«

Hi there all!

....hectic time, but technology and science go constantly ahead...

I've got some questions before I build my next computer.
I'll use it for recording and processing music.
I'll be thankful for all the feedback.

ABOUT PROCESSORS:
I've opted to chose between these Intel models:
Core 2 Duo E6850 3.0GHz
(Socket 775 - 3.0GHz - Bus 1333 MHz - 65 nm - 4MB L2 cache - Intel
Virtualization Technology)
or
Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz
(Socket 775 - 2.4GHz - Bus 1066 MHz - 65 nm - 8MB L2 cache - Intel
Virtualization Technology)?

Is there a big advantage of Quad over Dual cores, now that we're only few
months from the Quad core release ? (And how it comes the higher and newer
Quad Q6600 be slightly cheaper than the older and lower Duo E6850?)

ABOUT SPEED AND CORES:
-Finally... does the dilemma 'more cores, or more clock speed' really exist?
In other words, does a Dual Core with 3.0GH clock speed work 2x3.0GH
for each core which will result in a double summary clock speed =6.0GH?
Or is it that each of the cores works in 3.0GH, thus working separately on
different tasks, which just augments the overall processing speed ?

ABOUT OS AND SOFTWARE:
-Will my OS (Windows XP Pro) and my software (like Microsoft Office 2003,
Finale music notation, Cubase SX3 music recording etc.) support and function
with the so called Thread-Level-Parallelism (TLP) or Hyper-Thread
technology,
or Simultaneous Multi-threading Technology (SMT) which is required by the
Dual or Quad cores?

ABOUT MOTHERBOARDS:
I must chose between the following:
=>Asus P5K
(Socket 775 - Intel® P35 chipset ICH9R - Intel® CoreT2 Quad / CoreT2 Extreme
/ CoreT2 Duo / Pentium® Extreme / Pentium® D / Pentium® 4 Processors -
Dual-channel
DDR2 1066/800/667 MHz - 4*SATA/1*SATA on the Go/ 1394 - Gigabit LAN -
8-channel
HD Audio)

=>Asus P5KC
(Socket 775 - Intel® P35 chipset ICH9R - Intel® CoreT2 Quad / CoreT2 Extreme
/ CoreT2 Duo / Pentium® Extreme / Pentium® D / Pentium® 4 Processors -
Dual-channel
DDR2 1066/800/667 MHz or DDR3 1333/1066/800 - 2x1394 - 12xUSB 2.0 - Gigabit
LAN -8-channel HD Audio)

=>Asus P5W DH Deluxe (this one doesn't support the Quad Core or further)

=>Asus P5N32-E SLI
(Socket 775 - NVIDIA SLI Technology - NVIDIA Quad-SLIT Ready - NVIDIA
nForce® 680i SLIT - Dual-channel DDR2 800/667/533 - Support Intel® next
generation
45nm Multi-core CPU - Intel® Quad-core CPU Ready - Intel® CoreT2
Extreme/CoreT2 Duo
Ready - 1333**/1066/800/533MHz - 8 Phase Power Design SATA Raid - External
SATA - Dual Gigabit Lan - Audio 8 channels - IEEE 1394 - Fanless Design)

(Does the symbol 'P5' for the mothers stand for Pentium 5 ?)

ABOUT MEMORY:
-Can I use my previous computer's stick of (1GB) DDR 400MH memory
together with new DDR2 1066/800/667MH memory sticks in the other slots,
or it's a crap idea?
-With Double channel architecture, can I leave one pair of slots with
only one stick, or I must always put two sticks?

ABOUT HDs:
I plan to make a RAID0 configuration for faster, fastest... at
7200 (or 10,000 rpm but they're more noisy and heat up).
Top brands are Western Digital and Seagate of what I hear.
But what about Maxtor which is manifactured by Seagate?
And is Samsung also ok, I heard they're silent ?

Huh.... lot of questions... anyway thanks a lot to those who'll have
the courage for feedback.

