Another "Help me buy a computer" post

[factotum]

Like I said, have you *tried* swapping out the SATA cable? I had an identical issue (drive disappearing randomly from the system, albeit it was a DVD not a hard drive) and replacing the SATA cable fixed it, while swapping the existing cable into a different motherboard port did not.

[snowblizz]

Like I said, have you *tried* swapping out the SATA cable? I had an identical issue (drive disappearing randomly from the system, albeit it was a DVD not a hard drive) and replacing the SATA cable fixed it, while swapping the existing cable into a different motherboard port did not.

Yes and no.

Yes I sorta did because I removed 1 SSD from the "rack" and hooked the second up independantly from that. One of the "spots" seems to work fine (atm the "top" one).

No, because the cable itself cannot be swapped out from the rack, it's hardwired to a powercable / sata combo port. This is ofc annoying because 1) it was a super convenient way to get 2 ssd into the case and 2) I can't just switch the part. Now to be perfectly honest, when I had the parts lose I want to say it was the *other* spot (ie bottom) that didn't work. But I'm not sure and am slowly losing the will to live.


Mostly though I'm just whining now. It was just such a surprise that all seemed to work and yet it turns out that the problem was only partially what I thought it was. And I'm annoyed because it was really hard work getting the rack thing back into place in the front 3.5" space. And now I have to reverse engineer it again if I want the old boot ssd to be visible. And I kinda do for awhile at least to slowly copy everything over.

Is there any good explanation to why it would happen? Or am I going to have to settle for "you must have tore something lose while handling the other end while installing mobo".

[factotum]

I have no idea. Clearly the cable in my DVD example had broken somehow, but I have no idea how--I just swapped it for another one, and when that fixed the issue, threw the original cable away as faulty. Never heard of a drive cage that somehow converts 2 SATA drives into one, though, sounds very strange.

[snowblizz]

I have no idea. Clearly the cable in my DVD example had broken somehow, but I have no idea how--I just swapped it for another one, and when that fixed the issue, threw the original cable away as faulty. Never heard of a drive cage that somehow converts 2 SATA drives into one, though, sounds very strange.

I'm not explaining it very well, my bad.

It's a plastic case, fits 2 SSDs in a "hotswap" kind of way, there's a sata/power connector at the back for each slot with hardwired sata/power connectors, one for each ssd. They are totally independent really. I'm just lamenting the fact that no matter how much I disassemble it I can't effectively swap the sata cable.

Ah an image finally:

[factotum]

Ah, right. The SATA drive adapter I had in my old PC was literally just a metal bracket that had no cabling or anything like that, it just allowed 2x2.5" drives to be physically mounted in a 3.5" bay.

[snowblizz]

Ah, right. The SATA drive adapter I had in my old PC was literally just a metal bracket that had no cabling or anything like that, it just allowed 2x2.5" drives to be physically mounted in a 3.5" bay.

Yeah I had a helluva time trying to find something accurate to what I was saying, most pictures were of just brackets. Very nice thing until one of those ports stopped working properly at any rate.

Not sure what am gonna do, my heart says I want to 3D print some new brackets or something. My brain keeps telling me we'd have to learn design first.

[ngc7293]

It looks like I cast Raise Dead on this thread. The OP most likely has gotten his computer. I too went hunting for a new PC. But I wanted midway powerful gaming machine for Neverwinter Nights. (I know anything should run that, but I wanted something better)
The online stores had all sorts of deals, but not exactly what I wanted. There was a local store that would custom build a machine for me. They would give me a Gigabyte motherboard, a 500gig SSD, a 1TB SATA drive, 16 gig of memory, AMD video and CPU in a supposedly quiet housing. But I wasn't so sure. I had build my own machine before and those things could be loud. I had a name brand machine before and it was quiet. I ended up going to a chain store and getting an HP gaming machine with the same stats (roughly)
I wish I got the other one though.

[snowblizz]

No one should put a HDD in a computer anymore unless it's for legacy reasons IMO.

