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1. Re: What PC to buy?
John T Smith May 31, 2010 10:25 AM (in response to flbreen)The basics
Intel i7 920 or faster
At least 6 Gig DDR3 memory (and with 6 memory slots so you may upgrade to 12 Gig)
Windows 7 64bit PRO (you don't need Ultimate)
You do NOT need a large hard drive for Windows and software... 320 Gig or less
Approved nVidia graphics card to use hardware MPE... that list is somewhat fluid and expanding, and there is a HACK to make cards not on the list work with CS5 MPE, so read those discussions
You then add 2 more hard drives... one for Windows page file and CS5 temporary files and one for video files
What I built is at http://www.pacifier.com/~jtsmith/ADOBE.HTM
If you are going to edit HiDef, you should read Harm's discussions on RAID... I am going to edit AVCHD, which is said to be CPU intensive but not "as much" data speed demand as other HD formats, so I don't have a RAID setup
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2. Re: What PC to buy?
flbreen May 31, 2010 11:06 AM (in response to John T Smith)Thank-you, but which websites can I go to order the PC that you have specified?
Can Dell give me what I need or do the Dell PCs come with things I do not want?
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3. Re: What PC to buy?
John T Smith May 31, 2010 11:20 AM (in response to flbreen)I build my own, so you will have to visit vendor websites and find out what they offer in various configurations... Dell, HP, Acer all build good computers
The University where I work used to buy only Dell (and Mac for people who wanted that type) and now only buys from Acer
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4. Re: What PC to buy?
acgold777 Jun 2, 2010 1:00 PM (in response to flbreen)The only Dells I've been able to find with close to the specs above are in their Alienware gaming line, and the price is close to your target of $3000 (not including monitor). But the same machine assembled by my local vendor is about $2200. There are also other websites, such as mwave, that let you pick your components and they will assemble and test for you and in many cases this would cost even less.
Dells used to be a great value; I've bought dozens over the years for business and personal use. But now I think they are way behind the technology and ridiculously overpriced to boot. Their top of the line workstations still use Dual-Core Xeons, not even Quads. You could look at the XPS 9000, which you could configure to come come close and add a new video card and additional hard drives once you got it.
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5. Re: What PC to buy?
flbreen Jun 2, 2010 2:31 PM (in response to John T Smith)Thanks for the great info.
I have never assembled a PC but my brother has so now I am planning to buy all the parts and bring them to his home for assembly.
One question I have is on your suggestion to use a small drive to load the operating system and the CS5 applications.
I have CS4 running on my 1 year old DELL.
I clean installed Vista and CS4 on 1 of the 3 drives C:.
I also put Premiere and Encore projects there.
The drive fills up even when I delete projects.
Someone told me to clear Encore media files and that opens space but I need all of the 600 GB available on that drive.
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6. Re: What PC to buy?
acgold777 Jun 2, 2010 2:42 PM (in response to flbreen)If you have three drives, C:, D: and E:
OS and Programs go on C:
Projects and assets go on D:
Everything else goes on E:
When the project is done and archived, just reformat D and E.
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7. Re: What PC to buy?
flbreen Jun 2, 2010 3:21 PM (in response to acgold777)Could you tell me what you mean by assets in "Projects and assets"?
I put my video from the camcorder on the big drive E: in your system.
I put exported files on E: also.
Would there be any advantage to using faster drives for C: and D:?
I noticed that you are using 7200 drives for all 3 drives.
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8. Re: What PC to buy?
flbreen Jun 2, 2010 3:38 PM (in response to acgold777)Thanks for the info.
I guess I am going to drink the Koolade and try to build a PC.
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9. Re: What PC to buy?
acgold777 Jun 2, 2010 4:52 PM (in response to flbreen)Project: Your Project file
Asset: Captured/Imported source video, graphics and audio
I'd say 7200 rpm drives are the minimum. I use a 10K Velociraptor for my OS drive. Others use SSDs for their OS, which are even faster but pricey.
A fast RAID for your work drives will help considerably, but not on your budget. My Workdrive is 7 x 1TB in RAID3, and my backup/archive/render drive is 4x2TB in R3 as well.
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10. Re: What PC to buy?
flbreen Jun 11, 2010 8:40 PM (in response to acgold777)Thanks for the info.
I wanted to go over your suggestions on what drives to have and what to put on them.
C: Windows 7 & CS5
D: Premiere, Encore, & After Effects Projects & source video
E: Not sure what goes here maybe edited video files before uploading them or using them to build Encore projects
Please explain the difference between D: & E: and what the advantage is for them being different.