Bad Disciple
'EN EIDA OTI OYDEN EIDA'
'One thing I know is that nothing I know'. (Sokrates)

Globalization, climate changes, disasters, illnesses, terrorism, wars,
famine...
all and more frequent and intensive, drive the humanity to more hectic time,
but technology and science go constantly ahead. Will this help us to avoid
the end? Or will we perish, holding the mouse and the keyboard of our
many-core-brains-almost-reaching-human-intelligence computer, all sinking
in the abyss?

the quad core is a bettter option for you..since it sounds like u might
be using programs that would use more then 1 core and doesn't sound like
your a gamer

> Asus P5N32-E SLI <--get this one

no you have to get new DDR2 and it should be DDR2 800(6400+) OR HIGHER
with that motherboard
I recommend the OCZ/CORSAIR and make sure you get dual channel (2x of
the same stick of memory ... ex: 2x512=1gb)

go with seagate with the 16mb caches ...5 year waranty...




Hi-Fly Archaeopteryx wrote:
> Hi there all!
>
> ...hectic time, but technology and science go constantly ahead...
>
> I've got some questions before I build my next computer.
> I'll use it for recording and processing music.
> I'll be thankful for all the feedback.
>
> ABOUT PROCESSORS:
> I've opted to chose between these Intel models:
> Core 2 Duo E6850 3.0GHz
> (Socket 775 - 3.0GHz - Bus 1333 MHz - 65 nm - 4MB L2 cache - Intel
> Virtualization Technology)
> or
> Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz
> (Socket 775 - 2.4GHz - Bus 1066 MHz - 65 nm - 8MB L2 cache - Intel
> Virtualization Technology)?
>
> Is there a big advantage of Quad over Dual cores, now that we're only few
> months from the Quad core release ? (And how it comes the higher and newer
> Quad Q6600 be slightly cheaper than the older and lower Duo E6850?)
>
> ABOUT SPEED AND CORES:
> -Finally... does the dilemma 'more cores, or more clock speed' really exist?
> In other words, does a Dual Core with 3.0GH clock speed work 2x3.0GH
> for each core which will result in a double summary clock speed =6.0GH?
> Or is it that each of the cores works in 3.0GH, thus working separately on
> different tasks, which just augments the overall processing speed ?
>
> ABOUT OS AND SOFTWARE:
> -Will my OS (Windows XP Pro) and my software (like Microsoft Office 2003,
> Finale music notation, Cubase SX3 music recording etc.) support and function
> with the so called Thread-Level-Parallelism (TLP) or Hyper-Thread
> technology,
> or Simultaneous Multi-threading Technology (SMT) which is required by the
> Dual or Quad cores?
>
> ABOUT MOTHERBOARDS:
> I must chose between the following:
> =>Asus P5K
> (Socket 775 - Intel® P35 chipset ICH9R - Intel® CoreT2 Quad / CoreT2 Extreme
> / CoreT2 Duo / Pentium® Extreme / Pentium® D / Pentium® 4 Processors -
> Dual-channel
> DDR2 1066/800/667 MHz - 4*SATA/1*SATA on the Go/ 1394 - Gigabit LAN -
> 8-channel
> HD Audio)
>
> =>Asus P5KC
> (Socket 775 - Intel® P35 chipset ICH9R - Intel® CoreT2 Quad / CoreT2 Extreme
> / CoreT2 Duo / Pentium® Extreme / Pentium® D / Pentium® 4 Processors -
> Dual-channel
> DDR2 1066/800/667 MHz or DDR3 1333/1066/800 - 2x1394 - 12xUSB 2.0 - Gigabit
> LAN -8-channel HD Audio)
>
> =>Asus P5W DH Deluxe (this one doesn't support the Quad Core or further)
>
> =>Asus P5N32-E SLI
> (Socket 775 - NVIDIA SLI Technology - NVIDIA Quad-SLIT Ready - NVIDIA
> nForce® 680i SLIT - Dual-channel DDR2 800/667/533 - Support Intel® next
> generation
> 45nm Multi-core CPU - Intel® Quad-core CPU Ready - Intel® CoreT2
> Extreme/CoreT2 Duo
> Ready - 1333**/1066/800/533MHz - 8 Phase Power Design SATA Raid - External
> SATA - Dual Gigabit Lan - Audio 8 channels - IEEE 1394 - Fanless Design)
>
> (Does the symbol 'P5' for the mothers stand for Pentium 5 ?)
>
> ABOUT MEMORY:
> -Can I use my previous computer's stick of (1GB) DDR 400MH memory
> together with new DDR2 1066/800/667MH memory sticks in the other slots,
> or it's a crap idea?
> -With Double channel architecture, can I leave one pair of slots with
> only one stick, or I must always put two sticks?
>
> ABOUT HDs:
> I plan to make a RAID0 configuration for faster, fastest... at
> 7200 (or 10,000 rpm but they're more noisy and heat up).
> Top brands are Western Digital and Seagate of what I hear.
> But what about Maxtor which is manifactured by Seagate?
> And is Samsung also ok, I heard they're silent ?
>
> Huh.... lot of questions... anyway thanks a lot to those who'll have
> the courage for feedback.
>
> Bad Disciple
> 'EN EIDA OTI OYDEN EIDA'
> 'One thing I know is that nothing I know'. (Sokrates)
>
> Globalization, climate changes, disasters, illnesses, terrorism, wars,
> famine...
> all and more frequent and intensive, drive the humanity to more hectic time,
> but technology and science go constantly ahead. Will this help us to avoid
> the end? Or will we perish, holding the mouse and the keyboard of our
> many-core-brains-almost-reaching-human-intelligence computer, all sinking
> in the abyss?
>
>

