N00bish computer questions.

[JimJ 11]

I'm going to be getting some money in shortly, and I figured I'd put it towards my music computer to finally get it where I'd want...

As it stands, I've got a Dell Poweredge 600SC running XP. 2.4GHz P4, 512MB cache, 256MB RAM. Hard drive right now is a Western Digital 250GB IDE, 8MB cache. Obviously, that's nowhere near enough storage for me.

I was thinking about taking advantage of that guy that's selling WD 250GB drives over on CA.com for pretty good prices, Sean's mentioned before that the 2MB cache of those shouldn't cause a problem when searching/during playback...I have three open bays, what would be the easiest way to combine three drives so it looks like one ~750GB volume? I assume some kind of RAID controller, any opinions of what RAID config. and what brand of controller?

The RAM on this machine is upgradeable to 4GB. I take it I should max it out? Or somewhere in between...RAM for it is dirt cheap as it's not commonly used in "consumer" desktops.

Also planning on going to a 20-22" LCD monitor, any suggestions on brands to look for?

Thanks in advance

[NB50 206]

I only messed around with raid a little bit so I can only help a little bit hopefully.

What are you looking for out of the Disk configuration? Are you looking for data security, performance, or just one big disk to store music. For data security Id use RAID 3, or 4 but you lose one disk drive for parity bits.

For performance Use Raid 0 this is the one I used but beware if one drive fails you lose everything like I did.

Just on big disk to store the music look into JBOD (Just a Bunch Of Disks) once you fill up one drive then it starts to write to the next but still appears as one drive. link to help http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_RAID_levels

Memory as much as you can afford but I wouldnt recommend going over 3GB ive heard windows XP 32bit wont recognize over 3GB

Monitors I like the samsung that I have does fine for what i use it for movie and games look good on it. The one I have is a

Syncmaster 205BW

[zins184 1]

I wouldn't go over 2Gb of ram.. for xp 1 to 2 Gb is good enough over that is over kill. Are you looking for 750 total or an extra 750? now on each ide controller your able to connect two drives. on your system you should have 3 ide channels. btw don't forget to change the jumper settings on the HDD's first one is master the second is slave. I didn't see your question about the lcd's but my suggestion would be the Acer AL2216W it's nice lcd for the money also the memory your system uses is registered ecc so something like pc2700 with ecc, reg , and cas of at least 2.5. would work

Edited January 6, 2008 by Zins

[///M5 2,833]

Not that this helps, nor do I have a solution but why the desire to have 3 drives look like one?

[Alaxan 0]

I'm going to be getting some money in shortly, and I figured I'd put it towards my music computer to finally get it where I'd want...

As it stands, I've got a Dell Poweredge 600SC running XP. 2.4GHz P4, 512MB cache, 256MB RAM. Hard drive right now is a Western Digital 250GB IDE, 8MB cache. Obviously, that's nowhere near enough storage for me.

I was thinking about taking advantage of that guy that's selling WD 250GB drives over on CA.com for pretty good prices, Sean's mentioned before that the 2MB cache of those shouldn't cause a problem when searching/during playback...I have three open bays, what would be the easiest way to combine three drives so it looks like one ~750GB volume? I assume some kind of RAID controller, any opinions of what RAID config. and what brand of controller?

The RAM on this machine is upgradeable to 4GB. I take it I should max it out? Or somewhere in between...RAM for it is dirt cheap as it's not commonly used in "consumer" desktops.

Also planning on going to a 20-22" LCD monitor, any suggestions on brands to look for?

Thanks in advance

First, combining those three drives to total 750gb would not be putting it in a RAID configuration. If you are looking for a raid solution for data security purposes you need either 2 or 4 identical drives.Running a RAID configuration can do one of three things. It can provide data security, but both drives act as one and you do not receive any benefit of additional storage space. Second it can increase performance of the drives by querying for data from two separate drives simultaneously. Third, it can do both of those together, but you need 4 drives for that configuration. RAID-0 (performance) RAID-1 (Security) RAID-5 (Security and Storage)

*quick edit here... RAID-5 can be run with 3 identical drives, but you will only see the size of one drive

Increasing your RAM is fine, but if you are going to increase to 4gb and want your computer to recognize that you would need to switch to Windows Vista Ultimate. If you are going to keep Windows XP though, I would recommend going with just 2gb of RAM and getting a higher performance memory type run in a dual chanel configuration. This will give your system a better performance than the stock Dell memory. I'd recommend personall something from the Corsair XMS line or OCZ Platinum.

