper, so all you linux fanboys can calm down. This particular example doesn't need to take this thread even more sidetrack then I am already putting it... I was just trying to make a point, that time is money in work environment.

I actually have nothing to add to the case recommendations, except that with certain choise of hardware Nexus Breeze could be considered as an option.

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Post by Shining Arcanine » Sat Jan 28, 2006 8:43 am

NeilBlanchard wrote:Greetings,

You could do a whole lot worse than the Evercase 4252. I built an Athlon 64 4000+ (Newcastle, so this is hotter than the 4800+ X2), 4GB RAM, two RAID 1 arrays (four HD's), and the whole system is quiet. The HD seek noise is the only thing audible whe it is under the desk in a quiet office. I used a SeaSonic S12 500watt PS, a Thermalright XP120, two Nexus 120mm (one exhaust and one on the CPU) and one 92mm in front to cool the HD's a little better.

Image

The Evercase 4252 is on the SPCR recommended list:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article75-page2.html

BTW, the newer Raptors (with the fluid bearings) are actually pretty quiet -- check the recommended section.
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article29-page2.html
They are probably a lot quieter than the Seagates that I used in the above machine.
Wow, that looks almost identical my generic case that I replaced yesterday:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2003/02/11/ ... age24.html

I guess they licensed the design. Too bad the included PSU and 80mm case fan were the most noisy and lousy hardware I have ever had the displeasure of using. I lost a motherboard's integraded LAN functionality because of the PSU.

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Post by NeilBlanchard » Sat Jan 28, 2006 9:06 am

Hello,

I'd say that the Startech is an Evercase -- though the current Evercase 4252 has a 120mm exhaust. You could always replace th PS and the fan -- I have two of the older Evercases, and they are very quiet with a good 120mm-fanned PS and some quiet NMB 80mm fans. The front air intake is excellent, and you could easily make it into a very quiet and cool running machine.

diver
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Post by diver » Sat Jan 28, 2006 9:57 am

Even those that do not like Raid 0 say it might make sense with some applications. Well, video is that application. Files for video are huge and get processed in a variety of operations where the ability to read and write huge files quickly makes a difference in minutes.

As far as cases go, my vote would be for the P180, at least for someone who does not mind its large size, and the TJ07 is big. Put a fanless power supply in the bottom. I am not so sure about how the Ninja would get along with the Northbridge radiator on that MOBO.

ratherrapid
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case

Post by ratherrapid » Sat Jan 28, 2006 7:55 pm

off topic--raid 0. im but visitor from mars. however. from what im reading, the anatech and storagereview pieces are dated, as noted by essra. in fact, if one reads the comments to the article posted on that anatech thread, there is at least one interesting comparison from the netherlands indicating dramatic (40%) benefits from raid 0. essra also presented relevant q of computer use in the office. 90% of time our dual core Pentium 820 with 1GB memory in Raid 1 is very quick. The other 10% of time we tap our fingers and wait--40 times a day--it is time and interruption of thought process why we seek new computer. the raid 0 articles indicate (even as they pronounce "death of raid"), faster boot up times, etc. etc. we boot up annd down 4-5 times a day. faster boot times are very welcome in the office.

on topic: cases: txs very much for the many helpful comments. decision time for us. nexus breeze, i star, accousti case and a few others work nicely--nixed for aethetics. lian li ok but nags. same with a few others. Antec 180--doubt builder would have patience. antec 150 out on PS. this leaves--bell please--evercase 4252 (but, we like evercase E4502B better (looks). and Silverstone TJ07. reexamined above comments on (unreviewed) TJ07 as follows:

1. case looks as if it might have ideal airflow pattern for cooling. question whether fans would ever rev up with this case.
2. case material 'eliminates' vibration.
3. 4 120mm fans at 21dba and 2 92mm fans at 26 dba. from the comments on this thread, this is very quiet fans even at close distance, and they never increase in speed.
4. on this forum is a TJ07 thread stating Silverstone claims this case quieter than TJ06.
5. (most importantly) case has come down in price $20.00 on new egg before anyone has bought one. lol.
6. the vent placement is bothersome, but, based on above, i do have some qs. at andy's statement that the TJ07 is "strong, beautiful but to open to be quiet". wondering if anyone else agrees--two long rectangular vents at bottom of both side pannels and one long vent with two 120mm fans at top of case. HD cage directly exposed by vents but shielded by fans.

