Discussion
It looks like in the not to distant future I'm going to be kicked out of my loft man cave and have to move into our small box room.
This means I'm going to have to downsize all my kit.
Built the current PC late 2010 so it's not done bad. i5 2500k running at 4.5Ghz, GTX970 in a huge Cosmos S Case. Only game at 1080 so find it still runs most stuff OK.
I'll be looking at the smallest form factor that will comfortably run a minimum 1070 card. Storage is also a factor. Currently have about 40Tb across various disks attached to the system which is used to back up about 10Tb of important files. Rest is just for games etc.
Files also backup up to the cloud and offsite.
I'm also going to have to downsize my hifi that i've had for 30 years.
Any recommendations before I start looking ?
This means I'm going to have to downsize all my kit.
Built the current PC late 2010 so it's not done bad. i5 2500k running at 4.5Ghz, GTX970 in a huge Cosmos S Case. Only game at 1080 so find it still runs most stuff OK.
I'll be looking at the smallest form factor that will comfortably run a minimum 1070 card. Storage is also a factor. Currently have about 40Tb across various disks attached to the system which is used to back up about 10Tb of important files. Rest is just for games etc.
Files also backup up to the cloud and offsite.
I'm also going to have to downsize my hifi that i've had for 30 years.
Any recommendations before I start looking ?
First - what's your budget?
Second - do you want to put that 40TB of storage into the PC?
In terms of small PCs, you can easily get mITX-based systems with an RTX2070 (e.g. https://www.scan.co.uk/3xs/configurator/overclocke... However, there won't be much space to fit a lot of hard drives.
Second - do you want to put that 40TB of storage into the PC?
In terms of small PCs, you can easily get mITX-based systems with an RTX2070 (e.g. https://www.scan.co.uk/3xs/configurator/overclocke... However, there won't be much space to fit a lot of hard drives.
Monty Python said:
First - what's your budget?
Second - do you want to put that 40TB of storage into the PC?
In terms of small PCs, you can easily get mITX-based systems with an RTX2070 (e.g. https://www.scan.co.uk/3xs/configurator/overclocke... However, there won't be much space to fit a lot of hard drives.
About 2k.Second - do you want to put that 40TB of storage into the PC?
In terms of small PCs, you can easily get mITX-based systems with an RTX2070 (e.g. https://www.scan.co.uk/3xs/configurator/overclocke... However, there won't be much space to fit a lot of hard drives.
Yeah my trouble is I dont like RAID and i'm not keen on having loads of drives scattered about plus need a small case haha!
Narcisus said:
Yeah my trouble is I dont like RAID and i'm not keen on having loads of drives scattered about plus need a small case haha!
Why not?Surely the solution to all the hard drives would be getting a NAS? (plus two back ups in either cloud or physical storage outside of your home)
My previous office we had a Zotac mini PC happily running a HTC Vive so presumably came with a decent graphics card. As above though you're not going to get a lot of storage in something that small though.
How much of that storage do you need to get at fast? If you go with a small form factor PC with the stuff you need fast stored internally you could then have a NAS with bigger drives in it for stuff you don't need to get at as quickly. NAS can be stashed anywhere in the house.
That said a mini tower doesn't really take up that much space under a desk, and mine has 4x3.5" and 4x2.5" bays and space for a full size graphics card.
How much of that storage do you need to get at fast? If you go with a small form factor PC with the stuff you need fast stored internally you could then have a NAS with bigger drives in it for stuff you don't need to get at as quickly. NAS can be stashed anywhere in the house.
That said a mini tower doesn't really take up that much space under a desk, and mine has 4x3.5" and 4x2.5" bays and space for a full size graphics card.
AndrewEH1 said:
Why not?
Surely the solution to all the hard drives would be getting a NAS? (plus two back ups in either cloud or physical storage outside of your home)
indeed it would but my off site solution now is a large hd that I backup to ever week then stick in the garage. Surely the solution to all the hard drives would be getting a NAS? (plus two back ups in either cloud or physical storage outside of your home)
RAID .... My main worry would be if 'something' happened to the enclosure and screwed all the disks .... Unlikely I know ... electrical storm... Dog having a mad half hour etc.
