[Blitz6804]

EDIT: As of 12/17/2010, the rig has been renamed Loricatus Tropical Incendia.

As promised, I have ordered the parts for my new build. The build, as per my sig rig, will contain:

Gigabyte 890FXA-UD5
AMD PhenomII x6 1090T "Thuban"
G.Skill "ECO" DDR3-1600
and four Samsung F3 1TB in RAID 10
(total cost is $920)

All in my priorly powder-coated Thermaltake Armor. I am currently waiting on the new cold cathodes to get here -- as I am changing my current red to white -- and will likely start building Tuesday when they are scheduled to arrive.

Ever wonder what $300 worth of hard drives in a $10 cage looks like? Me too!

Because my camera skills suck (as I just proved above), I have decided to place my RAM and CPU on the scanner. Yes, they are still in the packages, but I am too lazy (wussy) to take them out until I am installing them.

There will be updates starting next Wednesday the latest, I promise. At that time, expect to see pictures of assembly, and hopefully, better cable management than I usually do.

 

[Tator Tot]

Mmmm subbing this.

Why not scan the HDD's lol

 

[Blitz6804]

They were a little annoying to put in the cage. I have to say, the 1TBs are seriously heavier than my 750 GB. I thought my 750 GB 32mb Hitachi 7K1000 had three platters, these have two, maybe I am mistaken?

 

[Tator Tot]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blitz6804 They were a little annoying to put in the cage. I have to say, the 1TBs are seriously heavier than my 750 GB. I thought my 750 GB 32mb Hitachi 7K1000 had three platters, these have two, maybe I am mistaken?

They have (4) 200GB platters.

Samsung F3's are 500GB platters

http://techreport.com/articles.x/13034

 

[Blitz6804]

Still, four platters to two should be heavier, but unless my memory is mistaken, its not.

For the record, that fully-laiden hard drive cage comes in at 2.8 Kg.

 

[jemping]

subbed.
that's crazy raid 0 over there

 

[Tator Tot]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jemping subbed. that's crazy raid 0 over there

He's gonna run a RAID 10 array .

 

[Blitz6804]

Yeah, the idea of quadrupling my fault rate without adjusting my fault tolerance did not really appeal to me. Would I like the speed? Sure. Do I think it is worth the risk? Maybe not.

To demonstrate, let me assume that the average hard drive has a 2% chance of failure within five years.

For a RAID 0 to die, any of the four drives may die. Since each has a 2% failure rate:

P(d0) \\/ P(d1) \\/ P(d2) \\/ P(d3) = 0.02 + 0.02 + 0.02 + 0.02 = 0.08 = 8%

For a RAID 10 to die, you need to kill two drives of the same mirror. Killing one drive off each mirror will not kill the RAID. So if drive a0 dies, a1 must also die; losing b0 or b1 will not do it. With each having a 2% failure rate:

(P(a0) /\\ P(a1)) \\/ (P(b0) /\\ P(b1)) = (0.02 * 0.02) + (0.02 * 0.02) = 0.0004 + 0.0004 = 0.0008 = 0.08%

As I was also considering RAID 5 for a while, as it has 50% more storage than RAID 10, so I will discuss that now; I ultimately decided against it due to the CPU overhead since I cannot (at this time) afford a PERC card as Tator Tot suggests I get. To kill a RAID 5 array, you must kill any two drives you want. Keeping that same 2% failure rate:

(P(d0) /\\ (P(d1) \\/ P(d2) \\/ P(d3)) \\/ (P(d1) /\\ (P(d2) \\/ P(d3)) \\/ (P(d2) \\/ P(d3)) = (0.02 * (0.02 + 0.02 + 0.02)) + (0.02 * (0.02 + 0.02)) + (0.02 * 0.02) = (0.02 * 0.06) + (0.02 * 0.04) + (0.02 * 0.02) = 0.02 * (0.06 + 0.04 + 0.02) = 0.02 * 0.12 = 0.0024 = 0.24%

In summation:

RAID 0:

• 8% failure rate
• four times greater than a single drive
• Capacity = 4 TB
• Fastest of the three

RAID 5:

• 0.24% failure rate
• eight-and-a-third times less than a single drive
• Capacity = 3 TB
• Slowest of the three without a dedicated card

RAID 10:

• 0.08% failure rate
• twenty-five times less than a single drive
• one-hundred times less than RAID 0
• three times less than RAID 5
• Capacity = 2 TB
• Faster than a single drive, slower than RAID 0

Sure, I have a lot of missing capacity with RAID 10, but since I am going to partition such that I am only using about 600-700 GiB, what does it matter?