If my old hdd didn't have 1tb of not improtant stuff I might want one day am not tossing it out yet. Thinking of getting an usb 3.1 shell for it and hook up externally.

Not to mention thinking on unhooking the old dvd station, keeps spinning up when opening certain programs which is annoying me no end.


Just for no reaosn am gonna mention what a friend in an onlien game tild me. He recently had some trouble with his old (very old) machine and got a hand me down. A core i5-2550K with a 1080ti gpu. I told him that's like putting a 18-wheeler enginge in a VW Golf. My 4th gen i5 couldn't feed even the 970 fast enough in a modern game. that poor 2nd gen i5 will choke daily. On the upside ofc, he doesn't do real gaming (so all in all a massive boost for him), but I shudder to think of the mind that upgraded with a 1080ti in a super old computer.

On the one hand I get it, the gpu is the most important part relatively speaking, but the guy must have been really hampered by his cpu, maybe without knowing it.


Just put of curiosity, how are the Ryzen 3? I know not very fat bust we (are probably) picking one up for the office as a "get chairman something he/we can videoconference on that we can control so we know what's not working this time" and not spend a lot on.

That sparked a question in my head this morning. What specs would one want for something like that. I wasn't looking too hard on gpu capabilities but realised if it's gonna stream video maybe it needs some muscles actually?

Ideally I wanted something with an i5 just to be sure but pricewise we couldn't quite swing it. They were a bit much for something that's probably not seeing much use.

[factotum]

No one should put a HDD in a computer anymore unless it's for legacy reasons IMO.

Spinning rust is still cheaper for mass storage. I have a 1Tb M.2 SSD as my primary drive, and 2x2Tb drives (arranged as a single 4Tb volume using the built-in thingy in Windows whose name I forget) for movies and other stuff that I don't want or need cluttering up my super-fast storage.

[Silfir]

A Ryzen 3 with integrated graphics ought to be perfectly capable of anything you could ask of it in a pure office setting, including streaming video.

[halfeye]

A Ryzen 3 with integrated graphics ought to be perfectly capable of anything you could ask of it in a pure office setting, including streaming video.

Yeah, just don't try running demanding video games less than three years old.

[wumpus]

No one should put a HDD in a computer anymore unless it's for legacy reasons IMO.

If my old hdd didn't have 1tb of not improtant stuff I might want one day am not tossing it out yet. Thinking of getting an usb 3.1 shell for it and hook up externally.

Spinning rust tends to run 4-5 times cheaper per Terabyte than solid state, if you want to hoard data it is still your friend. You might want to stick to USB-based HDDs, as you don't have to worry about the OS panicking and demanding the slow old drive come back online when it isn't plugged in (also USB-drives tend to run cheap. The uncool kids at /r/DataHoarder/ call buying a HDD this way and sticking it inside the computer "shucking"). Also putting the data in some low-power NAS unit makes it available to tablets and notebooks as well as the desktop computer (notebooks rarely have room for your old HDDs).

Yeah, just don't try running demanding video games less than three years old.

A Ryzen 2400G can typically run as well as anything without a graphics card, or a GT1030 or less (especially if you didn't check that the GT1030 was running GDDR5 instead of DDR4...). If you want to run demanding video games, you will need a GPU regardless of the CPU. Once added, even the 2200G (4 core, 4 thread) should be pretty good at running the games (compare to an old Intel i5).

But for including streaming video? A 2200G is plenty.

Spinning rust is still cheaper for mass storage. I have a 1Tb M.2 SSD as my primary drive, and 2x2Tb drives (arranged as a single 4Tb volume using the built-in thingy in Windows whose name I forget) for movies and other stuff that I don't want or need cluttering up my super-fast storage.

Sounds like RAID0/Striping.

The completely gonzo solution for this involves an Inland Premium 512GB NVMe SSD (~$50) and a WD Easystore 10TB USB drive (sourced from Best Buy around a US holiday, roughly ~$170) and a Ryzen 400 series motherboard (they include the StoreMI system).

