What I'm really trying to figure out is if I would be shooting myself in the foot down the line with such a setup over a NVME setup for a boot with other drive types taking up the rest.
Thanks. So there would be a benefit to running a small NVME as a boot and to run dev programs on, right? Is that what you're saying. It's hard to gauge a before and after nowadays because people moved to NVME when it became available or high end laptops had it.
I hadn't thought of looking into enclosures. I was considering making my own basic one with wood, setting the optical drive in and getting extension cables and running it out of one of the expansion slots, and disconnecting and capping them when they weren't needed. I saw that Asus model two months ago when I was looking at solutions but the Amazon listing wasn't too hot. I randomly queried external enclosures and came across an OWC model on Amazon. The Mercury Pro. Would that be a solid choice? With overhead, I'd be looking at neck in neck speeds with SATAIII, right, if running off of USB 3? Would investing in a USB-C expansion card be worth it to get a type C enclosure?
If I go down this route it saves me space and money, otherwise a giant full tower is in order with a lot more wasted space than used space.
Use partitions, not separate drives.I find it better to keep the OS separate from data. You never know when the OS gets hosed, and a reinstall is way easier that way.
Use partitions, not separate drives.
I don't even comprehend the reasoning of wanting a cutting edge sys, and then hanging on to old antiquated tech. Why still have an optical drive????????? Why hang on to sata drives?????? I can completely understand ONE hdd to be a large data drive, like 10TB. But that only needs one sata port. So for the most part, I don't see a need for six to eight sata ports. The reason MOST mobo manufacturers are starting to limit the sata ports on their boards is because it's more and more becoming OLD TECH! So you are free to do whatever you want with your sys, but if you are asking the board for our opinions, then in my opinion when you're looking ahead to a future cutting edge build, stop looking backwards at old tech. It just holds you back. It's like the people who were still trying to use Win XP when Win10 was already out. NVME is the here and now, as well as the future. PCIe 4&5&6 are where we are going, so looking backwards at PCIe3 is pointless. Buying components that are forward thinking is the smartest plan. And even though we upgrade our sys when we can, I still recommend always future proofing as much as possible at each upgrade, because we never know what will hit us in the future. Cheers!Hi all.
In summer 2020, I plan on finally upgrading from my Intel IB rig. The computer has served me well since I built it in 2012, but it's getting long in the tooth and I'm due for a new rig. One question that I've been pondering is hard drives. NVME is the new kid on the block, it's fast, reliable, etc. I'm not sure I need it. My compute time can be split into development, some very light modeling, media (shows/movies), very little gaming and music. Mostly FLAC but I do premium streaming. Right now I edit video on Resolve, but that's fairly quick compared to a major competitor.
I haven't come up with a budget, but given that NVME and SATA SSD are near price parity and even more so then, is there a point in giving up SATA ports for marginal extra performance when I won't see benefit from it? Ideally, my preferred X670 motherboard will probably have 8 SATA ports. I still use an optical drive and the USB ones I've tried have been abysmal in performance. Finding a case is proving to be tough, too.
When working from home, I'm usually switching between VS and JetBrains products. Ponying up for RAM isn't a huge concern for me because it comes in useful with VMs being open in the background. I have no idea whether 16 cores will be available on Zen3 given that it's getting a slight redesign, but I think 12 cores should tide me over fairly well when I've been dealing with 4 cores for years. Coworkers who've bought into Zen have suggested TR2 but TR2 has some weird issues in Windows, and I'd prefer a living platform now even if AM4 is or might be getting zapped next year in 2021.
I'd probably utilize 3 large SATA SSDs, and the rest in mechanical. Not concerned about case size as long as it's got one drive bay and no tempered glass on the side. I have considered buying a large TG case and fabricating a metal side panel to use instead of the TG but I suspect it won't look as great as I'm envisioning it in my head. Not to mention be heavier unless I went for aluminum. Plexiglass is also a consideration as I can flame polish the edges and screw it onto the case. Maybe even paint it black?