Hi-Fly Archaeopteryx wrote:
> Hi there all!
>
> ...hectic time, but technology and science go constantly ahead...
>
> I've got some questions before I build my next computer.
> I'll use it for recording and processing music.
> I'll be thankful for all the feedback.
>
> ABOUT PROCESSORS:
> I've opted to chose between these Intel models:
> Core 2 Duo E6850 3.0GHz
> Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz

E6850 - 65W dissipation. Known to overclock higher than Q6600, but
needs more voltage to get there.

Q6600 - 95W dissipation for G0 stepping. Someone estimates that >10,000
were sold near the launch date, and Q6600 is a favorite of enthusiasts
and overclockers. It will be years, before applications will catch
up to the bonanza of cores.

If you were a gamer, I'd get the quad solely "for future consideration".

Since you're not a gamer, the choice will be determined by the characteristics
of the software you use. And since I've had very little success getting info
like that on any software, this is something that the buyer will have to figure
out. For example, over the years, I've learned that Photoshop has multiprocessing
capabilities. But in fact, not all filters use it. Only some filters use it.
Depending on which exact filters a Photoshop user likes to use, will determine
how much speedup comes from buying a multicore processor.

For my own usage, I'd prefer a dual core at 3Ghz, versus a quad core at 2.4Ghz,
because most of the time, I'd be using one core to update the desktop, and that
core would be running 25% faster than a single core on that quad. If I spent all
day running Cinebench, then I'd want the quad.

(This link may not seem related, but it is intended to show that more cores is
not always better. The current MacPro platform is basically a dual Xeon with
server chipset and FBDIMMs, very much a "PC". But the same issues seen here,
can also appear on a Windows box, for the same reasons.)

