I'm mildly conflicted

Listen up gang!

So well then, the other night I was thinking about my puter case rebuild and the next time that I end up rebuilding it again, I will have to use a bigger case, as my case is just a repurposed Dell Dimension 4550 case into something WAY cooler. I'm currently halfway through with it.

But I was thinking about this, and my case has five card slots, so it's one more than a microATX motherboard and two less from a standard ATX motherboard. This sucks as the graphics card I will be using will be covering up a slot, by which I will have to extend out, and split to hold the cards I will need. The other issue I have with this is that the only compatible motherboard for this setup has two PCI-E x1 slots, and two PCI-E x16 2.0 slots. I have at least six add on cards I need, which will end up taking seven card slots. My current case cannot be retrofitted for a standard ATX motherboard. Then here is where the thinking came in.

Part of the reason why I'm rebuilding my compulator tower gizmo is, well, so I can play Grand Theft Automobile 5 when it comes out probably next October, as I knew right off the bat when I heard about it a year ago I knew I will need new parts. Part of the reason why I waited for a while to rebuild is that I was waiting for the newer AMD hardware to come out, and have some prices drop. I figured that by early next year, I'd have a completed case and just assemble the parts together and finish the wiring work. But, seeing as GTA 5 won't be on PC until well after it's spring 2013 release, I have time. The other reason why I'm rebuilding is for an absurd amount of RAID storage.

Now, I was researching cases. Now, you might be suggesting, "Just buy a new case!" I hate new cases. I hate how they are, hate how they look, and hate how they're some weird foreign looking thing that pasty unhygienic Linux nerds use. They're all just big black boxes with side access panels that have been a HHHHHHUUUUGGGGGEEEEEEEEE pain in my groin to work with. Never had a good experience with one. So the case I'd MUCH rather have is the Dell XPS 600, the last of its kind, a hinged clamshell case. I've had my old Dell case for almost a decade now and I've loved it, it hinged open nicely and it's so simple to just slide in a hard drive. The case is like from 2002, which was pretty ahead of its time I think and very well built.

This is why I'm kind of conflicted. The XPS case I've found is like 150 dollars at the lowest, and would require work to retrofit it and redesign it like I designed my current one. I'm halfway through rebuilding my current one, and I'd hate to drop it after ALL this time. But, there is the fact that with the XPS case, I can have two AMD graphics cards in CrossFire and enough space for my add on cards, as well as my PCI-E based SSD. I'd also have enough space to probably get a couple of hot swap hard drive caddies and build it into the case, from top to all the way to the bottom, and still have space for a couple of 2.5" hard drive bays, and wouldn't have to be concerned about the graphics card(s) being SMASHED by the hard drive bays. The concern I have is that I'd have to retrofit the case to hold a modular, ATX PSU, as the XPS 600 has this weird PSU. But I don't know if it can fit with a standard ATX case, as I've never physically seen one. Then again, I can easily put in a bottom 120MM fan as well as a 120MM water cooling radiator.

Bleh, meh, UGH. I think I've talked myself into doing this....

Coke Robot said:

Part of the reason why I waited for a while to rebuild is that I was waiting for the newer AMD hardware to come out,

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Settling for less on purpose, or just hoping that the AMD hardware actually gets more competitive by waiting?

Coke Robot said:

The other reason why I'm rebuilding is for an absurd amount of RAID storage.

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Any particular reason that you want RAID versus something like Storage Spaces...which are far more flexible.

Coke Robot said:

I've had my old Dell case for almost a decade now and I've loved it, it hinged open nicely and it's so simple to just slide in a hard drive. The case is like from 2002, which was pretty ahead of its time I think and very well built.

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I used to have a Dell 4550 and an 8400...and both had the same style case. It was ok, but for working on parts and really having an expandable system those cases aren't all that awesome. For budget cases I've used the Antec 300 for 4 different systems. My primary system is an Antec P182

I waited for new AMD hardware because I didn't want to build a new system, only to have better, more efficient, and less expensive hardware to come out in a few months. Actually, I looked into the FX-8530 just now, and that's more the AMD i7 equivalent. The A10 is nice and I like it, I came to the conclusion I just need more graphical power, and the APU wouldn't do great for my purposes; although it definitely could float my boat. I'm liking the FX, as it's more cost effective over an i7, as most reviews are putting the FX as usually in the top five or top three processors, which of course are all i7 or a couple of i5s. Shoot, I read a review and it compared the FX-8530 to a six core i7 that costs over 1,000 dollars! And it actually held its ground, then there is the overclocking potential....along with real impressive multi-thread performance...

The reason I'm kind of gunning for RAID (RAID 10) is mostly for both redundancy of RAID and the performance of RAID 0. Defrags would be quicker, virus checks are quicker, VMs will most likely be quicker. Storage Spaces sounds interesting though, but I'm on the fence so to speak.

