Computers: More RAM/HDD = Better??

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Looking at upgrading the computer to be a bit faster when multitasking and a bit more stable. I just want to run a few ideas past some people 1st:)
Current spec:
Quad 6600
4gb Ram 667mhz
500gb hdd
Radeon 4850 512mb card
Vista 64

The hdd is getting a bit full and i'm looking at upgrading to 1tb samsung drives in raid 1, which i think is better for stability and recovery????
The next thing was possibly more ram. The motherboard will support 2 slots of ddr3 or 4 slots of ddr2. So 4gb of ddr3 or 8gb ddr2? Will i notice this over the current 4gb? (the 8gb ddr2 would be faster 1066mhz)

The computer is mainly used for photo stuff and multiple applications that my girlfriend uses for work. It also serves as a media centre for our extender box for the tv. Currently running CS3, CS4 is on the horizon;)
Cheers for you time and thoughts
 
You won't notice a huge difference in performance, at the end of the day it depends on applications and how they utilise the RAM. Raid 1 is good for resilience I assume you will buy 2 x 1TB drives?
 
The speed of the HDD is more important to performance than the capacity. Consider having a quick (7200rpm, google for Velociraptor drives) disk as your OS/working disk, then a raid array for your storage.
 
RAID 1 will slow your computer down, unless you go for a hardware controller which is many £££. The computer will have to write the same data to each disk. Disks are reasonably reliable, I find myself needing to upgrade capacity before they fail. RAID0 is a better choice if you want more performance. Of course RAID is never a substitute for backups. Disks do fail but you are more likely to accidentally delete something.

More RAM is always a good thing but take a look at task manager and see what your commit charge is. If you are regularly working over 4gb, then Windows will swap. If you aren't hitting the limit, then more RAM isn't going to make much difference.
 
Wow, quick responses!!:LOL:
Yes it would be 2 x 1tb drives. Does the Raid1 slow both read and write or just write?
I'll have to check on the memory usage :)
 
Software raid is a real PITA on your primary disc as it can be very slow.
Windows needs all the help it can get ;)

I've compromised on a NAS with 4x500Gb drives configured RAID 5 giving 1.5Tb storage.
My data goes on the NAS - I don't care if Windows goes phut as I can always rebuild it.
And I can access the NAS from any of my PCs.

I've also added UPS to the NAS to guarantee an orderly shutdown if the power fails.
Might be worth considering!

On a side note....
I've read that big disks can slow things down. Many factors involved including the physical size of the disc, spin speed and the number of entries in the FAT.
The theory goes that it is best to split the disk into smaller volumes with the most highly utilised data in volumes physically located closest to the edge of the disc.
Never bothered myself as it's just too much hassle!
 
i would aslo look at your ram.
match the bus speed of your motherboard with the ram so you get best possible speed.
if it will support DDR3 then i suggest getting that to the max bus speed your board will support.
8GB or matched pairs would be ideal if your could afford it or even 6GB ?
 
I never thought about the control card for the raid set up, they aren't that pricey..... Anyway of enlightening me on these?:thinking:
 
Ross2 said:
i would aslo look at your ram.
match the bus speed of your motherboard with the ram so you get best possible speed.
if it will support DDR3 then i suggest getting that to the max bus speed your board will support.
8GB or matched pairs would be ideal if your could afford it or even 6GB ?
Click to expand...
I can only fit 2 slots of ddr3, so would be limited to 4gb. Or 8gb of ddr2, which i would upto 1066 which the board can handle
 
If the HDD is the bottleneck (which it often is these days) then don't compromise - get yourself an SSD as your boot drive.
 
a few things i picked up from you post that dont seem to have been picked up...

You mention stability, what makes you say your system isnt stable?
-you have a good system and okay it might slow under heavy load but if its unstable you should be looking for the the problem not throwing money at it. ( from your vista 64 specs i would guess an inproper or old driver)

You mention your system performing a lot of different tasks, although this in its self shouldnt cause any stability or speed problems it can.
 
