Home office computer w/ internal backup

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Clairvaux
Posts: 14
Joined: Mon Aug 02, 2010 11:47 am
Location: France

Home office computer w/ internal backup

Post by Clairvaux » Fri Aug 27, 2010 5:28 pm

Cheers,

I'd be glad to have your opinion on my projected build for a home office computer, both for the silence aspect and for the general relevance of the specs and parts. Prices are in euros and my location is France. Feel free to point out any possible overkill.

Main usage : home office (productivity software, bookkeeping, mail), intensive Web browsing (data research, newsfeeds, blogging, media sites, cloud-based computing), experimenting with new software.

Secondary usage : amateur photography (moderate level of photo editing, limited need for storage of pictures), classical music (ripping in lossless formats, listening to CDs, music files and Web radio, limited need for storage of music files, possible output to an old audiophile hi-fi system), watching SD movies on DVDs or via VOD (no need for HD, limited need for storage).

Possible, added usage somewhere down the line : Web development. (Does not have to be taken into account if price and functionality need to be quite different upfront).

Never : games, overclocking.

Specific needs : I’d like the PC to have an in-case removable backup solution, without outside clutter. I need a stable PC, safe for data and reliable.

Multitasking : large number of browser tabs open at the same time, applications open concurrently, data being shifted from one application to the other, "pemanent" backup in the background (every 5 minutes through Acronis software), other maintenance tasks possibily occuring in the background, etc.

Silent / quiet operation required. No air conditioning here. Peak summer temps : 30 to 40 °C.

This is a long-lived build. I don’t plan to make a new one every 2 or 3 years. A degree of expandability would be a good thing (if such a thing exists). Possible future extensions : Wi-fi, TV, dedicated RAID controller, audiophile sound card, graphic card for multiple monitors.

Eyesight getting suboptimal, long hours of use, the monitor has to be easy on the eyes.

Reasonably transport-proof and dust-proof.

Here are the projected parts, with the associated questions.

Processor : Athlon II X4 635 : 97 €
Are 4 cores really necessary ? I've been considering alternatively the Athlon II X2 255, Phenom II X2 550 BE and Athlon II X3 440. Prices are not far apart.

Motherboard : Gigabyte 880 GA UD3H : 100 €
Enough extension slots for future-proofing ? How good is it for fan management ? Any preference for Asus ?

Memory : Crucial 4 GB (kit 2 x 2 GB) DDR3 PC3-10600 / 1333 CL 9 : 89 €
Someone advised me to buy ECC (unlike this reference), on the grounds of increased reliability of data. Would that help ? It's between 10 and 20 % more expensive. PC3-8500 / 1066 CL 7 is at the same price : is there any reason to chose one speed over the other ?

Main disk : WD Caviar Blue 500 GB 3.5" : 41 €
Would Caviar Black be too noisy ? Would the increased speed be useful ? Capacity-wise, my present disk is 10 GB only, and I do not think I will fill up those 500 GB quickly. However, smaller disks are practically at the same price.

Backup disks : 2 x WD Scorpio Blue 500 GB 2.5" : 2 x 54 €
To be rotated. One of those goes in a bank vault for protection against theft and fire.

Rack for removable backup disks : Icy Dock IB 290 ST USD-B : 29 €
Goes inside the PC case. One disk enclosure is included.

Extra enclosures for backup disks : 2 x Icy Dock IB 290 ST US-B : 2 x 22 €
The 2.5" disks go inside, they are entirely protected. There's a USB port, so the backup disks can also be used to transfer data with other computers, even without the rack. Each enclosure comes with a leather pouch, and there's one extra, on standby for a third disk. The concept is better explainedhere (pdf).

Optical disk : Sony Optiarc AD 7241 S 0B : 26 €
Lightscribe version.

Case : Antec Solo : 83 €
Alternatively, the Fractal Design Define R2 (or the new R3). It's much nicer to look at. However, I'm a bit skeptical of those bitumen panels inside. (Bitumen at high temperatures, right in a closed room, under your nose ? How good is that for your health ?). Also, silence-wise, are those huge openings for unused fans effectively muted by the removable panels ? How good is the dampening of disks ? Any users of this case out there ?

