After > 6 years , I'm planning to build a new machine ANB6.
The present machine ANB5 -- details at end -- continues to perform well,
but I can't rely on that for ever.
I use it for everyday desktop work + fun.
The weekly Gentoo update is the main stressor, for which ANB5 is adequate, but it's always nice to get a bit more speed & avoid too much heat-up.
I expect to buy the parts from the local store
-- Canada Computers in Downtown Toronto -- & prices below are in CAD.
I'm price-sensitive, but willing to pay a bit more for a better part.
Here's the list + a few comments ; '*' denotes presently prefered item :
ANB6
[ CPU : not much difference, but comments very welcome.
I've had good luck with AMD in the past, less so with Intel ]
220208 CPU AMD : CPAMD00131 : Ryzen 7 : 5700G : 8-core 16-thread : $ 388
Socket AM4 : 3,8 / 4,6 GHz : Radeon Graphix Wreath Stealth
00055 : Ryzen 7 : 3700X : 7 nm : 8-core 16-thread : $ 400
Socket AM4 : 3,6 / 4,4 GHz
* 00110 : Ryzen 7 : 5800X : ZEN 3 : 7 nm : 8-core 16-thread : $ 460
Socket AM4 : 3,8 / 4,7 GHz boost
[ Mobo : ANB4 (previous machine, now stand-by) + ANB5 have Gigabyte ]
220219 Mobo AMD : MBASU00311 : Asus : Prime B550+ (Ryzen AM4) : $ 180
dual M.2 : PCle 4.0 : 1 GB Ethernet : SATA 6 Gbps
USB 3.2 gen 2 Types A/C : Aura Sync RGB headers support * MBGIG00145 : Gigabyte : X570 Aorus elite WIFI : $ 220
dual PCle 4.0 M.2 : Intel dual-band 802.11ac wireless
front USB Type C : RGB Fusion 2.0
[ Memory : Kingston has always performed well & 16 GB sb adequate ]
220222 Memory : MEKIT00581 : Kingston : 2 x 8 = 16 GB $ 110
DDR4 3600 MHz CL17 dual channel
[ Graphics card : this seems to be the big problem.
There are cheaper cards, but they're all "sold out" :
apparently, there's a supply problem at present ;
this was the cheapest in stock in late Feb ]
220223 Graphix : VCASU00223 : Asus : $ 280
Phoenix PH-GTX1650-O4GD6 GeForce GTX 1650
4 GB GDDR6 : 1.41 GHz Core : 128 bit Bus Width
DisplayPort HDMI DVI
[ cheapest available : most types sold out : >= $ 60 ]
[ SSD : Kingston as above : 1 TB sb adequate ]
220222 SSD : SSKIT00058 : Kingston : 512 GB $ 95
KC600 SATA3 6 GB/s 2,5" R 550 W 520 MB/s
* SSKIT00069 : Kingston : 1 TB $ 170
KC600 SATA3 6 GB/s 2,5" R 550 W 520 MB/s
SSSAS00105 : Samsung : 500 GB $ 100
870EVO SATA3 R 560 W 530 MB/s
SSSAS00106 : Samsung : 1 TB $ 140
870EVO SATA3 R 560 W 530 MB/s
SSWEE00015 : W Digital : 500 GB $ 90
3D NAND SATA R 560 W 530 MB/s
SSWEE00015 : W Digital : 1 TB $ 140
3D NAND SATA M.2 2280 R 560 W 530 MB/s
[ HDD : for back-up + alternative OS (Mint).
