Building a quick photo workstation? (PC)

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thompo

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Neil Thompson
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Im looking to upgrade my exisitng setup as its struggling big time, LR3 causes it to overheat when working with a few files in a folder and previews take a good while to update.

What i have is 3 years old i think.

AM2+ Mobo with SATA, USB 2.0, Firewire (which my 1d2 refuses to work with!), 4x1GB DDR2 slots.
AMD Athlon 64 4800+
4x 1GB PC6400/800Mhz DDR2 Ram
256Mb PCI-e gfx card

cant think of anything else relevant.

Is there anything significant i can upgrade without costing a fortune.

Current thoughts are a better AM2+ processor or should i change mobo for AM3 or Intel? May also open up the option of more or better (DDR3) Ram, but will cost a lot!

Currently running XP which as far as i can gather doesnt support 4Gb of ram? So changing to 7.

Dont know if Gfx card would help things significantly?


In terms of drives i run the OS and programs of a 320Gb Sata.
I have a 500Gb IDE for storage
and copies of every shot on an external 1Tb.

Im buying 2 x 1Tb internal Sata drives and was going to use these to store stuff as its quicker than the external drive.

What are my options? What benefits does the likes of RAID etc have? I dont know what it does or how it works but someone told me its better lol.

Any input appreciated

Cheers Neil
 
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I can't help much on the PC upgrade as I tend to just decide on a budget and find the best I can for that. Upgrading old gear is pointless to me - it's more cost effective to sell the old gear and buy new (especially as you'd get Windows 7 licensed on a new build) as well as the warranty that goes with new gear.

As for RAID - there are various types, but I think the one your "someone" may have told you about will be RAID-1. This is a system for having two hard drives (which have to be the same size, or bigger than each other) and mirroring the contents between them. This isn't the same as a piece of backup software that copies the data between them every x hours - when a file is written, it is written onto both disks automatically (well not quite, but to keep it simple to explain ;-).

The benefit of this is if one disk fails it can replaced with a new one, and the system will continue to work properly with no data loss.

In my opinion, this isn't really sensible for home users. I'd much rather have a drive to store my data on, an external drive to do backups onto (when I remember!) and some sort of online backup system, e.g. Humyo, Backblaze, Mozy, to protect against theft of the PC/fire/etc. RAID can be expensive and difficult to manage - unless you know what you are doing with it, I would forget about it and just make sure you have good backups.

Matt
 
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Windows XP, Vista and 7 can all use more than 3GB but it has to be the 64-bit versions of these operating systems.

The processor isn't too bad (although I'm sure I remember that Intel processors are better at dealing with number crunching - but then isn't it all number crunching as it's essentially binary?!!) and neither is the RAM a problem to be honest. I would start with the graphics card. I prefer Nvidia as I've always found ATI to crash - maybe I pushed them too hard?
 
I have seen lots of people saying that changing there O/S drive to a SSD based drive gives a massive improvement, maybe others who have done this can you advise you on that.
 
First question.... budget?

Benefits of raid = 24/7 time redundancy. Nothing more. Raid 0 some people claim performance gains but for performance vs cost its negligible.

Ssd, you won't see mind blowing differences but the feel of programs will be snapier. Again not cheap for small drives, and a fair bit if config to retain drive life.
 
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1st your budget
2nd What kind of RAM are you using, if neccesary take the lid of your pc and post the memery numbering.
3rd Do you want to run loads of apps or just one or two.

I've just done this recently and have ended up spending an arm and a leg, but did recycle lots of my old kit.

I also ended up with one heck of a faster machine, noting that I had the same processor as you.
 
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I use an even earlier processor/mobo than you and have no real problem with LR3.

I would suggest you clean out your CPU fan.
 
As already said check the fans for dust. PCs should be able to run flat out for ages without over heating.

Makes sure it is free of viruses and other nasties. Check what is being loaded at startup and disable anything unnecessary.

Get rid of unnecessary files.

Defrag the drives.

If these do not help then, because your current setup is not bad, I think the cheapest solution is to get a new small internal hard drive (though small HDs are difficult to find now), but a 160 Gig drive, for example, will cost about £30

Install XP on this new drive. You'll then have a fresh installation of the OS (which is always a good thing) and you can use the 320Gig drive for just programs, in addition to the 500Gig. Have to say there is the risk that your PSU may not be able to power three hard drives and if so you will need a new one.

I would not bother with RAID. The RAID level that is usually talked about here is RAID 1. This uses 2 drives (more sometimes) and anything saved, is saved to both, so if one goes down you have the other. So it can be used instead of backing up, but this is not the intended use of RAID 1. Its main use is in situations where the loss of computing ability is critical - big business, major control systems.