Power supply : Corsair VX 450 W : 69 €
Will it stay silent in the summer ?

CPU heatsink : Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus : 23 €
Is an aftermarket cooler necessary for such a rig, meant for office use, with no overclocking ?

CPU fan : Nexus Real Silent Case Fan D 12 SL-12 (120 mm) : 13 €
Replacing the fan included with the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus.

Rear case fan : Nexus Real Silent Case Fan D 12 SL-12 (120 mm) : 13 €
Replacing the Antec Tri-Cool included with the Antec Solo.

Front case fan : Nexus Real Silent Case Fan DF 1209 SL-3 (92 mm) : 11 €
Are all these fans necessary for office work ? Any chance of making do with the stock CPU cooler and stock case fan ? Any hints are welcome as to a European e-tailer shipping Nexus fans to France.

Monitor : HP LP 2475 W, 24" IPS 9/10 : 565 €

Keyboard : To be determined : 25 €
Suggestions welcome.

Speakers : To be determined : 30 €
Suggestions welcome.

OS : Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bits OEM : 113 €

Total : 1 479 €

Thanks in advance for your feedback !

HFat
Posts: 1753
Joined: Thu Jul 03, 2008 4:27 am
Location: Switzerland

Post by HFat » Sat Aug 28, 2010 9:31 am

Hi,

I'm no photographer so I don't know about that but this system is overkill for everything else IMHO.

Make sure your motherboard fully supports the exact type of ECC RAM you plan to buy. ECC should help but I don't think it would be important for what you want to do.
The most critical security step you need to take (if you haven't already) is to keep many (very) old versions of your data. If your data is mostly static (such as old documents and pictures, CD rips and so on), you can technically keep many versions of your data on a single hard drive (if your software allows that). You want to be able to recover from user errors or data corruption you don't notice (or recognize as errors) immediately.

Considering your budget, if you care about reliability, I'd recommend going with software RAID 1 (assuming Windows supports it, the feature may have an obscure name) instead of very frequent backups (obviously you'd still need regular backups... but not every few minutes!). I wouldn't recommend hardware RAID by the way (unless Windows can't do software RAID).
And if you care about performance, I'd recommend a SSD.

If cost is a concern, you could save a lot of money with a used monitor (at least if you could live with a different and somewhat smaller IPS monitor).

Note that good playback-oriented sound cards need not be expensive and that the USB models usually work well.

Clairvaux
Posts: 14
Joined: Mon Aug 02, 2010 11:47 am
Location: France

Post by Clairvaux » Sat Aug 28, 2010 10:34 am

I'm no photographer so I don't know about that but this system is overkill for everything else.
In what respects exactly ? Could you suggest alternate specs ?
The most critical security step you need to take (if you haven't already) is to keep many (very) old versions of your data. If your data is mostly static (such as old documents and pictures, CD rips and so on), you can technically keep many versions of your data on a single hard drive (if your software allows that). You want to be able to recover from user errors or data corruption you don't notice (or recognize as errors) immediately.

You mean there's a serious possibility of files getting corrupt, so you recommend keeping many identical versions of the same file on the same disk, so that there's a good chance of at least one of the versions not being corrupted ? Is there a name for such a function in backup software ?
I'd recommend going with software RAID 1 instead of very frequent backups.
Actually, this was my initial plan, before I was told this would be overkill... But I'm open to all suggestions.

The way I understand it :

- RAID 1 protects against disk failure. I need this protection.

- RAID 1 protects against downtime. This is not critical for me.

- RAID 1 does not protect against viruses, a system which has grown unstable, accidental erasure of important files by user, loss of the PC through theft, lightning or fire. All of these protections are important to me.

- Backup (if properly done) protects against all failures not covered by RAID 1 : viruses, a system which has grown unstable, accidental erasure of important files by user, loss of the PC through theft, lightning or fire.

- Backup does not protect against downtime, but I can live with that.

- Backup, if done continually, or almost continually, in the background, offers practically the same protection against disk failure that RAID 1 does. Acronis software offers precisely such an option, according to specs. I have not experimented it, but it's called Acronis Nonstop Backup and does an incremental backup every 5 minutes.

