diy computer build??

Harm Millaard · July 11th, 2009, 08:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kevin Duffey

Nice Harm. 1000watt for 17 drives + cpus and video? How do you have enough connectors for all them.. OR did I see that image earlier and you have an external drive bay with most of your HDs thru eSata into your computer?

So I want to make sure I got this right.. eSata is around 100 to 150mbs or so.. yet your getting 800mbs? How are you getting that speed? Sorry.. your first image you posted it looked like you had a rack of HDs and not one computer with HDs in it. It may be the angle or something, but it looked like a full rack of hardware, and not a rack computer.

I am guessing you do something in the hardware/software field since you have this kind of gear. You do realize that most editors have a dual cpu quad core with a couple HDs or even less to work with lol. You have a serious setup that no doubt kicks arse.

A couple of power splitters works wonders. It is all internal in a Lian Li PC-A77 B case. The first image was taken with the left side panel off towards the front, showing around 12 of the 14 disks in the front side of the case. The other 3 disks are above the mobo at the back side of the case, hardly discernible in the second image. All you really see in that second image are some red SATA cables in the top of the picture.

I still have 5 eSATA connectors free, 1 from the mobo and 4 from the Areca controller.

I do have a couple of externals, 1 FW400 disk, and a couple of USB externals. Those externals are mostly used to transfer footage from SxS (or MxR) cards through my notebook to the external drives and later transferred to my media drive.

That media drive is so fast because it consists of 12 disks, configured as two raid3 arrays of 6 disks each that are striped to a raid30, giving 10 TB net space. It is aided by 2 GB cache memory on the controller.

Near the end of the PC Buying Guide there is a link to a screenshot of my complete configuration listing all components, drive setup, benchmark results and temperatures.

In post #4 here http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/attend-wo...tem-build.html you can also see it.

Harm Millaard · July 12th, 2009, 08:34 AM

Kevin,

I have to disappoint you, I don't work in the IT sector, far from it, I'm a Human Resource Consultant. However, I do have a basic understanding of some hardware/software related things relevant for NLE in general and CS4 in particular. It is purely a hobby for me, but I also have to admit that my son sometimes helps me when things get too complicated for me. He is an IT professional (MCSE, MSSA, CCSE, and a whole lot of other certifications) who specializes in network and infrastructure design and roll out of extensive networks in large companies, like major telecom organizations.

Sometimes I feel we are guinea pigs, when he wants to experiment with different VMWare servers on our home network (LAN and WAN). But he keeps it working great, with daily backups over VPN, distributed Exchange servers, fall back configurations fully implemented, self managed DNS records and DHCP configuration and the like. It is only when he starts talking about some of the client configurations he encounters, that I realize with our setup, we are nothing more than mere hobbyists.

Zsolt Gordos · July 12th, 2009, 08:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kevin Duffey

Can you get OSX to run on any PC now? I heard it could be done.. just haven't tried. I got a coworker that got OSX to work inside a virtual machine as a guest OS.. but it's not 100% solid last I checked.

Hi Kevin, what I am saying is not a virtual machine, it is OSX running on a real PC hardware. It is ROCK solid. Plus with the MOBO I have overclocking Quad processor up to 4Ghz also not a big deal. To be on the very safe side I just OC-d it up to 3.5Ghz.

Anyways, the usual problem with the Hackintosh configs is the steep learning curve if you want to do it all from BIOS tweaking. This is where Efi-x comes into play. It is a cute little piece of hardware and it acts as a booting agent. You have to connect it to the MOBO via internal USB port.
If you follow the instructions, installing and running OSX is a child play. I am not at all an IT guy or any sort of hacker enthusiast. If I could do it, anyone can.

The only thing you have to look at is the hardware compatibility - fortunately you can choose from a lot of supported parts (MOBO-s, graphoc cards, CPU-s). And the list of supported hardware is growing by the day.

Now I have a pretty powerful system for both OSX and Vista, and it is a matter of a new hard disk to have Linux, too.
And the price I paid is less than 1/3 of a similar MacPro...

Zsolt Gordos · July 12th, 2009, 08:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by David Merrill

Thanks for the idea but all my apps are Windows. My son is a graphics guy and hates PC's. Maybe "hate" is the wrong word. He has a very condescending attitude towards them.

David, I may not fully understand what you mean by this. If your son, a graphic guy hates PC-s (which is perfectly normal..:P) why do you have all your apps under Windows?

Anyways, if you follow my suggestion, you would have a PC AND a Mac same time in the same machine, how cool is that? You never know...maybe one day you will develop some crave for Final Cut Studio... :)

Having both FCS and CS4 I wont be surprised.

David Merrill · July 12th, 2009, 10:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zsolt Gordos

David, I may not fully understand what you mean by this. If your son, a graphic guy hates PC-s (which is perfectly normal..:P) why do you have all your apps under Windows?

Anyways, if you follow my suggestion, you would have a PC AND a Mac same time in the same machine, how cool is that? You never know...maybe one day you will develop some crave for Final Cut Studio... :)

Having both FCS and CS4 I wont be surprised.

Mostly it's my music apps. I have more money wrapped up in music software than any place else and it's all windows stuff and even the Intel Mac won't handle half of it. On the music forum I belong to the Mac guys were always pissed off that the developers weren't handling the bugs in the "Wrapper" (whatever that is). Anyway, I don't mind PC's. I just need a faster one. I have a dual core E6550, 3 gigs ram, and it handles all my apps and SD video fine. But it won't handle HD to my satisfaction.

P.S. After years of messing around with Premiere and AE I'm familiar with them. I don't want to have to learn FCP too.

P.S. #2 If I was a professional video guy I would probably go Mac. I think of them like a BMW. High quality parts, reliable, but pricey.
I'm retired and do this for pleasure.

July 12th, 2009, 08:34 AM	#32
Harm Millaard Trustee Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Rotterdam, Netherlands Posts: 1,832	Kevin, I have to disappoint you, I don't work in the IT sector, far from it, I'm a Human Resource Consultant. However, I do have a basic understanding of some hardware/software related things relevant for NLE in general and CS4 in particular. It is purely a hobby for me, but I also have to admit that my son sometimes helps me when things get too complicated for me. He is an IT professional (MCSE, MSSA, CCSE, and a whole lot of other certifications) who specializes in network and infrastructure design and roll out of extensive networks in large companies, like major telecom organizations. Sometimes I feel we are guinea pigs, when he wants to experiment with different VMWare servers on our home network (LAN and WAN). But he keeps it working great, with daily backups over VPN, distributed Exchange servers, fall back configurations fully implemented, self managed DNS records and DHCP configuration and the like. It is only when he starts talking about some of the client configurations he encounters, that I realize with our setup, we are nothing more than mere hobbyists.