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Question re preferred HD


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#1
mlwjackson

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I am in the process of building a PC that during weekday business hours will recieve a continuous stock market data feed, display some of the data being recieved in continuously updating chart form (simple 2D graphics--nothing fancy just lots of data points). There will be at least 3 seperate programs up at the same time all of the time. On the weekend it will be used to perfrom analysis on a large number of files but each file is relatively small. It would appear to me that the critical factors of weekday use are RAM, CPU and video card. On the weekend it would appear that HD speed is the critical factor. Am I missing anything?

My proposed build is as follows: Antec Sonata II case, Athlon 64 x2 +4200, MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum mobo, 2GB Crucial DDR400 (1gb x 2), eVGA GeForce 6200 128MB video card, integrated sound, Sony DRU-810A Dual Format Double Layer DVD RW/CDRW, then the HD and there is my debate. I am trying to decide between a Seagate Barracuda SATA 160GB and a Western Digital Cavier SATA 250 GB. I haven't decided if I will install two drives immediately and mirror them or wait to install the second drive. Prices are similar for both on the web. Both have very similar seek times (about 8.5 ms) but Seagate is only 160 GB but 5 year warranty while WD is 250GB and 3 year warranty. I've never had a HD die on me. Are there other factors I need to be looking or does the extra 90GB of almost the same money seal the deal? Mark
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#2
warriorscot

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WD no doubt more space same price easy question, drives die but after 3 years they will be even cheaper, and thats auuming you still want an HD there will proably benew memory tech youll want. This guy here did the same thing as you want check out this topic you might find it useful to you.http://www.geekstogo.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=83623&hl=
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#3
Thebinaryman

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my only advice is i had a western digital caviar in one of my computers, it was terribly loud (ear ringing loud) compared to my seagates and maxtors. go for the warranty in my opinion. also, in the topic discussing the amd x2 vs operton, i think an operton would be a better deal for you, if this computer is running all day. and make sure you have good heatsinks/fans, and at least some kind of fan on the video card. dont forget to cool the hard drive if it gets alot of traffic.
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#4
p-zero

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If you need speed anything with a 16mb cache will dramatically improve the performance overall. And the higher the rpm's the better, but also way more expensive. When i was looking for a HD I noticed the 10k rpm and above were almost double the price of the 7200's and a lot of em had only a 8mb cache.
-Pete.
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#5
Hammm

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yer, seagate have the better reputation, most major companies use them over WD. as for the cache that is critical. opterons are sever based so they should be better, make sure you get ECC RAM, and as for the gfx card, you could get intergrated but i don't think many AMDs have them. If you plan to mirror get two of the same drives but if you want performance, you should get 4 80Gb drives and use them in RAID 0+1 or maybe a 120Gb one. The problem with mirroring a larger drive like 250Gb, you can take a whole weekend of time with the CPU only doing mirroring to put that data to anyother drive. my advice is to get smaller drive and run in RAID 0+1. one, better performance, two, doesn't tkae as long to rewrite and three, you still have mirroring.
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#6
Thebinaryman

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i would stick with 7200rpm, much more cost effective. you can get a 7200rpm 16mb sata2 for cheap compared to a 10,000rpm 8mb sata1
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