In ypour plan D: & E: can be formatted at a convienent time.
Where do scratch files go?
What if I put everything to do with the project on D:.
And when D: gets nearly full I would move over to E:.
When E: gets full I Format D: and put new projects on it.
This way I will have projects lingering around for a while and thy will go away at a point when I should not need them any more.
Thanks again
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11. Re: What PC to buy?
acgold777 Jun 11, 2010 11:46 PM (in response to flbreen)Well, you could do that, but then you'd be reading from and writing to the same disk if everything's on D. Better to be reading from D and writing to E, so your previews, rendered files, scratch disks and encoded files would all go on E.
My "Workdisk" D is a 7 x 1TB RAID3 array, upon which everything goes, including the project file. Everything stays in one folder and it's still really fast. I have another, 4 x 2TB RAID3 array (E) upon which everything gets backed up at night. Then I have another variety of disks, all SATA, for archiving and other purposes (music and video storage, downloaded software and updates, all the other junk). All together I have about 25TB of disk space on 6 or 7 "drives." That's nothing compared to what Harm has, but you can never have too much disk space, too fast.
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12. Re: What PC to buy?
flbreen Jun 12, 2010 9:52 AM (in response to acgold777)Thanks again but what am I loosing by putting everything on one drive?
I am way out of your hardware league.
Last year I was using a 4 year old Dell with 0.5TB internal and a 1TB external drive.
I do a lot of work but it is all in a vacume - I have no colleagues to work with.
Sorry to bother you with my primative questions.
Ideally my work flow goes like this:
I shoot several hours of video and load it onto a folder on D:.
I create a Premiere project in that same folder and edit the raw footage using several sequences.
I create an Encore project in that same folder and use the Dynamic Link feature to bring all the sequences into the Encore project.
I design and build a DVD, send it to the customer, and wait for customer feedback.
I move on to another project but I like to leave the old folder around in case changes need to be made.
I would like the build part of the DVD process to be as fast as possible.
Encore converts my raw footage to mp2 files and that can take and hour.
Is this where writing to a second dirive would help?
Thanks
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13. Re: What PC to buy?
acgold777 Jun 12, 2010 10:07 AM (in response to flbreen)When you are reading and writing to the same disk -- as you are when rendering -- you are trying to move massive amounts of data in both directions up and down a very small pipe, and your read/write heads on a single disk have way too much work to do at one time. By splitting this up you can get better performance and smoother playback for previews. But it's not a deal breaker.
Others who know more about this than I do can comment more on the technical matters. But it's usually recommended to run a very large, very fast RAID or have separate reading and writing disks. Even with powerful processors and plenty of RAM, people often run into bottlenecks on the disk drive subsystem. There are some excellent articles written by Harm Millaard on this subject right here in the Premiere forums -- search them out and read them. You will be glad you did.
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14. Re: What PC to buy?
flbreen Jun 16, 2010 6:24 PM (in response to John T Smith)Thanks - I am trying to build the PC you have specified.
I am new to this but my brother has done it before.
I would like to make sure I have the correct parts when I go to his home.
I would like to ask some questions.
1. Can I add more hard drives?
The case seems to have room for 5 hard drives and you are using 3.
Can I add 2 more big ones for additional media storage?
What would I need to link them to the motherboard?
2. Could you give me a link to buy the graphics card you specified?
3. What DVD burner would you recommend?
I think you specified a link to one but if is not working.
4. Are there at least 2 Firewire connections available in this system?
If not what would you put in this system to have at least 2.
I need 2, one for a camcorder and another for a Firestore recorder.
5. Could you explain what you mean with the statement:
Win2k & Premiere 6 & Pinnacle Dv500 via dual boot with Windows 7
I don't think I need to dual boot anything but could you tell me why you are doing this?
6. Does the case have a compact flash card port?
If not could you recommend one that does have a compact flash card port?
7. What supplies and tools do I need to build this system?
Thanks
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15. Re: What PC to buy?
flbreen Jun 16, 2010 8:10 PM (in response to acgold777)I guess on your "Work Disk", the raid3 system distributes the simultaneous reading and writing tasks to separate drives?
I am looking at a PC specified in the forums.
I am thinking of this plan:
C: W7 and CS5
D: Scratch files
E: Media 1 CS5 Projects and Source Video
F: Media 2 CS5 Projects and Source Video
G: Media 3 CS5 Projects and Source Video
Premiere Pro allows you to specify scratch file and media cash file locations.
I guess I would put all those files on D:.
I would go through the Media drives filling each with projects until each is filled.