http://www.barefeats.com/octopro1.html

>
> Is there a big advantage of Quad over Dual cores, now that we're only few
> months from the Quad core release ? (And how it comes the higher and newer
> Quad Q6600 be slightly cheaper than the older and lower Duo E6850?)
>
> ABOUT SPEED AND CORES:
> -Finally... does the dilemma 'more cores, or more clock speed' really exist?
> In other words, does a Dual Core with 3.0GH clock speed work 2x3.0GH
> for each core which will result in a double summary clock speed =6.0GH?
> Or is it that each of the cores works in 3.0GH, thus working separately on
> different tasks, which just augments the overall processing speed ?
>
> ABOUT OS AND SOFTWARE:
> -Will my OS (Windows XP Pro) and my software (like Microsoft Office 2003,
> Finale music notation, Cubase SX3 music recording etc.) support and function
> with the so called Thread-Level-Parallelism (TLP) or Hyper-Thread
> technology,
> or Simultaneous Multi-threading Technology (SMT) which is required by the
> Dual or Quad cores?

Microsoft Office is complicated enough, without having multicore support.
For the other tools, you probably would be paying enough money, to deserve
an answer from pre-sales support or tech support, at the respective companies.

>
> ABOUT MOTHERBOARDS:
> I must chose between the following:
> =>Asus P5K
> (Socket 775 - Intel® P35 chipset ICH9R - Intel® CoreT2 Quad / CoreT2 Extreme
> / CoreT2 Duo / Pentium® Extreme / Pentium® D / Pentium® 4 Processors -
> Dual-channel
> DDR2 1066/800/667 MHz - 4*SATA/1*SATA on the Go/ 1394 - Gigabit LAN -
> 8-channel
> HD Audio)
>
> =>Asus P5KC
> (Socket 775 - Intel® P35 chipset ICH9R - Intel® CoreT2 Quad / CoreT2 Extreme
> / CoreT2 Duo / Pentium® Extreme / Pentium® D / Pentium® 4 Processors -
> Dual-channel
> DDR2 1066/800/667 MHz or DDR3 1333/1066/800 - 2x1394 - 12xUSB 2.0 - Gigabit
> LAN -8-channel HD Audio)
>
> =>Asus P5W DH Deluxe (this one doesn't support the Quad Core or further)
>
> =>Asus P5N32-E SLI
> (Socket 775 - NVIDIA SLI Technology - NVIDIA Quad-SLIT Ready - NVIDIA
> nForce® 680i SLIT - Dual-channel DDR2 800/667/533 - Support Intel® next
> generation
> 45nm Multi-core CPU - Intel® Quad-core CPU Ready - Intel® CoreT2
> Extreme/CoreT2 Duo
> Ready - 1333**/1066/800/533MHz - 8 Phase Power Design SATA Raid - External
> SATA - Dual Gigabit Lan - Audio 8 channels - IEEE 1394 - Fanless Design)
>
> (Does the symbol 'P5' for the mothers stand for Pentium 5 ?)

P5 stands for LGA775 socket motherboards. The previous P4 boards had S478 sockets.
So the socket was the naming convention. The third letter might suggest a chipset
or chipset company.

Some chipsets have native FSB1333 support. That means the chips were designed
on purpose to run that speed, and they will run faster. Previous generation
boards had native FSB1066 support. A chip that happens to run one notch faster,
might not have much headroom available above that. So 1333** means you may or
may not be able to go much faster. It is best to look up other people's overclocking
results, to see how good a given chipset is.

The customer reviews on Newegg are a convenient resource, there is also
http://vip.asus.com/forum/topic.aspx for Asus motherboards. Sites like
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/ cover all manner of enthusiast issues.

The main attraction of the Nvidia chipsets, is their support for SLI and two
video slots. Since you're a non-gamer, the large slots would only be of
interest if you wanted to purchase a $1000 Areca RAID controller. If you
wanted 100's of MB/sec read/write bandwidth, that is how you get it.

>
> ABOUT MEMORY:
> -Can I use my previous computer's stick of (1GB) DDR 400MH memory
> together with new DDR2 1066/800/667MH memory sticks in the other slots,
> or it's a crap idea?

Memory types don't mix. SDRAM, DDR, DDR2, DDR3 are designed not to fit
one another's sockets. SDRAM = 3.3V, DDR = 2.5V, DDR2 = 1.8V, DDR3 = ???.
All different voltages and pinouts.