 

[N2Gaming]

$900.00 for a few parts

Do you know how many starving Americans can eat off of $900.00 ? Not many would be my guess ...

Have you had a chance to bench test your new hardware. I'm curious as to how well the Ram plays w/the cpu/mobo combo ...

 

[Blitz6804]

Nope. I only have one PSU and GPU, so in order to test the new parts, I have to make the rig inoperable. As I hate my laptop, I am holding off on that as long as possible. Once this is all squared away, I will also reformat the laptop; I figure it is good to have both rigs on clean installs at the same time.

 

[Blitz6804]

It should also be noted that I am replacing the red CCFLs with white ones, changing my XClio side fan from red to color change, and am replacing the red power/HDD LEDs. The HDD LED is going white, the power is going to a color change as well. The LEDs might take a while to get hooked up (need to get someone to solder for me as I cant do it well with parts that small) but it will be hooked up eventually.

 

[pioneerisloud]

Subbed!

 

[Blitz6804]

So, I am tired of not being able to look into my case window because of bare CCFLs blinding me. I am told the white bulbs I have ordered are much brighter than the red I have, so something must be done.

I thought up the idea of creating baffles for them. First I tried cutting index cards into strips and coating one side in electricians tape. It did not work well; they were floppy, and when placed over the CCFL the case as a whole was much darker.

Then I thought of aluminum foil.

The roll I used is 12" wide. I pulled a piece 6" long. Then proceeded to fold it in half the short way giving me a 12x3" strip. I made an approximate 0.75" fold, and continued to roll it giving me a 12x0.75" strip several layers thick. I then covered one side (the side with the seam) in two strips of electrical tape and cut off the excess. I finished by wrapping each end in a band of electrical tape to facilitate double-side taping them to the bulbs.

For the 15" CCFL, I pulled a piece off the roll about 16" wide. I then repeatedly folded it in half until I ended up with a strip approximately 16x0.75". Again I used the electrical tape on the rough side, wrapped two bans around the outside, and cut down to 15".

I did a quick test by putting one of my 12" strips against my 12" bottom CCFL. I no longer can see the bulb in the case, and the case is actually brighter inside because the shininess of aluminum is reflecting the light into the case instead of it being wasted in my eyes.

I have attached the 15" and both 12" I made; one 12" is right-side up, the other is right-side down.

 

[Tator Tot]

That's some awesome modding Blitz!

Can't wait to see some pics of how the lighting looks while finished.

I personally used the inside of my window mod with some aluminum duct to reflect the light back in, but keep the CCFL's attached to the door.

I got the duct at Home Depot or Lowes, can't remember which.

 

[Blitz6804]

I have aluminum tape myself. However, after having used it on a heat sink (to prevent seepage of airflow between the fan and the fins, as well as to keep all air going through the fins all the way) I know that it is near impossible to remove. Given the frequency I move stuff around, I wanted to have something that I can remove easily. Double-sided tape, even the good stuff, is easy enough to remove if need be.

 

[Tator Tot]

It's aluminum ducting, like used to route wires in a house. Not tape.

I've got it attached to the side with 3M double sided tape like used in the Bill Owens videos for adding a case window.

 

[Blitz6804]

Oh, I got it now. Cool idea. My only concern is seeing the aluminum through the window, which is why I coated the baffles in electrician's tape. It would be a great idea to make the ducts as you suggest and powdercoat the one side to match my case, but that is out of my ability now.

 

[Tator Tot]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blitz6804 Oh, I got it now. Cool idea. My only concern is seeing the aluminum through the window, which is why I coated the baffles in electrician's tape. It would be a great idea to make the ducts as you suggest and powdercoat the one side to match my case, but that is out of my ability now.

I've got them molded to the side of the door currently, so when you look in you can't really see the CCFL's (because of the light being bounced) and they're just small enough to stay hidden against the door.

 

[Blitz6804]

Due to my inability to solder well, I have decided to "contract out" as it were to my father. The good news, the wires should be neater. The bad: no updates until Friday or Saturday.

 

[Tator Tot]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blitz6804 Due to my inability to solder well, I have decided to "contract out" as it were to my father. The good news, the wires should be neater. The bad: no updates until Friday or Saturday.

Nuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu uu!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!