Shuttle SB81P Questions

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.shuttle (More info?)

I'm going to build a new PC for my home and had a few questions about
the SB81P. The system will be used for internet access, email,
digital photo (not professionally), light gaming, music, etc. Built a
system earlier this year for my girlfriend using the FT61 mainboard.
It's performed well, so now it's time for me to build one for me! So
far, I like the looks and performance of the Shuttle XPC products, so
that's where I'm headed.......

Don't want a floppy drive in my system, but I do want to boot into DOS
and run 'ghost'. I want to save an image of my drive to a network
share for backup. I would like to use a memory stick, since I have
several for my camera and Clie. Is this doable? I would need the
network drivers and SATA RAID drivers on the stick as well.

Any real advantage of going with 2 SATA drives in a RAID 0 set? Is
there a noticable speed improvement? Speaking of drives, is it better
to partition large drives to seperate OS/Programs from data? It would
make it better for me when I 'ghost' the system because I would just
image the OS partition for backup. Data backup would be done while
the OS is booted........

My current system has dual monitors. I've been using a Matrox G400
Dual Head card. Not sure if I want to dual head the new system, but
if I do, what card should I install? I don't need anything for
extreme graphics. What's compatible with the on board graphics? Or,
should I go with a AGP dual head card?

Now, for the OS. I'm not a big fan of XP. I only run Win2k at home
now. It certianly would be cheaper for me to continue with 2k. Any
issues with going that route?

Thanks in advance for any insight you can offer.

Thad

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.shuttle (More info?)

On 1 Nov 2004 17:19:03 -0800, touchton@despammed.com (Thad Touchton)
wrote:

>I'm going to build a new PC for my home and had a few questions about
>the SB81P. The system will be used for internet access, email,
>digital photo (not professionally), light gaming, music, etc. Built a
>system earlier this year for my girlfriend using the FT61 mainboard.
>It's performed well, so now it's time for me to build one for me! So
>far, I like the looks and performance of the Shuttle XPC products, so
>that's where I'm headed.......
>
>Don't want a floppy drive in my system, but I do want to boot into DOS
>and run 'ghost'. I want to save an image of my drive to a network
>share for backup. I would like to use a memory stick, since I have
>several for my camera and Clie. Is this doable? I would need the
>network drivers and SATA RAID drivers on the stick as well.
>
>Any real advantage of going with 2 SATA drives in a RAID 0 set? Is
>there a noticable speed improvement? Speaking of drives, is it better
>to partition large drives to seperate OS/Programs from data? It would
>make it better for me when I 'ghost' the system because I would just
>image the OS partition for backup. Data backup would be done while
>the OS is booted........

Don't remember if the integrated Card Reader had support for Sony
MS-memorycards -- just check the spec's...

For newer versions of Ghost, ain't a bootable CD used, or the software
have the possibility to make a bootable CD? Been a while since I used
Ghost, but seem to remember that I made a backup of the system drive
without booting to DOS or needing a special disk/CD. Do you have a old
version of Ghost? Getting network-access under DOS with newer products
I will guess could be a problem.

I know that Drive Image, which now also is a Symantec-tool, has a
bootable CD running Windows PE -- a sort of downscaled version of
Windows XP (just for running a special application).

On the RAID 0-issue. Do some reading on "Intel Matrix Storage
Technology", which the SB81 support. With this you can have two
harddrives running a combination of RAID 0 and RAID 1 -- striping and
mirroring. Usualy such config will need four drives, but with Intel
Matrix you can say that e.g. 40 GB of your 2x200 GB setup will be
mirrored on both drives, and you use this for storing documents,
photos and other important stuff. For the rest of the space, 320 GB in
this case (40 GB mirrored = 80 GB used, 400 - 80 = 320) can be set up
as RAID 0 to improve the performance. very smart solution Intel have
in the 9xx-series of chipset in combination with the Intel
ICH6R-southbridge.

>My current system has dual monitors. I've been using a Matrox G400
>Dual Head card. Not sure if I want to dual head the new system, but
>if I do, what card should I install? I don't need anything for
>extreme graphics. What's compatible with the on board graphics? Or,
>should I go with a AGP dual head card?

You can't use a AGP-board here, you will need a PCI
Express-videoboard. E.g. a X300 with possibility for two monitors
should do the trick. If you need better 3D, you should go for
something better than a Radeon X300.

>Now, for the OS. I'm not a big fan of XP. I only run Win2k at home
>now. It certianly would be cheaper for me to continue with 2k. Any
>issues with going that route?