ANB5 has Seagate : anyone prefer W Digital & if so, why ? ]
* 220222 HDD : HDSEA00144 : Seagate : 2 TB $ 55
SATA 3,5" 7200 RPM
HDWD002115 : W Digital : 1 TB $ 60
SATA 3,5" 6 GB/s 7200 RPM 64 MB cache
[ Case : ANB5 has Deepcool, which seems a good price ]
* 220223 Case : CSDCL00019 : Deepcool : $ 55
E-Shield 120 mm Fan Radiator Support
E-ATX/ATX/MicroATX/MiniITX
00032 : Matrexx 50 $ 60
00035 : Matrexx 55 MESH $ 70
PSU Shroud
00044 : Macube 310P WH $ 80
Magnetic/CableManagement/FAN HUB Pre-install
[ Power : ANB5 has Thermaltake : is 700 W likely to be adequate ? ]
* 220223 PSU : PSTHL00007 : Thermaltake $ 60
700 W 80 PLUS
PSSES00017 : Seasonic $ 60
FOCUS SSR-650FM 650 W 80+
Gold Semi-Modular ATX12V/EPS12V Compact 140 mm
PSCO001438 : Corsair $ 60
CX-M CX650M 650 W 80+ Bronze
PSEVG00043 : EVGA $ 60
600 BQ, 80+ BRONZE 600 W Semi-Modular FDB Fan 3-Yr Warranty
PSCO100109 : Corsair $ 80
CX750F RGB 750 W 80+ Bronze Fully Modular
[ Wifi : currently, I'm using a landline for Internet,
but my new apartment has free Wifi. Is it standard on Mobos these days ? ]
Wifi : sb std on mobo
[ Sound : I've never installed sound on my computers, but it wb nice.
Do all Mobos have a sound chip today ? -- I'm an utter novice here ]
Sound : sb available fr mobo, card is opt'l extra
[ DVD drive : I don't believe I need this anymore ]
DVD ?
[ These are the specs for the present machine, built Oct 2015 ]
ANB5
150914 CPU : AMD X8 FX8370E 8-core 4,3 GHz 16 MB 32 nm 95 W : 259.00
Direct replacement : 3 yr : 38.85
150926 Mobo : ASUS M5A97 LE AMD 970/SB8950 DDR3 1866 GHz : 104.99
150914 Memory : Kingston HyperX Fury 8 GB DDR3 1866 MHz CL10 : 68.99
150914 Graphix : Asus GT610 810 MHz clock 1200 MHz memory : 74.99
150914 SSD : Kingston SSDNow V300 240 GB SATA RW 450 MB/s : 109.99
150914 HDD : Seagate Desktop SATA3 1 TB 64 MB 6 GB/s : 57.99
Ont recycle fee : 0.75
150914 DVD : Samsung SH-224FB 24x SATA 1.5 MB : 21.99
Ont recycle fee : 0.75
150917 Case : Deepcool Terraract BF : 39.99
150917 PSU : Thermaltake TR2 500 W : 59.99
ANB4 ANB5 have Gigabyte mobo (ANB5 had Asus, wh had 2 defects) ;
ANB1-3 had Asus mobo (ANB2 orig'ly had Soyo)
[ 'ANB' = 'Aristotle's new body' : Aristotle was my original XT in 1989
& when I built my 1st machine in 2000, it was his 1st new body,
since when he's been my computer spirit (smile).
I'm a Classicist by training & wrote my PhD thesis on the philosopher.
I have a mathematical side too ]
On 02/03/2022 19:39, Philip Webb wrote:
[ Memory : Kingston has always performed well & 16 GB sb adequate ]
220222 Memory : MEKIT00581 : Kingston : 2 x 8 = 16
GB $ 110
DDR4 3600 MHz CL17 dual channel
What's the largest chip a slot takes? If you can afford it, buy two of
those. My new mobo takes 16GB, and they were only GB£50 each - £100.
If you ever want to upgrade the ram, you won't need to "chuck and
replace".
[ HDD : for back-up + alternative OS (Mint).
ANB5 has Seagate : anyone prefer W Digital & if so, why ? ]
* 220222 HDD : HDSEA00144 : Seagate : 2 TB
$ 55
SATA 3,5" 7200 RPM
BarraCuda? That's an SMR drive. Look at the FireCuda instead or even
better an IronWolf. Only snag is, it'll push the price up. Umm ... the firecuda costs a lot more than I thought - a 4TB IronWolf is £84.
[ Case : ANB5 has Deepcool, which seems a good price ]
* 220223 Case : CSDCL00019 : Deepcool :
$ 55
E-Shield 120 mm Fan Radiator Support
E-ATX/ATX/MicroATX/MiniITX
00032 : Matrexx
50 $ 60
00035 : Matrexx 55
MESH $ 70
PSU Shroud
00044 : Macube 310P
WH $ 80
Magnetic/CableManagement/FAN HUB Pre-install
[ Power : ANB5 has Thermaltake : is 700 W likely to be adequate ? ]
Crumbs. For the system you're spec'ing, 250W is probably adequate.