> -With Double channel architecture, can I leave one pair of slots with
> only one stick, or I must always put two sticks?

Motherboards now, are highly flexible, and will allow you to do stupid
things to your memory configuration. And they will still work, and unless
you are a fanatical benchmarker, you might not even notice your mistake.

The rules change a bit from chipset to chipset, but a good guiding rule
is to buy memory in matched pairs. In terms of resale (dumping stuff
on Ebay), you'd have better luck if you had a pair of tested identical
modules to offer a buyer. A collection of random speeds, timing settings,
capacities, is not nearly as enticing. On some chipsets, all you need
in fact, is matching memory quantities on each channel. That means you
can put 512+512 on one channel, and 1GB stick on the other channel, and
the BIOS will declare "dual channel" during POST. But buying memory
on purpose that way, would just be dumb.

>
> ABOUT HDs:
> I plan to make a RAID0 configuration for faster, fastest... at
> 7200 (or 10,000 rpm but they're more noisy and heat up).

Raptor 10K RPM, 150GB drive - uses less power than my current drive.
You may want to find a review, to see how noisy they are.

Power Dissipation
Read/Write 10.02 Watts
Idle 9.19 Watts

The reduction in seek time is the main advantage. Few real
applications benefit from more bandwidth. For example, if you
were handling uncompressed HD video content, then constructing
a special array makes sense. If instead, the video format is
compressed, your processor is choked doing the compression,
and even a 5400RPM drive could handle it.

Seek time optimization helps when doing a search where nothing
is yet cached. Or perhaps, low seek times would help if you were
a software developer and you had thousands of small header files
to read during a compile/build.

Sure, enthusiasts will tell you how snappy their RAID is, but
like, big deal When the RAID fails and all their data is
lost, my single disk is still working.

One kind of config you can do, is a Raptor for the boot disk,
and a big 7200RPM for archived data. Your music collection
probably does not need 80MB/sec read speed, and could safely
live on a 7200RPM. The Raptor could have your programs on it,
as long as you can afford a big enough Raptor.

> Top brands are Western Digital and Seagate of what I hear.
> But what about Maxtor which is manifactured by Seagate?
> And is Samsung also ok, I heard they're silent ?
>
> Huh.... lot of questions... anyway thanks a lot to those who'll have
> the courage for feedback.

I think you already have a good idea of what you're doing.
You just need to do the research to finish the job.

Paul

I already answered him dude...no need for extra info that just repeats
what I said

> If you were a gamer, I'd get the quad solely "for future consideration".
>

"TechGuru" <> wrote in message
news:WYNwi.60819$_d2.5175@pd7urf3no...
> the quad core is a bettter option for you..since it sounds like u might be
> using programs that would use more then 1 core and doesn't sound like your
> a gamer
>
>> Asus P5N32-E SLI <--get this one
>
> no you have to get new DDR2 and it should be DDR2 800(6400+) OR HIGHER
> with that motherboard
> I recommend the OCZ/CORSAIR and make sure you get dual channel (2x of the
> same stick of memory ... ex: 2x512=1gb)
>
> go with seagate with the 16mb caches ...5 year waranty...

Hi, and thanks for replying.
I'll use your wisdom.

Have health.

Bad Disciple
'EN EIDA OTI OYDEN EIDA'
'One thing I know is that nothing I know'. (Sokrates)
also known as
( *)> Hi-Fly
/{ }\ Archaeopteryx
''' '''
"F o r m o s t s e a g u l l s
t h e i m p o r t a n c e
i s n o t i n f l y i n g
b u t i n e a t i n g"

"Paul" <> wrote in message news:fa12hs$3co$...
.... ... ...
> I think you already have a good idea of what you're doing.
> You just need to do the research to finish the job.