Since I need both traditional data backup, and disk imaging in order to revert to a stable and clean system if anything goes wrong, and since Acronis purports to do both, plus this so-called "Nonstop Backup" which seems to make RAID 1 redundant, I thought that would be the easiest way.

Any Acronis users out there ?

Note that one risk I want to cover is the disappearance of that important document you have been working on all day (or during all the week), but which has not been yet saved by your periodic backup.
If you care about performance, I'd recommend a SSD.
I'm aware of their potential for a very responsive machine, but I've decided not to go there yet. First for cost reasons, but also because the technology does not seem fully mature yet (all those TRIM functions and such). And my present PC is such an antique that a good disk system will be a huge improvement anyway.
If cost is a concern, you could save a lot of money with a used monitor (at least if you could live with a different and somewhat smaller IPS monitor).
Interesting. Could you suggest places to look for such second-hand monitors ? I had more or less setlled on 24", however.

HFat
Posts: 1753
Joined: Thu Jul 03, 2008 4:27 am
Location: Switzerland

Post by HFat » Sat Aug 28, 2010 1:44 pm

You should really ask someone who does some photography but it's the CPU/mobo and RAM which seem overkill to me. You won't need a fast quad-core with 4GB of RAM for playing music while browsing or bookeeping. You could do that with a fanless Atom. I'm of course not suggesting an Atom (you certainly want a mainstream CPU) but it's only the things I don't know about like "new software" or "moderate level of photo editing" which could possibly make use of such powerful hardware.
Clairvaux wrote:You mean there's a serious possibility of files getting corrupt, so you recommend keeping many identical versions of the same file on the same disk, so that there's a good chance of at least one of the versions not being corrupted ? Is there a name for such a function in backup software ?
Not exactly.
Files can get corrupted (the more data you have and the less reliable your hardware and software, the more likely you are to experience data corruption). The point of keeping several versions is not so much to avoid corruption of the backup but of the working copy (if the working copy gets corrupted and you don't notice it for a while, all the recent backups will contain the corrupted file).
But the main data loss scenario I have in mind in your situation is user error. You might delete or modify a file by mistake and not notice it for a long time... or you might not realize that a deletion or a modification you did was ill-advised for a while. If that ever happens, you'll be glad to have old backups. And keeping old backups is relatively cheap (compared to your monitor, CPU and so on).
I don't know that there's a standard name for keeping old versions of your data. If you're talking about a bunch of text files and the like, that would likely be called versioning. If you're talking about mirrors, that might be called hardlinked mirrors or something. Or, from a process point of view, that might be called reverse incremental backups. But your software might have its own name for it.

Generally, don't trust your backups without verifying them. If you need to perform a restore to your backups, do test that. And check from time to time whether the contents (not just the size and timestamps) of every file is identical in the backup and the working copy. At least try to simpy read every bit of your backup medium to catch errors every once in a while or you might not catch developing problems. Better be safe than sorry!
Clairvaux wrote:Backup, if done continually, or almost continually, in the background, offers practically the same protection against disk failure that RAID 1 does.
Ideally... but how has that been tested? Is it going to work in all circumstances? How well are changes done during the backup process handled? How far do you trust the people who claim it works so well?
Another problem is that automatic backups which are run when the system is not idle may well affect performance, especially if they're frequent. Depending on the specifics, the performance impact will be negligible... or not. And it could easily be negligible most of the time and occasionally seriously slow you down. Fast hardware is not much of a solution unless you go for server gear (or 100% SSD) because the problem is that hard drives are terrible at concurrent access and I/O latencies can potentially freeze everything (or make an audio stream stutter which sounds terrible). The OS could in theory work around that (to some extent) but the versions of Windows I'm familiar with aren't any good in that respect.

RAID 1 may indeed be overkill as such but the thing is that I wouldn't want to run backups every 5 minutes on my system and RAID 1 can mitigate the need for that.
If you have a real need for constant backups, you might want to look into remote backups because no backups to a live drive are going to be safe: you seem to want protection against malware and malfunctions but some risks affect all live drives. Recall that the increased security that traditional backups offer as compared to live mirroring comes from the fact that such backups are taken offline and remain offline after they've been created.

