Need Help with a Super Computer

dariushou · Dec 15, 2002

Below are the components in my new system followed by my intended setup and questions. Any advice and suggestions on the setup will be greatly appreciated. The system is a bit complicated and should be quite challenging to configure. It seems a bit long, but it is in outline format. Thanks ahead of time.

Core:

Motherboard: Asus P4T533
CPU: Pentium 4 3.06GHZ
RAM: 1GB RIMM4200 ( PC1066 232 pin )

Hard Drives:

(4) Fujitsu 18.4GB 15K RPM ULTRA160 SCSI (MAM3184MP)(68 Pin)
(1) IBM Ultra2 9.1GB 9LZX Ultra2 SCSI (may go in my sons computer)
(1) Seagate Cheetah 9.1GB Ultra160 SCSI (ST39205LC) (80 Pin)
(1) Fujitsu 9.1GB Ultra160 SCSI (MAH3091MC) (80 Pin)
(1) Maxtor ATA Ultra 133 160GB IDE

AGP Card:

(1) Gainward Geforce4 Ti4600 Powerpack

PCI Cards:

(1) 3400s Adaptec Scsi 4 channel Ultra160 SCSI Raid Card
(1) 39160 Adaptec Ultra160 SCSI Card (2 independent Ultra160
Channels and 1 50 pin) (do I need this?? I need the 50 pin, but I can convert it to a 68 pin device and hook up to one of the separate channels on the 3400s—more of this later). Also, I may be putting one of my Fujitsu 18.4GB 15K RPM ULTRA160 SCSI (MAM3184MP)(68 Pin) Hard Drives on this.

(1) Soundblaster Audigy2 Platnium Card
(1) Dazzle Digital Video Creator 2
(1) Hauppauge Win TV-D
(1) Maxtor ATA 133 PCI Card or Creative Labs DXR3 “dvd-decoder” (may need these—may not—more on this later).

50 PIN SCSI Devices

(1) Creative DVD-RAM
(1) Onstream 30GB Tape Drive
(1) Iomega JAZ 2GB
(1) Iomega 100MB Zip Drive

IDE Drives:

(1) Plextor 48/24/48A CD-RW/R (ATA 33)
(1) Pioneer DVD 106s/2 (ATA 66)
(1) Sony DVD+-DRU500A (ATA 33)
(1) Kenwood 72x Cd-rom (ATA 33)(I have this drive, but may not include it--see below on the discussion about IDE setup).

Other Relevant Stuff:

Roughly 20 Fans and 8 Hard Drive Coolers (Sounds like a jet engine—ok for me)
Windows XP Professional

Here are the questions regarding setup for optimal performance:

(1) First, Scsi Hard Drive Placement:
This is what I have come up with:
-On the 3400s I will have two Raid Arrays:

1. 3 of the Fujitsu 18.4GB 15K RPM ULTRA160 SCSI Drives on RAID 0. Two on two of the four channels on RAID 0. (I’ll be backing up with the 160GB Maxtor so don’t need any protection.

2. Another RAID 0 configuration consisting of the Fujitsu 9.1GB Ultra160
SCSI Drive and the Seagate Cheetah 9.1GB Ultra160 SCSI Drive.
The Questions Regarding this:

1. I’ve talked with Adaptec and they see no problems with having an array over
Multiple channels and it will not cause a performance decrease. I just don’t want any bottleneck, which may be a problem with 4 of the Fujitsu 15K drives on just two channels. Does anyone see a problem with this or have any input?

2. I know you should always have the exact same drives in a Raid Array, but does
Anyone see a problem with the 2nd array I’m doing, since they are different brands—but they are the same size?

3. As will be seen in a moment, I plan on putting my last Fujitsu 18.4GB 15K RPM
ULTRA160 SCSI Drive on the Adaptec 39160 Drive and boot Windows XP Pro
From there. This brings me to one of the most important questions. I have read
many posts and I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s best to separate the operating
system and applications (more of this later) on its own hard drive. I do not
understand this. What is the benefit of having raid (for performance) if the
operating system and applications and saved files are not on the RAID Array??? It would seem to me that I should put all 4 of the Fujitsu 15K Ultra160 Drives in an array and
boot the operating system and applications from that?? If there is a reason for this
please let me know and also what gets stored on the RAID Array for a performance
increase if the OS and Apps are not on the Array?? Please, any input on this
would be greatly appreciated!!!!