Then I would reformat Media 1 and start over.
At some point I can reformat D: with damaging an projects.
I think the advantage to this plan is that you do not have to defrag large drives half filled with project data.
Thanks for your comments
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16. Re: What PC to buy?
acgold777 Jun 16, 2010 9:29 PM (in response to flbreen)Something else you could consider: If your drive bays are hot-swappable or even just easily accessed, just wait until each fills up and put it on the shelf when it does, replacing it with a new drive. 2TB drives are now in the $100 range; I just bought 5 Hitachis from NewEgg for $109 each after rebate. I have one of those hot swap drive bays that look like a toaster and now archive my entire project folder, including final renders and BD/DVD masters, on Hard Drives which then go back in their shipping boxes and sit on the shelf. I actually back up to two drives, because they're so cheap now they're cheaper per GB than tape.
Of course, waiting until a drive fills up will adversely affect its performance, so here's what I'd do: E as workdrive, F as Backup and G as Archive. As each project is completed, move its entire file folder to G and when that fills up, swap it out for a new drive. Backup current projects to F nightly.
There are as many ways to do this as there are PCs -- all depends on what works best for you.
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17. Re: What PC to buy?
John T Smith Jun 17, 2010 8:51 AM (in response to flbreen)flbreen wrote:
1. Can I add more hard drives?
2. Could you give me a link to buy the graphics card you specified?
3. What DVD burner would you recommend?
4. Are there at least 2 Firewire connections available in this system?
5. Could you explain what you mean with the statement:
Win2k & Premiere 6 & Pinnacle Dv500 via dual boot with Windows 7
6. Does the case have a compact flash card port?
7. What supplies and tools do I need to build this system?
1 you may add as many hard drives as there are case slots and power supply connections (make sure you have a power supply that will run everything) AND there are enough SATA connections on the motherboard you select... go to the motherboard vendor and read specifications to find out how many of what you may connect2 the GTX 285 is no longer sold... do a forum search for GTX 480
3 I like Pioneer, but pretty much any modern drive will work... read the reviews for the particular drive before you buy... I like buying from newegg since they have user reviews with each product
4 see #1 about reading the specifications at the motherboard vendor... and also read the case specifications at that vendor site
5 if you have a Pinnacle DV500 you need to dual boot since the DV500 requires Premiere 6x to operate... if you don't have a DV500... ignore
6 the case I use has USB and eSata... so to read the SD memory card from my Canon Vixia, I bought an adapter that accepts the SD card and then connects to the computer via USB
7 philips screwdriver and nimble fingers and good eyesight
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18. Re: What PC to buy?
Harm Millaard Jun 17, 2010 9:35 AM (in response to acgold777)You obviously need some help, in addition to the valuable advise given by Adam and John.
Here are some pointers:
Adobe Forums: A PC buying guide for NLE (mainly Intel)
Adobe Forums: Storage rules for an editing rig. Some...
Adobe Forums: Guide for installing and tuning a Vista...
Adobe Forums: To RAID or not to RAID, that is the...
Adobe Forums: Overclocking the i7, a beginners guide
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19. Re: What PC to buy?
flbreen Jun 17, 2010 2:21 PM (in response to John T Smith)John
1. Did you build the PC you specified in your article? "What I plan to build some time in 2010"
And does it work well with CS5?
ASUS P6T SE LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard
Storage Devices PATA 1 x ATA100 2 Dev. Max SATA 3Gb/s 6 SATA RAID 0/1/5/10 Matrix RAID 2. I assume with this mobo I can have 5 hard drives and one DVD?
Onboard USB Onboard USB 3 x USB connectors support additional 6 USB ports Onboard 1394 Onboard 1394 1 x 1394a 3. The mobo has rear panel ports and the above onboard ports.
What would I have to do to use the Onboard USB and Firewire ports?
4. I assume you are using the onboard audio processor instead of adding a sound card?
5. The specified power supply has 8 SATA Power Connectors.
I assume that is good enough for my 5 hard drives and 1 DVD drive.
Thanks again
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20. Re: What PC to buy?
John T Smith Jun 17, 2010 3:42 PM (in response to flbreen)flbreen wrote:
1. Did you build the PC you specified in your article? And does it work well with CS5?
2. I assume with this mobo I can have 5 hard drives and one DVD?
Onboard USB Onboard USB 3 x USB connectors support additional 6 USB ports Onboard 1394 Onboard 1394 1 x 1394a 3. The mobo has rear panel ports and the above onboard ports.
What would I have to do to use the Onboard USB and Firewire ports?