Hi and thanks for your detailed light thrower reply which is so complete.
I'm not a computer tech wizard, I'm a musician but also good in maths,
and I understand the principles and the practice constantly made
all and more sense to me.

Well, computing tech goes damn quick and what I do for the last 12
years, is every 2-3 years I build a next computer (and give my older one
to my son who gives his to my daughter, who gives her to my wife, who
gives her to my sister, who gives her to the poor neighbour... ...). So,
if I do it now, I want a machine that will be valuable for the following
2-3 years, and not one that is almost same as the one I give away.

I work with music production, meaning recording and processing.
Especially music PROCESSING (as opposed to music recording) is
a processing hungry process! If you recorded 10 or 20 music tracks
and then put several plug-ins on each (for effects) and if in addition
you have several MIDI tracks each of which triggers virtual machines,
then you might get your system out of breath.

I use CUBASE SX-3 as an Audio & MIDI music production software,
one of the top in music industry, you may know it. What I'm not sure now
is, does it support the so called Simultaneous Multi-threading Technology
(SMT) which is required by the Dual or Quad cores? That I must check

About RAID0, the issue I'm interested in is that RAID0 would work
faster, because of dispatching the tasks on two discs working together,
instead of only one. Now, if the system crashes anyway, whether it's RAID0
or a single drive, in both cases it'll go lost, so restoring or
reinstalling...
But for my data storage I always use a different HD AND another HD
to backup my storage (and which is switched off the rest of the time).
Otherwise, backing up is the solution that's even written in the bible!
But I'm wondering if the faster HDs should go to the RAID0 or also
for the data storage HD, or could I use an older slower HD there?

It was useful to read you anyway, thanks again.
Have health.

Bad Disciple
'EN EIDA OTI OYDEN EIDA'
'One thing I know is that nothing I know'. (Sokrates)
also known as
( *)> Hi-Fly
/{ }\ Archaeopteryx
''' '''
"F o r m o s t s e a g u l l s
t h e i m p o r t a n c e
i s n o t i n f l y i n g
b u t i n e a t i n g"

Bad Disciple wrote:
> "Paul" <> wrote in message news:fa12hs$3co$...
> ... ... ...
>> I think you already have a good idea of what you're doing.
>> You just need to do the research to finish the job.
>
> Hi and thanks for your detailed light thrower reply which is so complete.
> I'm not a computer tech wizard, I'm a musician but also good in maths,
> and I understand the principles and the practice constantly made
> all and more sense to me.
>
> Well, computing tech goes damn quick and what I do for the last 12
> years, is every 2-3 years I build a next computer (and give my older one
> to my son who gives his to my daughter, who gives her to my wife, who
> gives her to my sister, who gives her to the poor neighbour... ...). So,
> if I do it now, I want a machine that will be valuable for the following
> 2-3 years, and not one that is almost same as the one I give away.
>
> I work with music production, meaning recording and processing.
> Especially music PROCESSING (as opposed to music recording) is
> a processing hungry process! If you recorded 10 or 20 music tracks
> and then put several plug-ins on each (for effects) and if in addition
> you have several MIDI tracks each of which triggers virtual machines,
> then you might get your system out of breath.
>
> I use CUBASE SX-3 as an Audio & MIDI music production software,
> one of the top in music industry, you may know it. What I'm not sure now
> is, does it support the so called Simultaneous Multi-threading Technology
> (SMT) which is required by the Dual or Quad cores? That I must check
>
> About RAID0, the issue I'm interested in is that RAID0 would work
> faster, because of dispatching the tasks on two discs working together,
> instead of only one. Now, if the system crashes anyway, whether it's RAID0
> or a single drive, in both cases it'll go lost, so restoring or
> reinstalling...
> But for my data storage I always use a different HD AND another HD
> to backup my storage (and which is switched off the rest of the time).
> Otherwise, backing up is the solution that's even written in the bible!
> But I'm wondering if the faster HDs should go to the RAID0 or also
> for the data storage HD, or could I use an older slower HD there?
>
> It was useful to read you anyway, thanks again.
> Have health.
>
> Bad Disciple
> 'EN EIDA OTI OYDEN EIDA'
> 'One thing I know is that nothing I know'. (Sokrates)
> also known as
> ( *)> Hi-Fly
> /{ }\ Archaeopteryx
> ''' '''
> "F o r m o s t s e a g u l l s
> t h e i m p o r t a n c e
> i s n o t i n f l y i n g
> b u t i n e a t i n g"
>

