Assigning SSD, HDD's, and DVD ROM on ASUS X79 Motherboard. Also, Rack Mounted Case

nazareneisrael

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I am a first time builder. I tried to follow the Maximum PC May 2014 recommended performance build, with some tweaks.http://www.maximumpc.com/build_pc_recommended_builds_may_2014 . I am trying to build a beefy video capture and editing machine. I am learning a lot

Part 1: Motherboard: I bought the recommended ASUS X79 motherboard. I need help assigning SSD's and HDD's. I don't understand all of their terms.
1. On the X79 motherboard, the two brown ports are 6GB/sec SATA ports. So do I attach my C:\ (500GB SSD) to one, and a spin HDD (6GB/sec WD 4TB) to the other?
2. Then the four black ports are 3GB/sec? So I attach my DVD (ATAPI) and data drives to those?
3. Then there are two grey "SSD Caching" ports. Is that for workarounds if you don't have the $$ for a big SSD? I can relate, but I had to get a big SSD (500GB) for other reasons--so now do I just use these for my primary data drives (6GB/sec spin HDD's)?

Part 2: Rack Mount Case: I like my case (Inwin GROne), but now I am wondering if a rack mounted case might not be a better way to go for my application. I move my gear all the time to do presentations, which I want to capture on the computer. If I have a rack mounted case, then I can just roll the thing into the presentation environment, and roll it on back out to the truck when I am done. Do they make rack mounted cases where I can still use my X79 motherboard, and the Corsair H100i hybrid cooling fan? Or do I need to get a completely different motherboard? (And then what do I do with my case? Sell it used? It is ugly, but it is very functional case, and it has a lot of room for the H100i cooler.)

Thanks! Any advice or help would be appreciated.
 
Solution
First part - attach the SSD only to the SATA 6Gbps port. Attach the other drives to the other 3Gbps ports. The reason is that you might need to get a 2nd SSD in the future. Having it available will make things a bit easier, and the other devices don't need more than SATA 3Gbps anyway. The SSD caching ports are exactly what you think they are, and yes, you really don't need them.

2nd part, the case - I'm not sure if you really need a rack-mount case. Your costs go much higher, and you likely won't be able to use dual video cards (I assume you're going dual with that X79 board) if you have a form factor that usually only accommodates one PCIe card off a riser. Maybe you could if you got a 4U rack-mount chassis from SuperMicro or...
First part - attach the SSD only to the SATA 6Gbps port. Attach the other drives to the other 3Gbps ports. The reason is that you might need to get a 2nd SSD in the future. Having it available will make things a bit easier, and the other devices don't need more than SATA 3Gbps anyway. The SSD caching ports are exactly what you think they are, and yes, you really don't need them.

2nd part, the case - I'm not sure if you really need a rack-mount case. Your costs go much higher, and you likely won't be able to use dual video cards (I assume you're going dual with that X79 board) if you have a form factor that usually only accommodates one PCIe card off a riser. Maybe you could if you got a 4U rack-mount chassis from SuperMicro or some other vendor.

Maybe you should just look for a case with a carrying handle. Several vendors make them - one example is the Cooler Master Storm Scout (mid-tower) or CM Storm Stryker (full tower).



 
Solution

nazareneisrael

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Thanks. I have a 500GB C:\. I need 6GB/sec for extended uncompressed HDMI capture.

I went to Fry's and checked all of the cases. There were only two cases that had enough room for the H100i cooler.

I will check out SuperMicro, and be sure to ask about room for the H100i. Thanks.
 
Two SSDs in RAID-0 will also give you higher bandwidth, which is why I recommend you leave the 2nd SATA 6Gbps port open. Honestly, you don't need extremely high bandwidth if you're capturing regular HD video; even cheap NAS/DVR spinning disk hard drives can capture multiple HD streams. However, if you're capturing 4K video, then you could use a little more. In either case, more speed doesn't hurt.

If time isn't a factor, you should look at the new Samsung 850 Pro SSD. It has the high throughput & the consistent performance that you can use with big data throughput issues. Newegg says they are coming in near the end of July, so you may or may not be able to wait.
 

nazareneisrael

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Hm. I plan to capture through an AJA Kona LHi HDMI capture card. http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/618183-REG/AJA_KO... . I think you can specify what codecs, compression rates, etc., you want to capture in, but I have not used that card before. It is supposed to arrive tomorrow, so we will see. Bandwidth and storage capacity is a concern, as uncompressed HDMI v1.3 is up to 10.2 GBps. I don't know yet whether a standard 6GBps 7200 RPM spin HDD will work, or if it will be a bottleneck (as 6GBps is lesss than 10.2GBps). I think I can, because people do it all the time, and I am pretty sure my camera's uncompressed HDMI out ports push less bandwidth than the maximum bandwidth on HDMI v1.3--but the Canon rep did not know how much bandwidth the cameras actually push out the uncompressed HDMI port--so at this point I am still waiting to put everything together, and see how much bandwidth the cameras actually push (i.e., if a 6GBps spin HDD can handle it or not), and also check the file sizes.

If a 6GBps spin HDD will not handle it, then I would prefer to capture to a large SSD (Maybe your Samsung 850 1TB?). That would depend on volume, as I plan to talk up to 2 hours at a time (average 60-90 minute projects, to burn to DVD). I would prefer SSD over RAID, as I have RAID arrays on the machine I am replacing, and they are a real pain. Bootup takes forever under RAID (like, 5 minutes), and if you ever have to break the array.

Thanks for the continuing dialogue. Am I making sense? Or am I missing something?
 


You're definitely making sense. You seem like you consider the price to be secondary to actually getting the hardware that does just what you want it to, and I think that's a good approach.

A SSD speeds everything up, so I don't think you can go wrong there. I've only used the AJA Kona LHi once in 2010, just enough to realize that it wasn't able to be directly addressed by Windows as a "camera" for Skype video-conferencing. It was considered great, though, for its intended purpose - video capture. At the time, I had a 10k SCSI RAID-1 array for storage, and it was considered fine for storing the video capture.

So, if nothing else, the SSD will allow you to load your captured video faster, store it faster (not drop frames), and generally make life easier for you. Just be careful not to fill it up completely. Most SSDs have issues when they're completely full, so you'll want to ensure you have at least 10-20% free for optimal performance.