4. What about Stripe Sizes? What is the Optimal level? 90% of my files will be
Under 10MB and most of that will be under 5MB. I’ve read that it’s best to have
A 64k stripe size is best for overall performance. Is this right?

-On the Adaptec 39160 this is what I plan. This takes into account that I will boot
the OS and Apps from here (see question 3 right above).
1. On Channel A I will have the Fujitsu 18.4GB 15K RPM ULTRA160 SCSI
Drive if this is the best thing for performance to do. If I do this how do I set it up concerning partitions? I’ve heard it’s best to have one partition for the OS and another for apps(concerning apps I have heard it’s best to have an additional one for games) and another for a Swap/Page file. Also, is it best to do without the swap/page file since I will have over 1GB of ram. This is the 2nd most important question!!
2. On Channel B I will have the IBM 9LZX and on the 50 pin connector I
Will have all the Ultra SCSI Drives. No question here—straight forward. That is if I decide to keep the 9LZX on this computer—probably will not and will just get an adapter to connect the 50 pin scsi devices to the 3400s—any ideas or comments?

(2) Hard Drive and DVD/Cd IDE Drive Placement:
--I’m really lost here. Where should I put the 5 IDE Devices (4 DVD/CD drives and
the hard Drive)? The hard drive is ATA 133 and the Plextor, sony and kenwood(may not put in the system) drive are ATA 33 and the Pioneer 106s/2 is ATA 66.
--On the motherboard I have two ATA 100 connectors and two ATA 133 Raid
Connectors. On the Maxtor PCI card(may not include—see below) I have 2 ATA 133 Connectors.
(1) How should I set this up? Can I put any of the DVD/CD drives on the
Maxtor PCI Card or on the raid connectors on the motherboard? Can the
Hard Drives be put on the Raid Connectors on the motherboard without a
Raid Array?? Finally, will having say an ATA 66 and ATA 33 on the same channel decrease performance of the ATA 66 Drive?? I’m a bit lost here and need help.

What about the 6th PCI device? Should I go with the Maxtor ATA 133 PCI card or the DXR3?
1) DXR3
This device will allow me to have two more sound outputs. I have the new POWER DVD Player, but is it better than the hardware decoder of DXR3.
2) MAXTOR ATA 133 Card
Will I use this? From what I think I know, I can only hook up hard drives to the raid on the board, which means I have 4 regular IDE devices(upon the two connectors) which I can hook up. This is not a problem since I am only left with four after the hard drive is on the raid. But, on the ide channels on the motherboard I will have a CD-RW, CD-Rom, DVD-ROM, and a DVD-+R/RW. However, is the IDE connectors on the MAXTOR PCI Card able to recognize non-hardrives—any conflicts.
3) Do I need either of these cards.
Final Questions:

(1) The server case I have is double sided and has two 400W power Supplies, but I
Believe I will need more. I would like to note that having two 400Watt PS is not like having one 800 Watt PS. I would like to get two 550+ Redundant power supplies, but I’m having trouble finding one. Any suggestions regarding this???

Any more info or advice about anything would be greatly appreciated. Thank You for the help.

mbetea · Dec 15, 2002

all that scsi on winXP, what a shame.

wtf? i'm uberl33t mang. i've got dual cpus, 6 scsi drives in raid0 and 2gb of ram for my UT2003 machine. so i'm a hax0r.

dariushou · Dec 15, 2002

do what mbetea?

How about my system?

I need input

halkebul · Dec 15, 2002

Hello. If you want an impressive system, here's a <A HREF="http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=528230#528230" target="_new">link</A>. Just add a graphics card to it - ATI 9700 Pro.

It's your world kid!!!Edited by halkebul on 12/15/02 03:46 AM.

lhgpoobaa · Dec 15, 2002

Oh My God
Can i have some of your money???