That said, for any documents you might be working on, the "backup every 5 minutes" idea is pretty sound. But that's more the role of a versioning system than a backup process: you might as well keep the copies on the same drive and you might not want all your data including the large multimedia files to be checked and copied every 5 minutes. I think it makes more sense to make a backup of your pictures and your music at night, when you power down the PC or even manually everytime you've finished adding new files or editing them. This way you won't have random performance hits when your system starts copying large files on its own.
Clairvaux wrote:Could you suggest places to look for such second-hand monitors ?
I don't know where to look for second-hand stuff in France or in your aera (wherever that is), no.

Clairvaux
Posts: 14
Joined: Mon Aug 02, 2010 11:47 am
Location: France

Post by Clairvaux » Sun Aug 29, 2010 10:51 am

Thanks for all this information, HFat.
You won't need a fast quad-core with 4GB of RAM for playing music while browsing or bookeeping.
I'm a bit at a loss there.
Theory A says : any processor currently available is already too much for office tasks.
Theory B says : more than 2 cores will give you a more responsive PC if you multitask, and 2 GB with Windows 7 may be cramped if you plan to open a lot of applications and files at the same time.
I've read both, and I can't reconcile them.
The point of keeping several versions is not so much to avoid corruption of the backup but of the working copy.
OK. Important point. Does that mean that a working copy is more likely to corrupt than a backup ? What's corrupting files, anyway ? Is it opening and closing them ? Does a file rarely accessed on an active disk stand a chance to become corrupted ? Do files just "evaporate" from hard disks ?
Generally, don't trust your backups without verifying them. If you need to perform a restore to your backups, do test that.
How does one verify a backup ? If you do a restore for checking purposes, without needing it, don't you run the risk of replacing good files with bad ones (supposing the backup is corrupted) ?
And check from time to time whether the contents (not just the size and timestamps) of every file is identical in the backup and the working copy. At least try to simpy read every bit of your backup medium to catch errors every once in a while or you might not catch developing problems.
How do you do that without manually opening each and every file ?
Recall that the increased security that traditional backups offer as compared to live mirroring comes from the fact that such backups are taken offline and remain offline after they've been created.
If I understand correctly, doing a continuous backup negates the very concept of backup, because backup means : making sure that what you are about to copy is want you want to copy, and making sure the copy is good once you've made it. And you can't do that on the fly. So you need both RAID 1 and backups from time to time (say, daily) to cover all the risks. Is that it ?
If you have a real need for constant backups, you might want to look into remote backups because no backups to a live drive are going to be safe.
What's a remote backup ?
That said, for any documents you might be working on, the "backup every 5 minutes" idea is pretty sound. But that's more the role of a versioning system than a backup process: you might as well keep the copies on the same drive and you might not want all your data including the large multimedia files to be checked and copied every 5 minutes.
What software tools provide this versioning function ? Would that be found in backup software ? If I backup "continually" from one partition of the main disk to another (for instance), won't I run into the hardware bottlenecks you described before ?

HFat
Posts: 1753
Joined: Thu Jul 03, 2008 4:27 am
Location: Switzerland

Post by HFat » Sun Aug 29, 2010 1:28 pm

If you didn't care about noise, you could simply buy powerful stuff (since you can obviouly afford that). But you presumably want low-power parts for silence. Less powerful hardware might not make a noticeable difference in real-world performance but I can't tell you since I don't know the specifics and since it's subjective anyway.
Clairvaux wrote:What's corrupting files, anyway ?
Anything (software, RAM, drives and so on) could potentially corrupt your files. They can "rot away" on the drives when you're not touching them or get corrupted when you modify them.
They've measured this at the CERN at some point and they had an error for every 5 TB (but I guess they had better hardware than you're planning to buy). 80% of these errors were actually caused by a single bug on some of their drives' firmware... it can really be anything!