AndyP
Posts: 49
Joined: Sat Nov 15, 2003 4:18 am

Post by AndyP » Sun Jan 29, 2006 9:53 am

My last comments on this
Diver: Even those that do not like Raid 0 say it might make sense with some applications. Well, video is that applicatio
Yup agreed, for servers and for people editing massive dig video. But not for the Office computer under discussion in this thread
ratherrapid anatech and storagereview pieces are dated
the link I gave in the last post was from Jan 05 2006 with a graph from a new article yet to be published - you can't seriously be saying this is out of date!!!

Anyhow read things as you will, good luck with your new box

ronrem
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Location: Santa Cruz

Post by ronrem » Tue Jan 31, 2006 12:29 pm

Raid 0 you get 50% of the reliability and 200% of the noise. The speed factor? Well,alone a Raptor 150 is pretty fast. Typical use,just a few minutes a day is that speed advantage over a 7200 drive going to add up to more than a second or two. Every so often perhaps some extended number crunching might make it enough quicker to notice,but you can obtain similar benefits with a second HD holding your big files,and a quieter 7200 rpm Samsung can be great for that. If you are doing whatever to a big file,say a GB or more, The HDD read/write heads need to go get stuff from the app,the OS,and the data/files need to be read and/or written. A seperate storage drive has its own heads so it can cover that task and let the system drive do its thing undistracted. With Raid,the speed is all about 2 heads better than one,but if the system and the data are all on the same Raid array,you still get BOTH drives needing to jump back and forth. Further,you can partition up a storage drive, and your data stays relatively free of any side effects,corruption from Prog crashes.OS crashes. If the system drive goes belly up,your data,files etc are still fine.
A Spinpoint storage drive is a lot quieter than that second Raptor,and it will often only be in idle,while 2 Raid Raptors housing everything will always be in seek,which is the noisy part.

Did you see the I Star Nitro review at ocmodshop? that one has the good photos. I just dig how they did that front door,that its overall tough built,engineered,no cheesy plastic. I'm also big on big cases,would expect to silence-mod any case.

Erssa
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Post by Erssa » Wed Feb 01, 2006 4:36 am

ronrem wrote:Raid 0 you get 50% of the reliability and 200% of the noise.
So are you saying, that if you have a drive with 25db spl, 2 drives will have 50db spl. Because that is what it looks like you are saying. (No need to answer, of course you are not ;))

Mod comment: the decibel scale is NOT linear; 200% increase (2X) of the noise is actually a 10dB increase; IINM.
Edit: :oops: Guess I shouldn't try be a smart ass, when I am not smart enough :), I actually knew this, since I took a course about audio in multimedia environment and it had a real boring lecture part about those things.
The speed factor? Well,alone a Raptor 150 is pretty fast. Typical use,just a few minutes a day is that speed advantage over a 7200 drive going to add up to more than a second or two. Every so often perhaps some extended number crunching might make it enough quicker to notice,but you can obtain similar benefits with a second HD holding your big files,and a quieter 7200 rpm Samsung can be great for that.
And now you are implying that he could use two drives. What happened to the increase in noise. Let's say it costs the company 40$/h to employ him (I assume we all know that employing is much more expensive then the actual salary of the employee). And the drive would save him 2 minutes work time (with 4-5 reboots like OP said, add crunching etc... 2 minutes might be an understatement) every day for 52 weeks and let's assume he uses that time productively. That would sum up to 520 minutes a year. That's almost 9 hours of worktime saved by the company, so that would mean that given time the extra price of purchase will be turned into profits... Let's not also forget that Raptors are designed to be enterprise class drives, which should mean that atleast in theory, that they will outlast those samsungs, and if nothing else outlasts, the 60 month guarantee will outlast the 36 months of samsung. Just look back at the release of 74gb raptors in september of 2003. Few months ago, they were still the fastest out there. I doubt there will be anything faster then 150gb raptor for quite some while.
If you are doing whatever to a big file,say a GB or more, The HDD read/write heads need to go get stuff from the app,the OS,and the data/files need to be read and/or written. A seperate storage drive has its own heads so it can cover that task and let the system drive do its thing undistracted. With Raid,the speed is all about 2 heads better than one,but if the system and the data are all on the same Raid array,you still get BOTH drives needing to jump back and forth. Further,you can partition up a storage drive, and your data stays relatively free of any side effects,corruption from Prog crashes.OS crashes. If the system drive goes belly up,your data,files etc are still fine.
And what if it is the samsung data drive that fails? With 2 drives you are still in risk of losing the other. Well to be fair, the OP said they had backups done via network. I would still probably recommend getting 3 drives and going raid-5 or getting 3 drives and a raid-3 controller, depending on the nature of the work.