Yeah, Dell has a reputation, at least to me, of being the PC equivalent of apple. Only Dell hardware shall work with Dell PCs. I had the original motherboard crap out on me and I had to replace it with another Dell board. Then I rebuilt it and no remnants of Dell remained, expect for the side panels that had the logo on them. In my current, probably defunct rebuild, that's now gone as I've designed these side scoops that swoop into the case a bit to make it look legit, and I'll be branding it as an ASUS 309.

But that Dell XPS 600 case seems like it'd be less cosmetic work and be more proper for my hard drives with the design I have....

Just remember with raid 10, that you lose 50% of your usable disc space. So, if you want 4tb of raid 10, you have to buy a minimum of 4 physical hard drives and they have to be 2gb each. So, you buy a grand total of 8tb to get 4 usable.

Also, keep in mind network performance in relation to disk speeds. For example, I do a lot of my file access across my network. Gigabit speeds max out around 80mb per sec...all things considered. So it's irrelevant in this case of my hard drives can do 400mb per sec.
On my file server, I don't delete much..So defrag are far less necessary. And real time virus scanning covers me, I don't run manual full scans hardly at all.

I use raid arrays a ton at work and in the data center, but for home use I find them more or less impractical. Certainly not cost effective. I would really consider usage, before climbing onboard assuming the performance benefits will really pay off.

I also like to reuse older Dell cases, but there are some new cases that are very nice for a reasonable $. I prefer the CoolerMaster and ThermalTake cases and I have a recently purchased DiabloTek ABYSS case that I DO NOT recommend. I have a local PC shop and they carry nice, inexpensive cases and I like to see what I'm buying beforehand. The old Dell cases tend to get brittle wuth age (like plastic tends to do), so after awhile I replace the old cases, but I have used them for up to 12 years! Look around on Google, you'll find something that meets your requirements.

Coke, some Dell cases that are BTX not AT, you can't fit a n ATX or micro-ATX in thoses cases

from memory the XPS 600 is ATX

I've read that the XPS 600 is a BTX, which by the way, never knew existed. If it is a BTX case, as long as a modular power supply can fit above the motherboard and the case can hold that along with a standard ATX motherboard; that's fine with me. I'll be doing the modifying and the retrofitting to get everything to fit well.

pparks1 said:

Just remember with raid 10, that you lose 50% of your usable disc space. So, if you want 4tb of raid 10, you have to buy a minimum of 4 physical hard drives and they have to be 2gb each. So, you buy a grand total of 8tb to get 4 usable.

Also, keep in mind network performance in relation to disk speeds. For example, I do a lot of my file access across my network. Gigabit speeds max out around 80mb per sec...all things considered. So it's irrelevant in this case of my hard drives can do 400mb per sec.
On my file server, I don't delete much..So defrag are far less necessary. And real time virus scanning covers me, I don't run manual full scans hardly at all.

I use raid arrays a ton at work and in the data center, but for home use I find them more or less impractical. Certainly not cost effective. I would really consider usage, before climbing onboard assuming the performance benefits will really pay off.

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Hmmmm......interesting.

My plan is to have lots of storage for dvd ripping to .iso and amassing an ungodly amount of digital content to the point I can become a small internet.

I was planning for RAID 10 as I can have the increased hard drive speeds, as well as good amounts of storage. If a hard drive dies (GOD forbidding a mirrored pair dies) I can just replace that drive and not quietly weep. But then again, Storage Spaces sounds nice as it's sounds like a RAID 1 backup of sorts. I'll need to continue researching this, and gathering thoughts from people like you for input.

Coke Robot said:

My plan is to have lots of storage for dvd ripping to .iso and amassing an ungodly amount of digital content to the point I can become a small internet.

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Well, ok. I'm not sure why this would be your goal, but if it is, so be it. Remember, even with RAID you should have backups of your data. If somebody breaks into your home and steals your computer....all of the RAID in the world won't give you your data back. Same thing if your house floods or burns to the ground.

Considering a DVD rip to ISO takes like 4GB of space or so...you can fit 400-500 movies onto 1 single 2TB hard drive. I know some people like to have huge collections of stuff. I'm just not that type of a person. I have some...but not tons.

An Atx motherboard don't fit in an Atx case, the PCie slot are at the other side of the board ( at right from the front, and the CPU is at left ( from the front of the board) From what I can see the XPS as a special atx ( not btx ) board, the mounting screw are not at same place as a atx board, so another motherboard will not fit in the case unless you make serious mod

XPS 600 board




look at a btx , everything is flip

Huh. I do plan on doing some serious modding, as I'm liking the case more and more. Modding's my thing.

Yeah, I was looking this up and it does seem the XPS has a special ATX motherboard in it, which is mildly annoying. But oh well. Speaking of serious modding, I'm looking at some case internal designs on the newegg.com and I came across a case that can house a mini-ITX and standard ATX motherboards in tandem and it made me remind myself of an idea I had two years ago when I was remodding my current Dell Dimension case: putting an Xbox 360's internals into the case. :shock:

Seeing as the XPS 600 is a larger case than mine, it actually seems possible.... That way, I can have good cooling and won't have to have a separate console and can just have it within my PC case. Nice and clean and minimalist. Much like the Windows 8!