One way or another, you will have several backups. If one of them gets some corruption, it's no big deal. But any problem with your working copy will in time corrupt all your backups...
Clairvaux wrote:How does one verify a backup ?
This is indeed something you ought to think about if you really care about your data.
Ideally your software shoud provide you with some facilities but then there's the matter of how far you can trust it.
Hashes are great. Ideally, you want your software (or your scripts) to verify whether the working copy is 100% consistent with the backup right after it's been made and to record a hash of the backup. Then you can check the backup against its hash at any point in the future without decompressing or copying anything. Verifying data against a hash involves reading every bit of it in memory so that also tells you if anything has gone awry with the backup medium.

If your software does not produce and verify hashes and you can't write a script to do it, you can still do it manually from time to time. There's a lot of software which computes hashes. It's only a matter of finding one you like to use and you can trust.
If you don't fully trust your software's own tests, you can also do this to put your mind at ease. If you want to be 100% safe, you need to be a little more devious however and deliberately introduce a tiny error to see whether your software catches it.

But that's not enough: if your backup can't be used without some kind of restore operation, you need to test that as well. Generally, you want to make sure that your software will work exactly as you think it does at least once. You don't want any surprises the day you need to recover from an incident. If you tested your first backup this way, you'd have a whole blank drive to restore your stuff to, right? So that sounds like a good moment to do it. Never overwrite your working copy unless it's broken! Maybe you can test everything once again whenever you buy a new drive.
Clairvaux wrote:If I understand correctly, doing a continuous backup negates the very concept of backup, because backup means : making sure that what you are about to copy is want you want to copy, and making sure the copy is good once you've made it. And you can't do that on the fly. So you need both RAID 1 and backups from time to time (say, daily) to cover all the risks. Is that it ?
Well, there's that and there's also the matter of taking your backups offline. Your backups are only truely safe when they are disconnected from your computer. Every way of doing it has advantages and disadvantages. If you understand them, you'll know what you need. Only you can tell.

If you're backing up infrequently, you risk losing hours/days of data.
If you're backing up frequently, you won't be able to take your backups offline.
If your backups are manual, you risk forgetting about it and not doing them regularly enough.
If you're backups are automatic, they may interfere with your work, useless files might get backed-up and your backed-up data might me in an inconvenient or incoherent state (or worse).
RAID mirroring mostly (not quite) solves the problem with automatic backups but the mirror only protects you against individual drive failures.
So a combination of approaches would indeed be best... but it could also be overkill to do more than one thing of course. If you're only going to be doing one thing, I'd advise conventional (offline) backups.
Clairvaux wrote:What's a remote backup ?
Sending your data to a server, possibly over the Internet. This way, whatever happens, your computer can't fry, erase or otherwise damage your backups. If you don't have a backup server, then that would require you to perform a manual operation (unless you had some kind of backup robot). And you'll get crazy if you try to do that every hour, nevermind every 5 minutes! If you send your data to a server that's in another building or even farther away, that'll protect you against fire, floods or even more unlikely scenarios.
Clairvaux wrote:What software tools provide this versioning function ? Would that be found in backup software ? If I backup "continually" from one partition of the main disk to another (for instance), won't I run into the hardware bottlenecks you described before ?
I use subversion but it's probably overkill for you unless you have another use for it: proper versioning software has more features than backup software but it's probably not worth your while to learn how to use them. Check the wikipedia or something if you're curious.
If your backup software handles open files as well as changes to the working copy made while the backup is being created gracefully, it'll do just fine. And even if it's not perfect, that might be good enough for you.

If you only constantly backup small text documents or spreadsheets as opposed to large pictures, lossless music or videos, you'll have a hard time noticing the performance hit. And your OS might already have the stuff you're working on in memory. But if you have another drive that's constantly spinning for some reason, yeah: use it. And perhaps put the stuff you know will never be modified again out of the directory that's constantly backed up if that's practical for you (it's only worth doing if you have thousands of files anyway).

Clairvaux
Posts: 14
Joined: Mon Aug 02, 2010 11:47 am
Location: France

Post by Clairvaux » Sun Aug 29, 2010 5:32 pm

Thanks very much, HFast. The more I look into backup, the more I realise that it looks simple from the outside, but it's in fact devilishly complex (unless you've got the right mind for it, which I don't).