That said, at $60 I wouldn't skimp on a decent supply. A stressed
supply is more likely (a) to blow, and (b) to take out components with
it. That $60 is money well spent. My PSUs are Corsairs, for no
particular reason.
If unsure, post the model and I'm sure someone can tell you if
it is CMR or SMR. CMR = good, SMR = bad in some, maybe most, circumstances. I don't know how true this is but I've read SMR and RAID
is bad, btfrs(sp?) and similar file systems can also be bad. Research
and weigh based on what will work for you. SMR can save you some cash, sometimes.
With regard to SMR drives, note that there are three basic types:
Some completely hide the fact that they are SMR. These suck, hands down. Performance is unpredictable and random.
Some at least advertise that they're SMR, and expose basic counters about where they are in their maintenance cycles. These still suck, but at least you can kind of predict when they're about to get really slow.
The best ones actually advertise what the shingled ranges are, at which point a new enough kernel and filesystem can keep the writes to those ranges as sequential as possible, and you can use the big, cheap drives with very little performance loss.
There are a couple articles explaining how to determine what you've got and optimize it. I don't have my bookmarks to hand, but it was in a discussion on this list a few months ago.
LMP
This is what I like about this list. Sharing info. It's good to know
that the software is catching up. It would have been nice if WD,
Seagate etc had let the software people in on this info before they
started releasing the products. It appears they didn't to me.
Releasing it in stealth mode didn't help them any in my opinion. They angered a lot of people it would seem. If they had alerted the people
who develop the software for file systems and RAID, it could have saved
a LOT of grief and possibly lose of data.
This should also help the OP in the event he buys a SMR to save a little where it will work. It should help others who unknowingly bought a SMR drive as well. I need to look into enabling those options in my kernel
and with the file system tools. It may help with my external drive as well. Maybe reduce the bumpy thing a bit. lol
Thanks for the link.
Dale
:-) :-)
This should also help the OP in the event he buys a SMR to save a little<br></div><div>where it will work. It should help others who unknowingly bought a SMR<br></div><div>drive as well. I need to look into enabling those options in mykernel<br></div><div>and with the file system tools. It may help with my external drive as<br></div><div>well. Maybe reduce the bumpy thing a bit. lol<br></div><div><br></div><div>Thanks for the link. <br></div><div><br></div><div>
or 20GB CMR section. I've noticed if my updates go to about that much or more, it gets slow. Either way, it does the bumpy thing for a good while after my backups are done and I've unmounted the drive. I just let it sit there until it gets done. If I
-----Original Message-----
From: Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, March 2, 2022 5:08 PM
To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org
Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] planning a new machine : comments welcome
Laurence Perkins wrote:
With regard to SMR drives, note that there are three basic types:That's some new info. I tend to follow threads, even started one ages ago about my hard drive doing a bumpy thing for a long time after I updated my backups. Rich plus others informed me I unknowingly bought a SMR drive. I think mine has about a 15
Some completely hide the fact that they are SMR. These suck, hands down. Performance is unpredictable and random.
Some at least advertise that they're SMR, and expose basic counters about where they are in their maintenance cycles. These still suck, but at least you can kind of predict when they're about to get really slow.
The best ones actually advertise what the shingled ranges are, at which point a new enough kernel and filesystem can keep the writes to those ranges as sequential as possible, and you can use the big, cheap drives with very little performance loss.
There are a couple articles explaining how to determine what you've got and optimize it. I don't have my bookmarks to hand, but it was in a discussion on this list a few months ago.
LMP
Yeah, A lot of RAID controllers will see the bumpy performance and error out. Some vendors are starting to update their firmware though.
My biggest point for the OP, look at its use and pick what works as expected. I've read, and Wol seems to confirm this, that RAID and SMR do not go together well. I've read some have hosed RAID thingys when they put in a SMR drive and didn't know it.
The biggest problem I have is when they don't let us know when a drive is SMR. I don't like a company that sells me something that isn't as good without telling me. It sort of rubs me the wrong way.
To the OP tho, research first, then buy. Know what you getting and that it will work for your needs. As I said, for the most part, my backup drive being SMR is mostly a little annoying. It does work. I just won't do it again tho.
Dale
:-) :-)
You're not alone in being upset about manufacturers trying to sneak SMR in without telling anyone. The CCTV industry kind of took them to the woodshed over it.