Cubase SX-3 does list support for multiprocessing. So I guess that is your
SMT and your good reason to using the Quad.

http://www.steinberg.net/552_1.html

RAID0 with two disks, doubles the failure rate. If either disk fails,
the array fails. So if a single disk fails once in three years, the two
disk RAID0 fails on average, in one and a half years. (That is not the
exact failure rate, and is intended to show the trend.) RAID0 can
actually use more than two disks, and using an expensive add-in card,
you can use eight or sixteen disks in RAID0 if you want. But with a
failure rate to match.

The alternative, is to use one disk, and have a second disk as a cold
standby (backup disk). You can place the second disk in a USB enclosure,
a Firewire 400 or 800 enclosure, an ESATA enclosure, and plug it in when
you want to do a backup. Another way of doing it, would be to backup over
a network. Depending on the value of the project, and the low dollar cost
of drives, you could even use more than one drive, or have more than one
copy of projects.

There are other RAID types that can help. This Wikipedia article
describes "nested arrays", and that uses four disks. The types are
called 0+1 or 1+0.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID

The disks are put in pairs, and then the pairs are combined in another
level of RAID. The benefit of the four disk setup, is you get the speed
of a two disk RAID0, and you can also have any one disk fail without
losing any data. One of the two schemes is actually slightly better than
that. What I don't like about schemes like this, is I have yet to see
an example of an array taken offline (a maintenance mode if you will),
and have all disks scanned for accumulated bad blocks. I've seen a couple
reports for RAID, where a user didn't know how bad their array was getting,
and when one disk failed, there were other problems waiting to bite them.
(I.e. They couldn't add a replacement disk and get the array to rebuild
the redundant part. Rather than being degraded, the array was effectively
failed.) Maybe a real RAID card has provisions for this, but motherboard
RAIDs tend to be simpler in design. What a motherboard RAID is good at,
is normal operation. What separates the good products from the bad, is
how they behave under fault conditions. (Even the speed of recovery can
be an issue, for example say a rebuild operation took five days and
only happened while the array was offline, you'd be mad as hell.)

To give another example, a guy had a SIL3112 running a RAID1 mirror
of two SATA drives. One of the disks failed, and the other disk
was not up to date (stale data). It seems the pair had not been
mirroring for some time, and yet the RAID software didn't say
anything. Again, if there was some kind of maintenance mode, where
the user could manually take the array off line and check the state
of the disks, a silent failure would be less likely to get you. In
the case of mirrors, you could take them offline and compare them
against one another, sector by sector.

Can single disks fail ? Of course they can. But if you have good
backup software, that is capable of doing full and incremental backups,
and you have a media rotation strategy, backups don't have to take a
lot of time. The first one, that backs up everything, is expensive,
but if you have a five day work week, you can always arrange to do the
full backup on the weekend. I guess I'm just a fan of simplicity when
it comes to storage. If I was an IT guy, maybe I'd like a complicated
setup.

I think you can still safely use your RAID0 idea. But I hope what
I've instilled in you, is the notion that you should backup at the
end of every day. There are ways you can automate that, so you don't
need to hang around to do it. Some backup software has scheduling.
As long as the backup device still has space on it, you can let the
backup continue unattended.