4. I assume you are using the onboard audio processor instead of adding a sound card?
5. The specified power supply has 8 SATA Power Connectors.
I assume that is good enough for my 5 hard drives and 1 DVD drive.
Thanks again
1 - yes and yesMy CS5/AVCHD 1st Impressions http://forums.adobe.com/thread/652694?tstart=0
and more at http://forums.adobe.com/thread/653789?tstart=02 - mix as you will, up to the limit of motherboard connections... you may also use an IDE DVD drive, as I do
3 - connect onboard ports to the cable that come in the case and which leads to ports included in the case
4 - yes
5 - should work just fine... again, my DVD drive runs on IDE and uses one of the old style power connections
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21. Re: What PC to buy?
flbreen Jun 17, 2010 8:37 PM (in response to John T Smith)John
Would you check out the system I am planning to buy?
Thanks
Hardware
Case - $89.99
Cooler Master Scout
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119196Power Supply - $129.99
Corsair 850w
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139009Motherboard - $209.99
Asus P6 SE
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131386CPU - $290.00
Intel i7 930 CPU
http://www.amazon.com/Intel-Processor-2-80GHz-LGA1366-BX80601930/dp/B0038JE9MU/ref=sr_1_1? ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1276814013&sr=8-1CPU Cooler - $43.00
Cooler Master N520
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E1683510305712Gig Ram - $170.00 x 2
Crucial 1066
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148246Graphics Card EVGA GeForce GTX480 - $502.00
http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-GeForce-PCI-Express-Graphics-015-P3-1480-AR/dp/B003EEMFTS/ref=s r_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1276812939&sr=8-1500Gig SATA Boot - $77.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136074500Gig SATA Scratch/Temp drive - $77.00
Terrabyte SATA Data drive - $94.99 x 3
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168221362842 Cooler Master Case Fan - $13.00 x 2
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811999072
SONY IDE DVD Burner - $26.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827131061&cm_re=ide_dvd_drive-_-27-1 31-061-_-ProductMonitor - $349.99
SAMSUNG P2770H Rose Black 27
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824001379Software
Windows 7 Pro 64bit - $200.00
http://www.campustech.com/item/Microsoft/Windows+7/100964134?show=overviewAdobe Master Collection CS5 - $898.95
http://www.campustech.com/item/Adobe/Creative+Suite+Master+Collection/100972072Total $3800
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22. Re: What PC to buy?
John T Smith Jun 18, 2010 8:06 AM (in response to flbreen)That all looks good to me... do read Harm's new article http://forums.adobe.com/thread/662972?tstart=0 for disk setup
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23. Re: What PC to buy?
flbreen Jun 18, 2010 8:20 AM (in response to flbreen)I plan to follow Harm's desigen for a 5 drive system.
I will have 1 500gb drive for W7 and CS5 and 4 1TB drives in Raid 5.
I guess that way I don't have to worry about scratch files and alike.
The problem will be when I need to defrag.
I liked the idea of reformatting and starting over but I cannot do that in this environment.
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24. Re: What PC to buy?
rowby Jun 18, 2010 8:25 AM (in response to flbreen)Please see this new post regarding motherboards.
http://forums.adobe.com/message/2907123#2907123
I am awaitng more info regarding the issue mentioned in that post.
Rowby
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25. Re: What PC to buy?
videoarsim Jun 18, 2010 10:20 AM (in response to flbreen)Hi, Francis,
Maybe you are considering to look at www.ibuypower.com. This is gamers PC site. But if you will put some knowledge to it, you can get some good editing machine for good buck.
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26. Re: What PC to buy?
acgold777 Jun 18, 2010 11:05 AM (in response to flbreen)Francis--
Note that formatting and defragging are not the same thing, and nothing in your proposed setup would prevent you from doing either.
My D drive (workdrive) is a 7 x 1TB RAID3, and when I need to clean it up I just do a quick format after everything has been archived elsewhere. Or you could just delete and rebuild the RAID -- although this does take a couple of days to do.
And Harm has previously mentioned the poor-man's quick defrag: just copy everything over to another drive, do a quick reformat on the original drive, and then copy back. You could probably just delete everything on the original drive and it'd work the same (maybe certain hidden files wouldn't get cleaned up, though).
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27. Re: What PC to buy?
flbreen Jun 18, 2010 12:54 PM (in response to acgold777)I am going with Harm's 5 drive plan.
I plan to have 4, 1TB drives in Raid 5.
As I delete old projects I will have to defrag the whole system.
Do you use the Windows Defragger?