I read 'stability' to mean preventing data loss due to drive failure.

The low-end RAID cards are essentially the same as software raid in Windows/Linux. Useful if you have a port shortage but they aren't going to give you a performance boost. Software RAID 0 is nearly always going to help but even that, in my experience, isn't much of a performance boost.

SSDs are coming down in price and might be worthy of consideration now, more so than a hardware RAID controller IMO. I'd like a system like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96dWOEa4Djs
 
if your going to consider SSD please get fully informed...this is a good start

or here for a video round up
 
I've got a Q6600 running Vista64 & noticed no difference in "real world" performance when I moved from 4Gb to 8GB ram or moving from a SATA150 to a SATA300 drives.

I'd stay away from RAID, if one drive fails you lose the lot. OK that's what backups are for but it's a PITA to restore / rebuild the machine....

What did give the boost was changing the CPU clock from 2.4Ghz to 3.2Ghz, buy a good CPU heatsink & get an extra 33% processing power :)
 
mrgubby said:
I'd stay away from RAID, if one drive fails you lose the lot. OK that's what backups are for but it's a PITA to restore / rebuild the machine....
Click to expand...

That would only be in Raid 0 , were the work is done over the two drives , in Raid 1 the files are mirrored over two drives, if one fails the other keeps going and you just need to replace the fails drive.

I would think about getting enterprise class hard drives, they a not much more than normal but built for the server market and design to run 24/7
 
whiteflyer said:
That would only be in Raid 0 , were the work is done over the two drives , in Raid 1 the files are mirrored over two drives, if one fails the other keeps going and you just need to replace the fails drive.
Click to expand...

RAID1 doesn't give you any performance increase BUT it is very good for looking after your photos :clap:
 
RAID1 isn't infallible either. It depends on how the drive fails and how the software/hardware is able to tolerate the fault. I've lost systems based on software RAID1 before. I don't think its worth it in software.
 
with regards to your RAM, 4GB should be fine for what you use the PC for. Maybe its the speed of the ram which is a problem? 667mhz is pretty slow.

im using 2GB 1066mhz at the moment with a Q6600 processor and it performs pretty well most of the time, but i definitely need 4GB

Check your motherboard and see what speed RAM it supports :)
 
You'd probably feel a noticeable increase in performance by moving to a solid state hard disk. Intel are leading the market still for SSDs, they're not cheap though. Indilinx Barefood controller based drives also perform well.

Backup to external USB / Drobo? I use a Mac and regularly backup to an external Time Machine USB drive.

AMD/ATI's recently released 5770 and 5750 cards have also been warmly received by reviewers and are reasonably priced.
 
October 22nd get an upgrade to Windows 7. In my experience, it is significantly better performing than Vista, and with the 64-bit version and 4gb+ it flies...
I will be upgrading ALL my Windows boxes to 7, from XP onwards....
 
Viper said:
but surely with 64bit you can only use a 64bit program, so all the previous 32bit ones will be useless?
Click to expand...

No, that would be silly as there aren't that many 64-bit specific programs out there (although PS and LR include both 32 and 64-bit versions). Most 32-bit apps run fine. Some need a little bit of tweaking. A few (just a few) refuse to work at all.
 
chrisgeary said:
RAID1 isn't infallible either. It depends on how the drive fails and how the software/hardware is able to tolerate the fault. I've lost systems based on software RAID1 before. I don't think its worth it in software.
Click to expand...

:clap:

yes! someone else that bangs the "RAID isnt infallible" drum..

i too have had RAID arrays lost (contents of all attached drives trashed) thanks to a failed server grade RAID controller on more than one occasion. RAID is not a substitute for having multi physical device (where RAID = one device no matter how many attached drives) backups.

are you running media center all of the time? because that alone will be bogging the box out, and if youre trying to use CS3 at the same time thats slow down city..

personally id suggest splitting MC out onto another box.
 
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