New Desktop for CS5

[Todd Perchert]

I guess it depends on where you plan on housing your media drives… Are you looking at an internal RAID or external? If internal, you’ll want the full tower for good airflow, and you may want to bump up the power supply some. Don’t want to burn out your PSU too quickly. You don’t need much more, that’s a good PSU and would probably be fine depending on many drives and accessories you plan on adding. Corsair has a good 850 for about the same price.
TC

[Ted Strickler]

Thanks for the reply and advise because I was thinking about going with the 850 anyway. I found a full size case that I like:

COOLER MASTER HAF X RC-942-KKN1 Black Steel/ Plastic ATX Full Tower Computer Case $189.99

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119225

I hope it will work.

Ted

[Ted Strickler]

You know, I am really having trouble deciding on whether or not to include a raid system. I know little to nothing about them even after doing some reading. I was thinking about maybe a RAID 0 using two 1TB internal hard drives but not sure what the advantage is.

[Todd Perchert]

RAID is what you need to edit quickly and/or have a safety net for when a drive fails… If one drive will give you 90mbps, two drives in a RAID-0 should give you closer to 180mbps (theoretically) but if you lose a drive you lose all your data. There is some good info on RAIDs here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID
Read up on them.
Many editors are using RAID-5 or RAID-6. Some are using no safety net with a RAID-0 and backing up more frequently.

Then go to:
https://www.aja.com/support/kona-pc/kona3-pc.php
and download the Aja Data Rate calculator. Figure out what you will be editing, use the calc to determine the data throughput you will need and the storage requirements. That is a good start. And remember, if you are layering video footage (2 layers), you need to double the data rate, since your system will be needing to pull both video layers at once. Or you may end up doing more rendering than you really want to.
TC

[Ted Strickler]

Thanks again for your helpful advice. I’ll check out the two links. And I definately use at least three layers on most projects, some sequences have several more so speed is a factor.

I took my list to a computer shop to see about him building it for me. He suggested a RAID-0 but he also said to put Windows on it instead of on a separate system hard drive. I have always been told to keep the system drive separate from the video files.
What about that? I am a little confused with his suggestion.
Ted

[Ted Strickler]

Todd, I went to both links but the RAID-0 question is still unanswered, Does a RAID-0 system require a total of 3 hard drives in which one would be for Windows 7 as a system drive and the other two would make up the RAID-0?

The other link with the calculator does not show the format that I will be editing in which is AVCHD. My camera is the Sony HDR-AX2000 and the reason I am upgrading to CS5 and a new computer is to be able to edit that format. I am using CS3 now.

[Alex Gerulaitis]

[Ted Strickler] “I took my list to a computer shop to see about him building it for me. He suggested a RAID-0 but he also said to put Windows on it instead of on a separate system hard drive.”

Typical gamer rigs are usually set up like that. Editing systems – like you said: boot/OS drive is separate from the media volume.

Alex (DV411)

[Alex Gerulaitis]

[Ted Strickler] “Does a RAID-0 system require a total of 3 hard drives in which one would be for Windows 7 as a system drive and the other two would make up the RAID-0?”

It doesn’t require it – but it is a recommended configuration for an editing system.

Alex (DV411)

[Alex Gerulaitis]

[Ted Strickler] “CORSAIR DOMINATOR 12GB (6 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory”

See if 3x4GB is not too much more money: this will give you room to upgrade to more memory in the future.

[Ted Strickler] “PNY VCQ4000-PB Quadro 4000 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 Video Card $779.99 “

While it’s a great card, chances are a GTX 470 (or better yet, a GTX 570 or 580 if you don’t mind some light hacking to enable GPU acceleration in CS5) is a better value: cheaper, more powerful for CS5 purposes.

Alex (DV411)

[Alex Gerulaitis]

[Ted Strickler] “Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5″ Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive $94.”

Perfect; add two or three 2TB Black Caviars in RAID0; an external 2-3TB drive for backup, and you are done with the foundation of your system. Next steps – the right tower and decent monitor(s).

Alex (DV411)