RAID can be used for backup, but there are simpler solutions, ie what you are using already.

Using an internal drive as the backup has the advantage of convenience and speed, but if your machine gets stolen, you have lost the lot. Best solution, I think, is an external drive stored offsite - neighbours, family, at work
 
RAID is never the same as a backup! If the data gets written wrongly to one disk it'll be written wrongly to the other(s).

Just saving neil_g from hurting his head!
 
OP - if the computer is overheating then you need to sort the cooling, it should never do that even if the processor is working flat out. There is a fault somewhere that needs to be addressed.

gman said:
The processor isn't too bad (although I'm sure I remember that Intel processors are better at dealing with number crunching - but then isn't it all number crunching as it's essentially binary?!!)
Click to expand...

Everything in computers is binary when you get right down to it, since everything is either "on" or "off" (or 1/0 or yes/no or true/false). The numbers that are crunched are ultimately represented in binary.

Intel all the way for processor, core2 or later.
 
What you said, Barry about data getting written wrongly to both drive in a RAID array is correct, but it is not a reason for not using RAID to do backups.

It applies to any situation. If data get written wrongly to the hard drive and its is backed up, by any means, then the backup has corrupted data.

Some of the reasons for not using RAID are it is more complex than the usual backup solution, more expensive, and as I said not its intended use.
 
Tringa said:
Some of the reasons for not using RAID are it is more complex than the usual backup solution, more expensive, and as I said not its intended use.
Click to expand...

and prone to fire, theft, hardware failure.. etc etc.

but like you say it was never designed as a backup method and should not be used as one. its a redundancy method for 365/24/7 systems where techies can swap out disks pretty much instantly so they never have to take the system down.
 
Tringa said:
What you said, Barry about data getting written wrongly to both drive in a RAID array is correct, but it is not a reason for not using RAID to do backups.

It applies to any situation. If data get written wrongly to the hard drive and its is backed up, by any means, then the backup has corrupted data.

Some of the reasons for not using RAID are it is more complex than the usual backup solution, more expensive, and as I said not its intended use.
Click to expand...

If you accidentally delete a file, how will a RAID "backup" help?
 
Hey guys thanks for all the replies!

Budget for upgrade is 2-300.
Ram is:
1x 1GB Crucial DDR2 800
1x 1GB Value select DD2 800
2x 1GB Kingston DDR2 800

I have noticed though that when the computer boots and it does the ram check it shows the speed as 667Mhz? why is this?

Ive since removed the heat sink and found there was a ton load of thermal paste between the chip and the heat sink. The chip was actually welded to the heatsink due to the amount of paste and had to be pulled out of the (locked) socket!

I cleaned the chip (straighted a few damaged pins from removing) and re-applied a light smear of thermal paste, hasnt overheated yet :D

Im in the process of moving a lot of stuff to the backup drive.

My plan at the minute is wipe the 320gb drive and put a fresh install of XP or 7 64bit on it to utilise the ram. My reasons for sticking with 32bit were to support my 1ds2 but i cant get it working anyway so no loss moving to 64bit.

I may also upgrade the PSU as it will be maxed out running 2 additional drives.

think ill give the RAID thing a miss and just keep on backing up the important stuff.

Cheers Neil
 
probably the mish mash of RAM causing it to report a slower speed. while technically theyre all DDR2 800 the timings and latency of each stick may be different to the point where the motherboard has to reduce the speed to get it all stable.

always run matched sticks if possible.

no a tonne of thermal paste wont have helped, you only need the thinest of layers to level out microscopic valleys in the metals (unless youre in to lapping to the point of extreme smoothness, but thats another topic). however even with a thin smear heatsinks often "stick" to the processor over time, its quite normal and should unstick with a bit of a twist. NEVER force a CPU out of its socket..

for that budget id look at 2nd hand. what PSU do you have currently, as a decent one will wipe out £80 of your budget instantly.
 
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If I were you go for a quad core and ddr3 ram.
i paid about £150 off ebay - chip/board and 2g ram - and 1gig graphics card.

happy hunting
 
gman said:
Windows XP, Vista and 7 can all use more than 3GB but it has to be the 64-bit versions of these operating systems.

The processor isn't too bad (although I'm sure I remember that Intel processors are better at dealing with number crunching - but then isn't it all number crunching as it's essentially binary?!!) and neither is the RAM a problem to be honest. I would start with the graphics card. I prefer Nvidia as I've always found ATI to crash - maybe I pushed them too hard?
Click to expand...

And perhaps a W/D velociraptor drive rather than raid 0, but they do cost a bit more than a 7200 rpm drive. (raptor spins at 10000 rpm)
 
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