On XP I had been using Perfect Disk.
It really opens up the space.
The case I am planning to buy does not have card readers on the front pannel.
Do you know where I can get a case that has card readers?
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28. Re: What PC to buy?
flbreen Jun 25, 2010 9:11 PM (in response to John T Smith)I am ready to build my PC.
The MOBO manual p. 2-31 shows a way to get the internal IEEE port to the exterior.
There is a cable running to a special blank slot cover.
There is no card in the slot but the slot cover has the ports in it as thought it were a card.
Do you know how to buy this cable and slot cover?
Thanks
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29. Re: What PC to buy?
Bill Gehrke Jun 27, 2010 5:45 AM (in response to flbreen)If you want a card reader and have a spare 5 1/4 inch or 3.5 inch slot see this Newegg page
This will also potentially be a good place to connect your IEEE-1394 cable from the motherboard.
There are a number of people that are using Perfect Disk.
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30. Re: What PC to buy?
flbreen Jun 27, 2010 9:42 AM (in response to Bill Gehrke)Thanks for the info.
I would really like to get the Firewire port in the back so I don't have cables coming out the front of the PC.
I found this unit online that I am hoping will solve the problem.
I am hoping it fits in the case I have.
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31. Re: What PC to buy?
Studio North Films Jun 27, 2010 10:47 AM (in response to flbreen)Hi,
the firewire & usb bracket usually comes with the mobo, the last 2 asus mobo i have had came included.
Baz
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32. Re: What PC to buy?
flbreen Jun 27, 2010 5:45 PM (in response to Studio North Films)I looked at my asus mobo parts list and it did not include a firewire & usb bracket.
I did find one online.
I ordered it because I need to have the cables coming out the back of the PC rather than the front.
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33. Re: What PC to buy?
flbreen Jul 5, 2010 9:58 AM (in response to John T Smith)I or rather my brother put this system together.
He got it all to work even though it is very crowded in that box.
He configured Raid 5 with 4 1TB drives and the operating system on a smaller 5th drive.
He installed the W7 operating system.
One thing that never worked was the computer alert speaker.
I took it home and the next it didn't work.
The main board lights up but no video and the drives don't seem to be turning.
I will try my brother once again and then go to a PC repair shop.
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34. Re: What PC to buy?
Harm Millaard Jul 5, 2010 10:05 AM (in response to flbreen)Just check the cables. I had to install a new mobo recently, took the whole case to the shop, exchanged the mobo there, tested it and everything worked nicely. Drove home and my raid was degraded. During the drive one of the cables came loose.
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35. Re: What PC to buy?
flbreen Jul 5, 2010 4:26 PM (in response to Harm Millaard)From what we could determine damage to the mobo occured during transit.
I am returning the mobo and the processor asap.
It might be worth noting how delicate these super PCs are with their massive cooler units anchored in the mobo.
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36. Re: What PC to buy?
flbreen Aug 29, 2010 4:36 AM (in response to John T Smith)I built the W7 CS5 64bit PC using the parts described in your article.
It works well except the USB file transfer is problematic.
When I am transfering one 1.8GB video file to the PC the transfer rate starts out strong and then tails off to 1MB per second.
I start the PC then immediately start the file transfer.
As far as I know there are no other processes going on.
After I complete the first file transfer and try another I start out at arounf 1mb per second.
Asus P6T SE MB, Intel i7 930
USB Driver info: File version: 6.1.7600.16385(win7_rtm.090713-1255)
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37. Re: What PC to buy?
Bill Gehrke Aug 29, 2010 7:13 AM (in response to flbreen)Why are you transferring big files with USB? Tell us how many processes you do have running.
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38. Re: What PC to buy?
flbreen Aug 29, 2010 8:54 AM (in response to Bill Gehrke)I am moving several 1.8GB AVI files from my Firestore FS-H200 to my PC drive.
After restarting the PC the file transfer starts out at 15MB per second but before the file is finished it is running at 2MB per second.
After the first file is finished I start another file and sometimes that file starts slow and stays slow.
I do not know any other way of doing it but USB.
I also had the same problem using a portable drive through USB.
I attached an image of the task manager while loading one of these files at a slow rate.
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Capture.JPG 38.7 K
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39. Re: What PC to buy?
Bill Gehrke Aug 29, 2010 11:31 AM (in response to flbreen)Francis, on the processes you did not check "Show All" at the bottom. It appears that you may have an AntiVirus program running. That might cause a slowdown. Do you have indexing turned off on your PC drive? Do you have more than one drive on your PC?