The drives and the case are my main concerns now. I have considered one of Fractal's larger cases, but I can't find a store that carries it so I can see it in person and see if it'll be alright for me. The only thing with the case if I went the mod route is I'd like to do something about the harmonics, such as apply padding on the interior of the plexiglass side panel to dampen the sound, maybe a rubber edging, too for vibrations due to how light it would be compared to the glass.
IME, hard drives don't have much an effect on compile speeds over a processor. What I'm really trying to figure out is if I would be shooting myself in the foot down the line with such a setup over a NVME setup for a boot with other drive types taking up the rest.
Why still have an optical drive?????????
There are legitimate reasons for still using ODDs. Think long term archiving for one. These aren't old fashion CD-RW drives. F.x. bluray discs are still among the cheapest per GB bulk storage, and can hold 50-100GB per disc.
Just because something isn't widely used by the enthusiast community any more doesn't mean its obsolete or useless. Even Facebook uses optical storage for cold data...
Don't take this the wrong way, but I am of a very different mind on this. I prefer different drives, AND different partitions. I keep my data on completely different drives, because partitions can also get screwed up IF they are on the same drive. I've had it happen. So I have SIX different drives in my sys. I have three nVME ssd drives, two sata ssd's and one huge (10TB) hdd. So I ONLY put the OS on the boot drives, as I have two different ones, dual booting Win10 Pro insiders preview and the lastest RTM on the other one. In the past many times, when my boot drive got corrupted, I only needed to either replace it, or restore a backup. And all my other drives are always still there ready to do their thing. So separate drives are a very good idea. and with today's cases and mobo's, they are very easy to do.If you build a new computer, yes, get an NVMe drive, 500GB or 1TB. Smaller ones are penalized in some uses, but if you really need to lower cost they're also an option.
BTW, you can add more SATA ports thru a PCIe card.
Use partitions, not separate drives.
There are legitimate reasons for still using ODDs. Think long term archiving for one. These aren't old fashion CD-RW drives. F.x. bluray discs are still among the cheapest per GB bulk storage, and can hold 50-100GB per disc.
Just because something isn't widely used by the enthusiast community any more doesn't mean its obsolete or useless. Even Facebook uses optical storage for cold data...
Plus it's a lot easier to connect up several SATA drives than it is NVMe or M.2. I've been sticking with SATA SSDs until I'm absolutely certain I can hook up NVMe M.2 drives externally, and frankly zero of my customers want or need >550MB/sec, and couldn't care less if Windows starts in 10 seconds or 9.8.
For the record, I have two optical drives in my PC First one was hit-and-miss with certain types of discs, and I set one of the drives to region 1 IIRC. My less important backups go to optical as well as hard drives.
In addition I have two SATA SSDs (dual boot) and one hard drive.
I replaced an NVME drive a few days ago, so let me welcome you to my universe, where it goes like this:...In what UNIVERSE is it easier to connect sata drives than an NVMe drive?????? Several on this thread seem to be limiting their thoughts of NVMe ssd's. With an NVMe you just need to push it in and scew down ONE screw. DONE! EASY!..
There are tons of better options.
I haven't had an optical drive in my sys for more than 15 years, and never once had even a minute problem because of it. USB drives, thumb drives, sd cards, server storage, etc... Of course anyone can and should use whatever they like.
But there's a reason tech keeps moving forward at the speed of light. You can easily make a great argument for using magnetic tape for storage as we did decades ago. But that isn't nearly as efficient or intuitive as modern day devices.
And I would NEVER use FB as an example of anything, as they've done some pretty stupid and criminal things over the their history.
I hadn't thought of looking into enclosures. I was considering making my own basic one with wood, setting the optical drive in and getting extension cables and running it out of one of the expansion slots, and disconnecting and capping them when they weren't needed. I saw that Asus model two months ago when I was looking at solutions but the Amazon listing wasn't too hot. I randomly queried external enclosures and came across an OWC model on Amazon. The Mercury Pro. Would that be a solid choice? With overhead, I'd be looking at neck in neck speeds with SATAIII, right, if running off of USB 3? Would investing in a USB-C expansion card be worth it to get a type C enclosure?