Paul

"Paul" <> wrote in message news:fa1mg5$nat$...
> Bad Disciple wrote:
>> "Paul" <> wrote in message news:fa12hs$3co$...
>> ... ... ...
>>> I think you already have a good idea of what you're doing.
>>> You just need to do the research to finish the job.
>>
>> Hi and thanks for your detailed light thrower reply which is so complete.
>> I'm not a computer tech wizard, I'm a musician but also good in maths,
>> and I understand the principles and the practice constantly made
>> all and more sense to me.
.... ...
> Cubase SX-3 does list support for multiprocessing. So I guess that is your
> SMT and your good reason to using the Quad.
>
> http://www.steinberg.net/552_1.html
>
> RAID0 with two disks, doubles the failure rate. If either disk fails,
....
> I think you can still safely use your RAID0 idea. But I hope what
> I've instilled in you, is the notion that you should backup at the
> end of every day. There are ways you can automate that, so you don't
> need to hang around to do it. Some backup software has scheduling.
> As long as the backup device still has space on it, you can let the
> backup continue unattended.
>
> Paul

Yeah, thanks again.
I just came back from the Steinberg's Cubase site. It says that "Cubase SX3
supports Extended Multiprocessing and is tweaked to take advantage of the
added power provided by systems with more than two processors, including
the latest DualCore processors from AMD and Intel". But this still doesn't
mean
it will take advantage of the Quad Core. So, I've put the question in Cubase
related forums and I wait. So, my dilemma to chose between Core 2 Duo E6850
and Core 2 Quad Q6600 becomes a less dilemma, as the Quad has almost the
same price as the Duo, even slightly cheaper (!?).

About RAID0, I know about the combinations. In fact, I had my last computer
with RAID0 with two Maxtors (8MB cache) and it worked for 3 years without
any failure. Of course, this doesn't mean it doesn't happen. But what seems
to me
a little extreme, is that you point too much on the accident. I agree that
RAID0,
or combined 1+0, 0+1 is more complex but the multiplicated danger of failure
might be compensated by the better drive speed. On the other hand, all I'll
lose
is just the OS and software installations, not my data, which I store on
another
drive as I said. So, what you say about a single disc is valid for RAID too,
which is the God blessed backup. But I must read some more about backing up
my system with all its programs and configurations which takes time in case
I must re-install everything.

Now, after all the research I did, one question remains without answer.
It's not clear to me if Windows XP is also able to take advantage of the
Hyper-thread, or Similtaneous Multi-thread offered by the Dual and Quad Core
technology, or it will recognize only one core?
It seems I must go in the Microsoft's jungle website to search for it.

So thanks.

Bad Disciple

EN EIDA OTI OUDEN EIDA

"One thing I know is that nothing I know." (Socrates)

You have to understand that to some degree multi core processing is actually
more hype than technical advantage because of software limitations.
Quad cores are faster than equivalent dual cores, at least on test benches,
because they have a massive amount of cache, 8mb of ultrafast ram, available
to any of the cores on the cpu dye itself.
A few programs, like Photoshop, have processes that can run on more than one
core at a time, but not the entire program. The programs you are considering
are stuctured similarly. There are serious technical difficulties to
programming for multiple cores such that complete meltdown is the more
frequent result than faster processing. In the real world only a limited
number of tasks lend themselves to multicore processing given the current
state of progamming and compilers.
Windows XP and Vista are compatible with dual and quad cores. The ability to
use more than one core supersedes the meaningless hype about hyperthreading,
which was a marketing ploy and not a real technical advantage. XP/Vista can
assign processes and programs to different cores, which is of less than is
generally thought, benefit for multitasking. In the real world it means is
that if you try to run two (forget about three) CPU intensive programs at
the same time your computer should slow down less and be less likely to
freeze with a multi core processor.
Windows, like all OSes, has difficulty, and physical limits, tracking what
is being done when multiple complex tasks are being performed
simultaneously. This is independent of the amount of physical RAM you have
or the number of processors.
The hardware is generations ahead of the software. What looks good on a test
bench often has little practical benefit for most real world computing
tasks.

> Bad Disciple

are u in winnipeg?