Coke Robot said:

.....I came across a case that can house a mini-ITX and standard ATX motherboards in tandem and it made me remind myself of an idea I had two years ago when

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My case listed in my spec ( Mozart TX ) as a AtX in one side and a mini-itx on the other side, the mini-itx is powered by a Thermaltake PSU that fit in a 5¼ bay.

Thermaltake Mozart TX

pparks1 said:

Coke Robot said:

My plan is to have lots of storage for dvd ripping to .iso and amassing an ungodly amount of digital content to the point I can become a small internet.

Click to expand...

Well, ok. I'm not sure why this would be your goal, but if it is, so be it. Remember, even with RAID you should have backups of your data. If somebody breaks into your home and steals your computer....all of the RAID in the world won't give you your data back. Same thing if your house floods or burns to the ground.

Considering a DVD rip to ISO takes like 4GB of space or so...you can fit 400-500 movies onto 1 single 2TB hard drive. I know some people like to have huge collections of stuff. I'm just not that type of a person. I have some...but not tons.

Click to expand...

Actually, most DVD movies are dual layered DVDs. If you're watching a movie and halfway through there is a scene that just kind of stops for a couple of seconds, that's the laser reading onto the second layer. So in actuality, it's about 8.3 or so gigs. This is just standard DVDs, this isn't even Blu-ray which is like over 20 gigs.

I plan of having TONS. I'm a bit of a digital whore and prefer copying DVDs and having digital copies over the disks themselves. It's like having books, once you read a book, that's pretty much it for that book and it'll be on a bookshelf for a long time. Unless if it's a really good book, then you might read it again. I know people that have genuine boxes of DVD movies they've collected over the years, as well as DVD shelves all over their living room. It's too much clutter for my taste.

And of course, I will be backing up my personal, cannot-live-without data onto a separate hard drive. I'll be making a backup of a 240 gig or so SSD onto the RAID array as well as onto the external hard drive. For a day or two, I was thinking about doing tape backups! That's too extreme though.

I don't know though. I'm thinking I might do just a four drive RAID 10, along with Storage Spaces, and the rest be separate drives. I'd like redundancy for drive failures of course, and backup space as the possibility of losing over 16 TBs of film, I would cry.

Now I do have a concern.

I'm thinking about this motherboard or something like it...
Newegg.com - ASUS M5A99FX PRO R2.0 AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

And I'm wondering if I can successfully pop in a Radeon 7870 card, or a card that takes up two PCI slots, into the bottom black PCI-E 2.0 x16 slot. I feel like it might not be ideal as the card's fans would be right at the very bottom and wouldn't get good airflow, but it wouldn't be obstructing a different slot so I can easily put all that I currently need in all the slots.

I'm reading up on Storage Spaces and it sounds nice.

From what I understand though, it's like a software RAID 1, but being able to pop in more hard drives at a whim without any troubles. But what is interesting is that you can make a 100 gig Storage Pool, but only have a 10 gig hard drive in reality, and it'll just call up for more storage to meet that allocation. And, Windows will detect it all as one single hard drive.

But, RAID 1 as I know it, it's a 50/50 split between two drives, which is perfect for redundancy. Does Storage Spaces do that as well?

Witchcraft I call all this...

Coke Robot said:

And I'm wondering if I can successfully pop in a Radeon 7870 card, or a card that takes up two PCI slots, into the bottom black PCI-E 2.0 x16 slot. I feel like it might not be ideal as the card's fans would be right at the very bottom and wouldn't get good airflow, but it wouldn't be obstructing a different slot so I can easily put all that I currently need in all the slots.

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COKE, the black slot PCIe 2.0x16 are 4x ( it's confusing I know ) , you don't want to put a GPU in a x4 slot but in a PCIe 2.0x16 16x ( the blue one)

you should get the chrosshair V-z , it as a Sound Blaster software SupremeFX III , very nice if you play game, you also have ROG connect, so you can OC your motherboard ( live when running ) from a netbook, laptop or another PC with USB connection

Oh, I must have read that wrong, didn't realize it the label was going through the slots in order.

No, I'll be putting a SSD in one of those slots. I'm thinking I might want to get the Crosshair motherboard, it's 80 dollars more and has a few more features and might fair better for overclocking I'd imagine. Also, it's red and black, I will probably buy it solely because it's red and black. LOVE those colors.

If you ask me, my PC with a Chrosshair V (FX-8150) and the one with a MSI 890FXa-GD70 ( 1090t) are my favorite one , I can't explain why. Then you have to get member of the Asus ROG forum. it's the place to be if you own a Chrosshair, they even have Asus engineer to answer your question. As long as you don't promote Windows 8, you will be welcome. We crucified the last one who try.

Oh, that sounds nice! I'd love to be able to have an ASUS engineer on hand if the time is needed.

You say you shouldn't promote Windows 8 ehh? Seems like you're egging me on....

Ypu should go and start a tread on your new build,, you gone have a lot of idea