You wouldn't know about a good tutorial on the Web, by any chance ?

Solo
Posts: 7
Joined: Sun Aug 29, 2010 6:08 pm
Location: Australia

Post by Solo » Sun Aug 29, 2010 8:42 pm

Sorry to jump on your tete a tete..

It sounds like the most strenuous thing your computer might do is photo editing. I do a little myself, but for an "amateur" that's a serious backup plan, which is good!

For data security I'm just using Intel's onboard RAID 1 for defense against a hard drive failure. I'd probably just go with some periodical removable/offsite backup after that, DVDs were good before photo files got too big; I'd prefer something non-mechanical but it's hard these days without being very costly or complicated.

I use Adobe Lightroom3 somewhat and I think a decent CPU would help, I have an Intel i5-750 quad. You can go for the cheap AMD quads like the X4 6xx series if you prefer AMD. My opinion is that more cores help for media processing. A good aftermarket heatsink is also useful, larger fan = quieter in general. I have a 212+ at the moment.

No need for ECC RAM in my opinion - that's server grade stuff, you'd have to try hard to find a consumer mobo that supports it. 4GB should be fine.

I use a mATX motherboard, I don't reckon anyone really needs 6-7 PCI slots these days, more so if you're not gaming. Nevertheless

HDD wise, larger doesn't hurt, in a way - if your photography is with a DSLR, or may end up that way, then RAW files and such will eat space. Beats having to add more HDDs later, with the subsequent noise.

If you can afford it, I've heard the newest Seasonic X series or the Enermax 87+ models are some of the quietest PSUs around now, or even the Seasonic X-series fanless model, as tested here recently.

Cerb
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Location: GA (US)

Post by Cerb » Sun Aug 29, 2010 11:21 pm

Clairvaux wrote:Theory A says : any processor currently available is already too much for office tasks.
Theory B says : more than 2 cores will give you a more responsive PC if you multitask, and 2 GB with Windows 7 may be cramped if you plan to open a lot of applications and files at the same time.
I've read both, and I can't reconcile them.
More than one core will give you a more responsive PC, if you multitask. More cores help, but offer diminishing returns, unless you are stressing most of them while multitasking.

IE, if you can use up 1, you want at least 2. if you can use up 2, you want at least 3. If you can use up 7, you want at least 8, and so on. Hyperthreading and such can also help, but create another can of worms, as well (some well-optimized apps can run slower w/ HT, FI).

While one core is busy, another core can do the work you want, instead of your PC feeling laggy.

HFat
Posts: 1753
Joined: Thu Jul 03, 2008 4:27 am
Location: Switzerland

Post by HFat » Mon Aug 30, 2010 2:45 am

Unfortunately, I don't know of a tutorial about designing suitable backup plans. It's probably too abstract. There are many technical tutorials about how to do this or that but these are only useful for those who know exactly what they want.

If it seems too complicated, then don't be perfectionist. The most important things, in my opinion, are:
-do your backups (your plan with rotating hard drives is sound although a third backup drive wouldn't hurt)
-keep some old versions of your data (buy a couple more drives if need be)
-test your recovery process at least once (think of it as a fire drill)
-test your backups from time to time, making sure your backups work, are not corrupted and contain the latest versions of all the files you want to preserve (do it manually if need be - you don't need to look at every file)
Solo wrote:HDD wise, larger doesn't hurt
I generally agree with Solo but the drives which have less moving parts tend to be more reliable. Ideally, you'd want single-platter, single-head drives but those are small and sometimes hard to find so single-platter, dual-head are a good compromise. In most cases, bigger hard drives are best anyway but if you know for sure you won't need more space, go with a single-platter. WD does not make it simple unfortunately which is why I avoid this brand.

Clairvaux
Posts: 14
Joined: Mon Aug 02, 2010 11:47 am
Location: France

Post by Clairvaux » Mon Aug 30, 2010 5:41 am

Solo wrote:Sorry to jump on your tete a tete.
You're most welcome to hop in. The more the merrier...

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