Samsung has by far the best monitors for the money that I've tested. Look at the Samsung 226BW for a 22" solution. Newegg.com normally has them for around $320 or so and provides an instant and mail in rebate normally. For a 20" solution the Samsung 204BW is a very nice monitor and is usually in stock at newegg as well for around $260. I've used both of these monitors on systems that I have myself and recently even upgraded to a 32" monitor (because I was using two 19" screens I went with one nice screen instead) All that I use personally in systems is the Samsung brand though since they are great looking monitors and at an affordable price in compare to many others.

If you are looking for massive storage space though and want to get about 750GB or so. I would recommend spending the money for one single drive. There are many out there with varying cache I would recommend either a Seagate or Samsung 750GB drive which can be bought for around $165-$200. They have 32mb of cache and are great drives for the money. Going with a few cheap drives isn't much for a solution and you get an actual warranty with either of the above drives, from reputable manufacturers.

Edited January 6, 2008 by Alaxan

[Jmac 24]

Keep in mind that, according to Dell's webiste, your computer uses registered ECC PC2100 DDR memory, so you probably can't just throw any memory in there.

[X-OvrDistortion 0]

You guys need to think larger

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16822152102

Get 3 or 4 of them and call it a year!!

[zins184 1]

really I wouldn't go with a raid setup but just one big HDD, 2Gb of ram and as for the lcd just go to a local store and find the one you like the best. I used the samsung lcd that was suggested has some response time issues but the Acer AL2216Wbd I suggested has it's pro and cons as well, I haven't seen any known issues. anyway both lcd are great either one is a good suggestion.

[JimJ 11]

Thanks, got some good info out of here. I didn't know about XP having a limit on RAM it'll recognize.

I guess I'll wait for the price on the Seagate 1TB drive to come down a little

[Alaxan 0]

Thanks, got some good info out of here. I didn't know about XP having a limit on RAM it'll recognize.

I guess I'll wait for the price on the Seagate 1TB drive to come down a little

The Samsung 1tb is a really nice drive. If not I'd go with that 750gb drive. I have one myself and well... ok it's geting full soon, but nothing a second drive can't fix.

[X-OvrDistortion 0]

Yes, regular XP will only see 3g whereas XP 64-bit will read up to 8g IIRC. I run XP, and I have 3g....but I am still gonna put more in cause it is dirt cheap right now.

[Alaxan 0]

Yes, regular XP will only see 3g whereas XP 64-bit will read up to 8g IIRC. I run XP, and I have 3g....but I am still gonna put more in cause it is dirt cheap right now.

with the release of DDR3 memory all DDR2 is dropping insanely cheap. Can pick up a set of Corsair XMS 2gb for $65 on newegg at the moment.

[InfinitePeace 0]

DDR is going to cost him a little more though, not to mention even more with it being Registered ECC.

The deal on drives right now is pretty much that the 750 is where it's at. I just ordered my third one.

http://dealnews.com/categories/Computer/St...Drives/301.html

I dunno if he needs IDE or has SATA ports in there but just happens to be running an IDE drive atm, but if so, SATA would be the way to go. RAID IMO is silly unless you are striping or want it for redundancy. Striping as in RAID 0, essentially turning two drives into one and increasing your throughput collectively as someone already stated. I did that for a while but then just decided I didn't need the gamble as my changes of having my "one" main OS drive die were doubled, as if one of those striped drives fail, you lose everything.

But anyway, the 750's are just about the lowest $/gig right now, unless you find a one time deal on a smaller drive which does happen.. Do the math on every drive you are looking at and youll see what I'm talking about. I purchased one a few days ago on a deal from club IT @ $149 shipped. Not bad.