[EDIT: WARNING: I've been told that you can't use partitioned drives for StoreMI. This means you need two smaller, slower drives for the work below and expect it to be far less usefull].

Partition the SSD into OS/boot and storage/StoreMI drives of roughly equal size. Remove the drive from the USB enclosure (this may require a pin taped/removed, but probably not. I've done it with a Seagate enclosure). Setup StoreMI to work with the HDD and non-boot drive. Set \\user, \\program files, \\program files (x86), \\video, and anything else you don't want cluttering up your boot drive to D:\. Note that while most StoreMI issues are from boot devices, this might be an issue with D:\\ drives and that it might make sense to partition your former-USB drive into equal parts StoreMI and backup (at 10TB it might as well seem infinite at first).

There. You now have 10TB (or 5TB) of storage that acts at nearly NVMe speed for at least your most often used 1/4TB of storage. How often do you use data outside of that, especially in a way that doesn't involve streaming?.

You can also buy your own tiering software that does the same thing (look for bcache on Linux), but the added cost really doesn't make any sense unless you are going for something at least this size. I even suspect AMD (and emotus, the guys who made it) were surprise how quickly their built in limitations were surpassed by standard SSD sizes.

[halfeye]

A Ryzen 2400G can typically run as well as anything without a graphics card, or a GT1030 or less (especially if you didn't check that the GT1030 was running GDDR5 instead of DDR4...). If you want to run demanding video games, you will need a GPU regardless of the CPU. Once added, even the 2200G (4 core, 4 thread) should be pretty good at running the games (compare to an old Intel i5).

But for including streaming video? A 2200G is plenty.

So basically, you agree with me.

[factotum]

Sounds like RAID0/Striping.

The name I was trying to think of was Dynamic Volumes, and no, there is no striping involved here because there was already a load of data on one of the 2Tb drives when I added the other one, so had to just set it up as a simple expansion to what was already there. Speed is not an issue for the sort of files I have on those drives. I also have a 4Tb external drive which I use for backups.

(I did try using an external RAID NAS instead of having a separate backup drive, but the actual unit failed within 12 months--it's where I got the 2x2Tb drives from. I find the "internal storage backed up to external USB" to be a far better and more reliable arrangement).

[wumpus]

So basically, you agree with me.

Yes, but the point is that the issues with the games aren't in the CPU, but in the graphics. That is usually seen as easier to fix (nevermind the <$1000 costs of top of the line graphics cards).

The name I was trying to think of was Dynamic Volumes, and no, there is no striping involved here because there was already a load of data on one of the 2Tb drives when I added the other one, so had to just set it up as a simple expansion to what was already there. Speed is not an issue for the sort of files I have on those drives. I also have a 4Tb external drive which I use for backups.

(I did try using an external RAID NAS instead of having a separate backup drive, but the actual unit failed within 12 months--it's where I got the 2x2Tb drives from. I find the "internal storage backed up to external USB" to be a far better and more reliable arrangement).

Must be JBOD "just a bunch of drives" instead (unless it took its time building the RAID when you installed it).

I'd be careful to find USB drives that don't include encryption. That way if the enclosure failed (like your NAS) you can still use it. I've heard of USB housings that do such things, and it only helps to include a stupid checkbox on the box which does nothing but make the drive useless if the housing breaks (you have to buy a replacement enclosure from the company).

[factotum]

Since the external drive is solely for backups, if it breaks I replace it--don't care much about any possible re-use for the drive later.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Last time I checked the rules allowed for the OP to resurrect a thread. Since I'm the semi-OP I'm semi-resurrecting this one for a final thank you to all posters.

I ordered my laptop yesterday. See you in another 7 years or so, when I'll want at least basic hologram compatibility and active anti-grav for backpack durability.

(If this post inspires you to ask your own computer questions, please do so in a more current thread or make your own, continuing this thread will only confuse people into giving me and the other OP more advise. I just figured it was worth it to properly thank the good folks in the playground.)