The only suggestions i have are ditch the plextor and pioneer dvd & burner.
Better can be had from liteon.
I would also add you can save a few dollars by getting liteon too... but its kinda silly to say that given the sot of your whole rig isnt it?

[Rik_] I wonder how many people have made their own phasechange system?
[LHGPooBaa] I get phasechange whenever i eat a hot chillie :lol:

dariushou · Dec 15, 2002

already have the components so i can't ditch anything. Setting it up this next weedkend. I love plextor. I have never had any problems with them Just wish they would make an updated scsi drive. the dvd burner (sony) is the best. It burns both + and - and it works great.

vk2amv · Dec 15, 2002

My suggestions are. Ditch the plextor cd-rw and get a lite-on. Lite-on`s are a faster drive and better quality. Also ditch the GF4 ti4600 and get a ATI Radeon 9700Pro. Also I want some of your money as you seem to be loaded.

AREA_51

vk2amv · Dec 15, 2002

Well if youy cant ditch anything WHY DID YOU ASK OUR ADVICE? That seems to just be showing off and makes all of us feel bad. Next time you post on here dont bother skyting and think of other peoples feelings first.
AREA_51

lhgpoobaa · Dec 15, 2002

awww *HUGS*
hope you feel betta... but you do have a point.

[Rik_] I wonder how many people have made their own phasechange system?
[LHGPooBaa] I get phasechange whenever i eat a hot chillie :lol:

mbetea · Dec 15, 2002

what about your system?

wtf? i'm uberl33t mang. i've got dual cpus, 6 scsi drives in raid0 and 2gb of ram for my UT2003 machine. so i'm a hax0r.

dariushou · Dec 15, 2002

I'm not showing off. I just need help putting this thing together. I have already bought the components so i can't go out and change them. I currently have a Pentium III 750 in my computer in here now. When i upgrade it's too last. I apologize if i came on as arragant, but i do need help in putting this monster together.

Scotty35 · Dec 15, 2002

Hi,
I will have a go at it and try and explain what I know about it.

For a start you are better off using thw 9.1 U160's for boot/operating system, and have the two raid arrays as per size of remaining disks. i.e. (4) Fujitsu 18.4GB 15K RPM ULTRA160 SCSI (MAM3184MP)(68 Pin) in one raid set possibly raid 0+1 or just 0 or 1, and the other 2* 9.1gb drives in onother raid set/channel as raid 0 or put it on the 31960 and have the 3 9.1gb drives there as boot and program drives. Another way is to forget about the 39160 card and have the 3* 9.1gb drives on the other raid channel.
ok, eplaining this as I see it.

This is my opinion, have the operating system on one 9.1gb drive as once you update it ect you will be using half of it already and some things cannot be saved in other directories. Next is to have all your programs setup on the other two 9.1gb drives either in raid setup or on the 39160. I usually setup my operating systems and programs on separate partitions incase i need to re-install my operating system again, this allows me to have all my programs setup untouched by a re-install on another drive or partition on the drive.
I would setup your 3 9.1gb drives on raid 0, use one for o/s and the rest for your programs.

Ok, I can hear you saying why not put all that on the 18.3's, yes you can, but I was thinking maybe since you obviously deal in video files and edit them prolly best to store retrieve them from the 18.3gb*4 hdd's perhaps in raid 0+1 array effectivly giving you security and speed however the total drive capacity will be 36gb or set it up as raid 0 for speed, mass storage and backups/images can be stored on the IDE 160GB drive.

I think removing the 39160 card from the equation will help you/us/me figure out the best way of configuring this beast.

At this point I have confused myself and will take a coffee break. lol

<A HREF="http://www.btvillarin.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=326" target="_new"> My networked systems</A>

mbetea · Dec 15, 2002

well then. take the sticks of ram, put them in the ram slots. take the cpu and put it in the cpu socket. hookup the hs+f. put the mobo in the case. here's the tricky part:

you're going to want to take each pci card and stick one in each pci slot. BUT, here's the catch, the graphics card has to go into the agp slot (the brown one above the previously mentioned pci slots). assuming you already have your drives in the case we can skip past that part. next you're going to want to hookup the drive cables to their respected ports. now run your power cables to all your drives and the mobo from the psu(s). then hook up all your case leds to the header on the mobo. now close the case. that's it for me, i'm not 100% sure on hooking up monitors, keyboards, mice, etc. so hopefully someone else can chime in and we'll get this thing up and running.

ps. are you the guy i sold ocean-front property in iowa to?

wtf? i'm uberl33t mang. i've got dual cpus, 6 scsi drives in raid0 and 2gb of ram for my UT2003 machine. so i'm a hax0r.

lhgpoobaa · Dec 15, 2002

really? Can i have one?