Currently my backups are scattered across a number of internal and external disks. If the pc was fried I would still have the external drives and not all of them are plugged in at the same time.
My Cloud solution is not an expensive one so is only in place for dire emergency.
RAID depends on type you use as to impact of disk failure, but the ones which can cope with disk failure can be more expensive so you want to be looing at RAID 5 or 1+0 so you can replace any disks that fail on the fly with their redundancy
Unfortunatly small form factor machines will cut on areas like number of disks you can have in the system down to potentially only a couple, micro ATX is what you are talking about i think but card support is dependent on case size as you would need to check this
Unfortunatly small form factor machines will cut on areas like number of disks you can have in the system down to potentially only a couple, micro ATX is what you are talking about i think but card support is dependent on case size as you would need to check this
chris285 said:
RAID depends on type you use as to impact of disk failure, but the ones which can cope with disk failure can be more expensive so you want to be looing at RAID 5 or 1+0 so you can replace any disks that fail on the fly with their redundancy
Unfortunatly small form factor machines will cut on areas like number of disks you can have in the system down to potentially only a couple, micro ATX is what you are talking about i think but card support is dependent on case size as you would need to check this
Yeah I'm cool with how RAID works used to admin 15 -20 Servers Unix and Windows in the day. It's the catastrophic failure that worries me. Not losing a disk and slapping another in.Unfortunatly small form factor machines will cut on areas like number of disks you can have in the system down to potentially only a couple, micro ATX is what you are talking about i think but card support is dependent on case size as you would need to check this
Admittedly I have never had this happen at work but then it was very, very expensive kit in a purpose built room.....
Probably have to do what I'm currently doing but with larger external disks.
speedyman said:
Having raid is not an excuse to not do backups. So I don't see what's to fear about low risks to catastrophic raid failure, just restore from your backups.
Agreed but its my home vids and photos and I dont have a limitless amount of cash to spend lol ! But yes I suppose I could have a RAID 5 setup and backup to a couple of large external disks to stick in the garage.....In my workshop I have my spare PC setup with the box in the roof space where it doesn't get covered in dust etc. I've run three 10m HDMI cables, and a 10m USB cable down to a desk and picked up a remote controlled Power/Reset keyfob thing on eBay. Can you do something similar, possibly put the kit you have no under the eaves and drop cables down to your new room?
I recently setup a second desk with a Mini ATX i5 thing, £100 nothing special, it's sat behind the monitor at the moment, but the plan is to tuck it inside the deskframe at the back completely out of the way. I did look at some of the tiny tiny ones that would just sit on the back of your monitor, but really don't need to go that small to be able to hide the PC.
It sounds like you want two servers for all your files, one in the garage to run daily back-ups, the other so you can hide all your hard drives out of the way somewhere. Then you'll definitely be able to hide a compact base unit somewhere around/under your desk.
I recently setup a second desk with a Mini ATX i5 thing, £100 nothing special, it's sat behind the monitor at the moment, but the plan is to tuck it inside the deskframe at the back completely out of the way. I did look at some of the tiny tiny ones that would just sit on the back of your monitor, but really don't need to go that small to be able to hide the PC.
It sounds like you want two servers for all your files, one in the garage to run daily back-ups, the other so you can hide all your hard drives out of the way somewhere. Then you'll definitely be able to hide a compact base unit somewhere around/under your desk.
mikef said:
I’d put the 40TB storage on a Synology NAS somewhere out of the way connected by ethernet (dual-link if your router access is wireless). Then do a mini-ITX build, there are some nice cases out there in small form factor. Should just about be doable on a 2K budget
That's what I'd do! (In fact that's what I have now - apart for only a baby 3TB two bay Synology NAS)Planning to upgrade my PC (and NAS probably too) later this year.
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