John_Nevill
New member
After my vows that i'd never build a pc again and switch to a mac (next time around), I have totally contradicted these and decided to build (from scratch and on a budget) a new desktop dedicated to imaging.
Why?, well I desperately needed some more image storage and pondered over a dedicated Raid system and after pricing it up, I found it was probably cheaper to build a new PC with Raid.
I've gone for a modest 2.66 Ghz duo 2 core E6700 processor planted on a Asus Raid, eSATA and firewire capable motherboard with 2Gb (800Mhz) memory for starters. I've chosen an ATI radeon x1650XT dual DVI out PCI-Express 16x card. This will perfrom more than adequately for needs (I dont do computer games). I aim to use two identical Eizo 21" s2100 panels for display, so calibration will be easier.
I will be putting the OS and applications on a 250Gb system drive (IDE) and will use a pair of 500 Gb Samsung spinpoint SATAII drives in Raid 1 configuration for images.
I intend to double the memory to 4Gb and add another pair or 500Gb drives once the system is up and running and stable (say 2 months). The Asus board can run 3 x Raid 1 (mirror) pairs on its intel based controller, so I can expand these mirrored arrays to 1.5Tb of storage (based on using 500Gb drives).
As the price of 750Gb drives start to fall, I then up the total storage capacity to 2.25Tb!
Against all odds (and my own sanity) I've opted for Vista 32 home premium edition and will hopefully start the build process early next week.
If all goes well I'll post an update in a week or so.
Why?, well I desperately needed some more image storage and pondered over a dedicated Raid system and after pricing it up, I found it was probably cheaper to build a new PC with Raid.
I've gone for a modest 2.66 Ghz duo 2 core E6700 processor planted on a Asus Raid, eSATA and firewire capable motherboard with 2Gb (800Mhz) memory for starters. I've chosen an ATI radeon x1650XT dual DVI out PCI-Express 16x card. This will perfrom more than adequately for needs (I dont do computer games). I aim to use two identical Eizo 21" s2100 panels for display, so calibration will be easier.
I will be putting the OS and applications on a 250Gb system drive (IDE) and will use a pair of 500 Gb Samsung spinpoint SATAII drives in Raid 1 configuration for images.
I intend to double the memory to 4Gb and add another pair or 500Gb drives once the system is up and running and stable (say 2 months). The Asus board can run 3 x Raid 1 (mirror) pairs on its intel based controller, so I can expand these mirrored arrays to 1.5Tb of storage (based on using 500Gb drives).
As the price of 750Gb drives start to fall, I then up the total storage capacity to 2.25Tb!
Against all odds (and my own sanity) I've opted for Vista 32 home premium edition and will hopefully start the build process early next week.
If all goes well I'll post an update in a week or so.
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