[Rik_] I wonder how many people have made their own phasechange system?
[LHGPooBaa] I get phasechange whenever i eat a hot chillie :lol:

vk2amv · Dec 15, 2002

It didnt really make me feel bad. I was just trying to get a point across to the other guy. I find it hard to believe though that someone that bought so much performance hardware doesnt know how to put it together.

AREA_51

lhgpoobaa · Dec 15, 2002

yeah... allmost obscene the amount of specialised hardware he has. He should give some to us poor technogeeks!

[Rik_] I wonder how many people have made their own phasechange system?
[LHGPooBaa] I get phasechange whenever i eat a hot chillie :lol:

Stiffler · Dec 15, 2002

Yeah my thoughts exactly... it seems almost impossible to me that someone could know that much only in theory ?

Tim

Its winter now... So how come my CPU temp is still 55C

dhlucke · Dec 15, 2002

I'm sorry that some are being a jackass and attacking you for no reason. I can't really answer your questions, but I can apologize for them being rude. That's one hell of an uber rig though so I suppose they're jealous.

As far as finding a powersupply, try <A HREF="http://www.pcpowerandcooling.com" target="_new">http://www.pcpowerandcooling.com</A> or <A HREF="http://www.newegg.com" target="_new">http://www.newegg.com</A>

This article about raid is pretty good, but I'm not sure if you can apply it to your case. It's been a while since I read it. <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.html?i=1491" target="_new">http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.html?i=1491</A>


<A HREF="http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/ApJ/" target="_new">Forum Assassin</A>

dariushou · Dec 15, 2002

Stiffler i've put together a few systems, but have never played around with RAID and want to get it right.

I'm leaning towards dropping the 39160 scsi card and hooking up my scsi devices as follows. Let me know how this sounds.

The 4 fujitsu Ultra160 SCSI drives in a RAID 0 Array over two channels with a 64K stripe size. Partioning it as follows with partition magic.
Partition 1 OS
Partition 2 Apps
Partition 3 Utilities
Partition 4 Games
Partition 5 Saved files/data files
NO SWAP File

The other two Ultra160 drives will also be setup in a RAID 0 congiguration on one channel.

The 50 pin scsi devices through an adapter will be hooked up to the last channel on the card.

Not being an expert in any calibur on RAID or Partioning, is this the best way for performance to hook up the hard drives. Or should i incorportate the other SCSI Card. Please let me know what yall think.

jihiggs · Dec 15, 2002

you can configure the partitions any way you want, it seems you have that all taken care of. i wouldnt recomend using the gray ribon cables for all those drives. get the high speed 68 pin braided cables. i may have some i could sell you if you cant find any for a reasonable price. i doubt you could find some for less than 20 bucks each. imho that many scsi drives for storage is a bad idea and quite frankly foolish. i thought you were going to be using them for video capturing. for that purpose you will still want more space. scsi wont give you too much bennefit unless you are serving files to many clients. they are not faster than ide drives striped. if you stripe all your data on 4 drives you are just increasing your chance of data loss by 4 times. i didnt really read all you said, but i saw that you were talking about using 50 to 68 pin adaptors. you take a performance hit with those things. as for a power supply, i would recomend an enermax or antec 550. im with you 100% on the plextor drives. dont get me wrong, lite on makes very decent drives, but they dont hold a candle to the reputation and reliability of plextor drives. i wish they didnt stop making scsi drives, i have their scsi 40x reader but i had to have faster than 12x write so i had to go with an ide.

my computer is so fast, it completes an endless loop in less than 4 seconds!

dariushou · Dec 15, 2002

Thanks for the offer jihiggs. I have the cables you mentioned though. I will be using the scsi drive for video editing, rendering, and capturing among other things. I do have the 550 Watt enermax power supply, which i'm sure i'm going to utilize every watt. Had a redundant power supply (one 400 and one 350), but they don't make them much bigger so i'm sitting on those. As far as the 50 to 68 pin adapter, that will be on its on independent scsi channel with only 50 pin devices. However, i know will probably use the 39160 scsi card.

