New System

1.2 TB (2 x 600 GB, RAID 0) is a large OS drive, although if you are using it for scratch files too, maybe not.

You might review Harm's discussion on "To RAID or Not to RAID"

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/525263

and learn more about RAID types/configurations, particularly for your planned 4 x 1TB storage array.  I would consider RAID 3, 5 or 6.

I use a Corsair H70 CPU cooler and am happy with it.

There's a lot of discussion about whether costly high speed memory is really necessary/valuable, particularly with 24 GB memory on your mobo.  You may look for more expert advice on that issue.  Be sure to check the QVL for the mobo to check memory compatibility.

Presumably you're planning on Win7-64 bit as the OS.

Good luck!

1. 4.4 GHZ should be reasonably easy. CoolerMaster Hyper 212, Noctua NH-D14, Prolimatech Megahalem, etc.

2. Yes.

3. Get a raid controller ASAP. Otherwise you will run into difficulties in getting your data across to a new array, which will be a major obstacle. A 4 disk raid0 entails quite some risks. I would rather go for a single 150+ GB OS/programs disk and a 5 or 6 disk raid5, although your performance will suffer, since ICHR controllers are pretty lousy with parity raids.

There is no way that a single disk will be limited by a SATA2 connector. SATA3 is mostly hype and all about theoretical bandwidth, but in practice it shows no benefits in throughput. The one advantage of some SATA3 drives is the larger cache, 64 MB versus 32 MB, but that is all. Even with large arrays there is no difference in performance between SATA2 and SATA3, because the PCI-e bus is the limiting factor.

It is about the same with USB2 and USB3. Theoretically USB3 is way faster, but in practice USB3 disks are only 2-3 times faster than USB2, because of the congestion on the USB bus and the sharing of resources, at least from the reports I have read.

i would recommend that card over the areca purely for price/performance.

i honestly see no point to the Areca cards over that one

Scott

ADK

Scott,

I agree with you for out of the box controllers, but you disregard the capabilities of the Areca to:

1. Increase cache memory to 4 Gb, which the Intel can't and this makes a significant difference,

2. The ability to add a BBM (battery backup module) to the Areca, and

3. The support of Raid3/30 which the Intel does not have.

I would suggest the WD RE4 (bit costly) or the Samsung F3, both in 1 TB sizes. Another option is the Seagate 7200.12.

" 2. The ability to add a BBM (battery backup module) to the Areca"

The Intel card does have the BBM connector as well.

Eric

ADK

Check out these links:

a general guide for overclocking:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cu0I2ITDQg&feature=related

and board-specific information here:

http://vip.asus.com/forum/topic.aspx?board_id=1&model=P6X58D-E&SLanguage=en-us

I would suggest routine consult of the latter link.....good luck!

And, one more useful link:

http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?id=20081220191040237&board_id=1&model=P6T+Deluxe&page= 1&SLanguage=en-us

Darren,

I suggest either an 8-disk raid5 or raid6 or a 7-disk raid5 with one hot-spare.

wb martin...

how do you like the h70 cooler?

I looked at the h50 and h70. Some reviews said the h50 wasn't much improvment over stock and the h70 had lots of fan noise, etc.

What has your experience been?

Hi Jay,

So far, I like the H70 cooler.  When I have monitored/checked temperatures, the CPU olds at 26 deg. C., and is pretty stable at that temperature, but I am not overclocking yet which is sure to put a thermal load on the processor and the ASUS Rampage III Formula mobo with 24GB onboard in general. 

I built the system in the CoolerMaster HAF-X case, and I added an extra 120mm fan to the top of the case for improved airflow.   I am only using one graphics adapter - the superclocked eVGA GeForce 470 and I haven't optimized the system fan speeds yet, so I haven't optimized system noise yet - that's all forthcoming.

Overall, I am happy with the H70.  It has a small footprint in size - I haven't had problems with space issues inside the HAF-X as some people have reported.

Hope this helps.  Good luck!

Bill

Hi Darren,

That's a little bit toasty, but it is your summer in the southern hemisphere, right?  I suspect the best you can hope for with fan-assisted liquid cooling radiators is ambient temp, right?  36 should be OK though.

The side fan on the HAF-X is located lower on the case - over the graphics card region of the mobo, so I don't have the problem of it obstructing the CPU cooler; however, I was REALLY reluctant to stay with the tall CPU cooler assembly that shipped with the i7-980X - it just seemed too monstrous!  I do worry about my ICH and IOH temps though - they run about 46 and 48 deg. C, respectively; however, I don't know what they're supposed to run at. 

Bill

Stripe size leave default for raid selected.

Select Raid 5 or Raid 6. Raid 6 is one more level of parity over raid 5 which means you can have 2 drives fail and your raid is held together by the parity. If the 3rd drive fails then the raid is gone. This also takes the equivalent of another drive from the raid volume size so you will sacrifice more space.

Access Policy - RW

Write Policy - Always Write Back

I/O - Cached

Drive Cache - Enabled

Leave BGI

Eric

ADK

Read ahead should be set to adaptive. That will help some with the fluctuations

The reasons you see the dips and so forth have to do with how Sata drives drop in performance once the capacity exceeds 50%. At 60% the lost performance becomes very significant and at 75 % the performance drops like a rock. The Higher End raid controllers like the Intel and Areca cards attempt to minimize this with cached instructions i/e why Harm always pushes people to get the extra cache on their controllers. The other side to the fluctuations is the parity. In a raid 0 you won't see near the fluctuations. It will normally look relatively flat over the array. A parity raid however fluctuates more due to the extra overhead for the parity.Now the controllers on the drives will also effect the fluctuations so an array of 1 model drive may fluctuate differently than another model array. Your readout looks normal and the low spots are likely the end of drives where the speed is normally slowest on SATA drives. This is why SCSI drives were so predominant back several years ago. They did not have the same performance drops that SATA drives do as the volume capacity is filled. SSD Drives have taken that spot in today's market.

Eric

ADK

Without knowing the configuration of the old machine and the new machine, I couldn't point to anything.

Eric

ADK

Ya something is not setup right on the new system. There is no way the old Xeon system should bench better than the new one.

Eric

ADK

Darren,

With 8 x F3's in Raid5 on the Intel controller your AVI test would likely be around 75 - 90 seconds if things are properly setup. Have you tried HDTach or Atto to see what your transfer rates are?

The AVI test with 8 WD drives in raid 5 was in the 60's in testing here and that was with 5.0.1. It was the same as 2 raid 0 arrays on that raid controller.

Eric

ADK