Maybe based on personal opinions sometimes, but I for sure like WinXP
better. For Win2000 Intel recommends disabling HyperThreading also,
and XP is a safer system.

I have to say that my experience with the SB81P is very good. But,
from a basicly "how it looks" POV, the Shuttle G5-cases looks better
than the design on the SB81P.




--
Clas Mehus
--------------------------------------------------
Dataguiden : http://www.pcworld.no/dataguiden/
--------------------------------------------------
"Den som har flest prylar när han dör vinner..."

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.shuttle (More info?)

Clas Mehus <clas.mehus@idg.no> wrote in message news:<js3go09dom1up9udtkmr8202mv26ib4eh2@4ax.com>...

> I have to say that my experience with the SB81P is very good. But,
> from a basicly "how it looks" POV, the Shuttle G5-cases looks better
> than the design on the SB81P.

Clas,

Thanks for the great information. I'll certianly try the combination
RAID 0/1 as you suggested. And, I guess I'll go ahead with WinXP on
this one. I assume I can still run Office 2000. I don't use it
enough to justify the upgrade cost, but I do use Word and Excel from
time to time.

Thanks again.

Thad

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.shuttle (More info?)

I use a bootable 32MB USB drive for booting to ghost. Works great and is
WAY faster to boot up, compared to a real floppy. Get the "HP Drive Key
boot utility", it makes a sweet USB boot disk.

--Dan

"Thad Touchton" <touchton@despammed.com> wrote in message
news:b2e48a49.0411011719.751174f@posting.google.com...
> I'm going to build a new PC for my home and had a few questions about
> the SB81P. The system will be used for internet access, email,
> digital photo (not professionally), light gaming, music, etc. Built a
> system earlier this year for my girlfriend using the FT61 mainboard.
> It's performed well, so now it's time for me to build one for me! So
> far, I like the looks and performance of the Shuttle XPC products, so
> that's where I'm headed.......
>
> Don't want a floppy drive in my system, but I do want to boot into DOS
> and run 'ghost'. I want to save an image of my drive to a network
> share for backup. I would like to use a memory stick, since I have
> several for my camera and Clie. Is this doable? I would need the
> network drivers and SATA RAID drivers on the stick as well.
>
> Any real advantage of going with 2 SATA drives in a RAID 0 set? Is
> there a noticable speed improvement? Speaking of drives, is it better
> to partition large drives to seperate OS/Programs from data? It would
> make it better for me when I 'ghost' the system because I would just
> image the OS partition for backup. Data backup would be done while
> the OS is booted........
>
> My current system has dual monitors. I've been using a Matrox G400
> Dual Head card. Not sure if I want to dual head the new system, but
> if I do, what card should I install? I don't need anything for
> extreme graphics. What's compatible with the on board graphics? Or,
> should I go with a AGP dual head card?
>
> Now, for the OS. I'm not a big fan of XP. I only run Win2k at home
> now. It certianly would be cheaper for me to continue with 2k. Any
> issues with going that route?
>
> Thanks in advance for any insight you can offer.
>
> Thad

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.shuttle (More info?)

Thad Touchton wrote:
> Clas Mehus <clas.mehus@idg.no> wrote in message news:<js3go09dom1up9udtkmr8202mv26ib4eh2@4ax.com>...
>
>
>>I have to say that my experience with the SB81P is very good. But,
>>from a basicly "how it looks" POV, the Shuttle G5-cases looks better
>>than the design on the SB81P.
>
>
> Clas,
>
> Thanks for the great information. I'll certianly try the combination
> RAID 0/1 as you suggested. And, I guess I'll go ahead with WinXP on
> this one. I assume I can still run Office 2000. I don't use it
> enough to justify the upgrade cost, but I do use Word and Excel from
> time to time.

Has anyone here successfully configured the RAID 0 & RAID 1 (Intel
Matrix Storage Technology) on the SB81P? Does this need to be done
before boot, or can it (only) be accomplished from WinXP?

Regards,
Evert

 

[Buzby]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.shuttle (More info?)

On Tue, 09 Nov 2004 17:33:36 GMT, "dg" <dan_gus@hotmail.com> wrote:

>I use a bootable 32MB USB drive for booting to ghost. Works great and is
>WAY faster to boot up, compared to a real floppy. Get the "HP Drive Key
>boot utility", it makes a sweet USB boot disk.
>
>--Dan
>
You got a direct link to that please as a google search brings up
different versiosn ranging from 300k to 32mb!

Cheers Shelton.