Here is my new SCSI device set up. Let me know what yall think.

Adaptec 3400s SCSI RAID card with 4 independent Ultra160 channels:

RAID 0 Array with one Fujitsu Ultra160 Hard Drive over 3 of the channels. Partioned with the swap file and apps.

RAID 0 Array on the last channel with the other 2 non-fujitsu Ultra160 Drives

Adaptec 39160 SCSI Card with two independent Ultra160 Channels and one 50 pin connector.

Channel one will have my 4th Ultra160 Fujitsu Hard drive with the operating system.
The 50 pin connector will have the 50 pin scsi devices.

I'm reconfiguring it this way, because of the bottleneck that will occur if i have all 4 of the Fujitsu Drives on the 3400s in a RAID 0 Array. These drives have a data transfer rate of 68-86 MB/sec and the PCI bus is 132 MB/sec so the fourth drive will not add any performance increase just a larger size array.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated

Stiffler · Dec 15, 2002

Well I am sorry it just seemed strange to me that someone with no experiance of RAID would dive head first into it quite as much as you planned. I never doubted what you said just thought it unusual. And as jihiggs said your choice does seem a little extravert for most requirements !

What do you plan to do with it ?

and I have a Lite on drive and although there is nothing bad I can say about it, the only reason I bought it was because I couldn't afford anything else at the time (I am a poor Student) and if I could have I would have bought a Plextor

Tim

Its winter now... So how come my CPU temp is still 55C

dariushou · Dec 16, 2002

I'll be using it for video capturing, editing, and rendering. Also, for ripping cd's and DVD's. Also, i do a lot of business over ebay and it's not uncommon for me to have over 10 programs running at the same time. In otherwords a lot of multitasking. And of course the usual office programs and games.

mbetea · Dec 16, 2002

how does ebay eat up drive space? but i have been reading a lot of people are switching to raid arrays for browsing ebay.

i hope what you capture doesn't have too much value to it or you're capping small video (320x280) for the web. you're swamping your pci bus with all that scsi, so i wouldn't be surprised if you run into problems with dropped frames/corrupted files. the only thing that you would need all that scsi for is if you're running a toaster2 setup (which i didn't see it listed so i'm assuming you're not).

to rip what cds and dvds? ones you created?

wtf? i'm uberl33t mang. i've got dual cpus, 6 scsi drives in raid0 and 2gb of ram for my UT2003 machine. so i'm a hax0r. f342 m3!

the_Prisoner · Dec 16, 2002

So you say you have bought everything allready?
Could you return somethings?

If you can I would do this if you are doing video capture.

Dual CPUs and mobo
Radeon 9700 Pro
A poster above said that SCSI drives will not help much for video capture. He is right. You would be better getting more of the Maxtor 160gb drives. For analog video capture, you needs lots of hard drive space.

Ram 2GB
Pinnacle Editing card or an AVID
Happauge or Pinnalce TV Tuner card with PVR
Kenwood cd-rom you don't need it.

the Prisoner

PS:I just thought of something: Build two computers and network them together and that reduce the complications of trying to get everything to run together.

I'm not a number, I'm a free man!

Edited by the_Prisoner on 12/15/02 07:35 PM.

Need Help with a Super Computer

Distinguished

Distinguished

Distinguished

Distinguished

Illustrious

Distinguished

Distinguished

Distinguished

Illustrious

Distinguished

Distinguished

Distinguished

Distinguished

Illustrious

Distinguished

Illustrious

Distinguished

Polypheme

Distinguished

Splendid

Distinguished

Distinguished

Distinguished

Distinguished

Distinguished

Share this page