Raid-5:
# File and Application servers
# Database servers
# Web, E-mail, and News servers
# Intranet servers
# Most versatile RAID level

Raid-3:
# Video Production and live streaming
# Image Editing
# Video Editing
# Prepress Applications
# Any application requiring high throughput
A Spinpoint storage drive is a lot quieter than that second Raptor,and it will often only be in idle,while 2 Raid Raptors housing everything will always be in seek,which is the noisy part.
A raptor as a storage drive would be just as quiet as samsung as a storage drive, if they are both idle.

I took a bit more economic point of view here then you did (probably because that's my major), but after all this is computer will be used at work. You can still try to make it as fast and effective as possible and still try to minimize the noise, there are people here on the forums with multiple drives and silent computers. Had this been a home computer, I would have probably agreed with you on almost every point you made, but that's not the case here. Office environment usually has more background noise then average home during night ;), phones ringing, people chatting, radio playing on the background, air condioning, sounds of trafffic etc.. When a certain noise level is reached, the effects of the added silencing will become redundant and unnecessary.

As a sidenote, the anandtech link I posted earlier, is up again as the article was republished. The raid-0 benefits seem quite nice there.

Ratherrapid: what ever case/system you decide to choose, I hope you will post back here with your findings and opinions afterwards.
Last edited by Erssa on Wed Feb 01, 2006 1:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

ratherrapid
Posts: 43
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case

Post by ratherrapid » Wed Feb 01, 2006 1:04 pm

erssa, believe u have the point. with the Dell 2.8 ghz dual core in raid 1 guessing,--30 min per day tapping toes waiting on things to pop or complete. as noted, time + interruption of work flow. we hope high end system will iron out for us. ronrem probably made some valid points maybe an exageration or two, lol. will consider ronrem discussion of course. we already have the raptors, and, unless i get run over by a truck, will post how all this comes together. it has been interesting and enjoyable, and txs to everyone for their input. my decisions: buying Evercase 4252 today (newegg). we can afford the thirty five bucks :) the TJ07 (finally) got a (rave) review on Newegg as to cooling . was ordering yesterday the TJ07 then thought overnight-- we are limited in customizing the TJ07, with its vents, for sound, but can control the noise in the Evercase, and failing that get different case, maybe after TJ07 is reviewed. in process of becoming "tech" have noticed interesting metamorphis in myself in taht -- less concerned with aesthetics than i was, now, more with function. There is today a nice review of the MB Asus A8n 32 Deluxe at HardOCP (most detailed review ive read). we have decided on this MB for many small reasons as being superior in performance, features and layout than cheaper boards. will admit a subjective prejudice on this. nexus breeze would be decent case for us. nixed due to silver panels. silver color may be visual distraction at 3 ft to the left. have also decided on PS, proccessor and heat sink. txs much to SPCR in the help with those decisions.

LOUISSSSS
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Location: Brooklyn

Post by LOUISSSSS » Sun Feb 05, 2006 9:41 pm

Lian Li v 1000 plus or 2000 plus is good

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