BTRFS got patches for detecting and optimizing zoned drives in 2020.
EXT4 has a format-time option for it at this point.
F2FS and NILFS2 are both designed to write a disk end-to-end sequentially for wear-levelling purpose and while they're not the fastest, they also don't see significant performance degradation from SMR except during schedulable maintenance operations.
https://zonedstorage.io/ has a good list of reference material for figuring out what you've got and getting it configured in the best way.
LMP
After > 6 years , I'm planning to build a new machine ANB6.<SNIP>
The present machine ANB5 -- details at end -- continues to perform well,
but I can't rely on that for ever.
I use it for everyday desktop work + fun.
The weekly Gentoo update is the main stressor, for which ANB5 is adequate, but it's always nice to get a bit more speed & avoid too much heat-up.
I expect to buy the parts from the local store
-- Canada Computers in Downtown Toronto -- & prices below are in CAD.
I'm price-sensitive, but willing to pay a bit more for a better part.
Here's the list + a few comments ; '*' denotes presently prefered item :
This is exactly what happened to me. I unknowingly bought SMR drives
(I didn't know the difference, but the drives were "RAID" rated,
whatever that means. SMR drives obviously aren't "RAID" anything.)
Well, when was the time to expand my RAID, it wouldn't work.
Needless to say, I will not be buying any product from WD anymore.
Julien
Julien Roy wrote:
This is exactly what happened to me. I unknowingly bought SMR drives
(I didn't know the difference, but the drives were "RAID" rated,
whatever that means. SMR drives obviously aren't "RAID" anything.)
Well, when was the time to expand my RAID, it wouldn't work.
Needless to say, I will not be buying any product from WD anymore.
Julien
From my understanding, it wasn't just WD. I don't think any of them
alerted people as to what they were getting. I recently bought a WD and
will again because I could have easily bought a Seagate or any other
brand that was SMR without knowing it. WD just so happened to be the
first one I found with a good price is all.
Still, I don't like that any of them pulled this stealth release tho.
For most, it most likely didn't matter but for some, it was a disaster. Possibly a costly disaster at that.
We learned tho.
Dale
Truthfully I don't think WD or the others understood the problem early
on. At first they denied there was a problem, and actually I don't think there really is a problem setting up a RAID system using an SMR drive.
Where the problem showed up was during resivering which isn't
something everyone does every day. It was during resilvering that
the SMR drives failed, and once WD (and others) saw the data
WD rebranded the Red series in Red and Red Plus, with the Plus
version being CMR. I've resilvered using a couple of Red Plus 4TB
drives and everything is good so far.
My 2 cents,
Mark
The WD Reds are still marketted as RAID compatible to this day, despite the fact that they are SMRs.
Julien
On Thu, Mar 3, 2022 at 2:11 PM Julien Roy <julien@jroy.ca> wrote:
The WD Reds are still marketted as RAID compatible to this day, despite the fact that they are SMRs.
Julien
18 months ago WD put out this statement:
https://blog.westerndigital.com/wd-red-nas-drives/
If by 'marketed' you mean Amazon or Newegg or some other seller is telling people that the SMR is a good RAID solution I wouldn't say that's on WD
but rather the vendor.
Just my 2 cents,
Mark
</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Regarding the blogpost: I don't think a blogpost is appropriate for a company to correct information about deffective product, when the advertising for the said product remains uncorrected.<br></div><divdir="auto">Nevertheless, even in their blogpost, they aren't being entirely honest, since they still claim that WD Reds are appropriate for RAIDs:<br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><i>"In a RAID rebuild scenario using a typical Synology
I’d probably wait another year for all the bugs to work their way out of the system before trying it on purpose, but if you have non-critical
systems to play with, well, the SMR drives are rather a lot cheaper… I got a few for one of my server chassis because they can cram 5TB of
storage into a 2.5” drive that fits in the bay for only $120.
3.5" gives a lot more platter area. Pi-r-squared and all that. I couldn't find anything larger than 1TB CMR in a 2.5" package from anyone, and those were old stock. Seagate doesn't make *any* CMR 2.5" anymore, not even the 500GB ones.
Even flash devices are going zoned it seems. Simplifies the controller and lets you cram more storage onto the chips.
Unfortunately the chassis in question only takes 2.5" or smaller. Otherwise I would definitely have preferred some 3.5", 12TB CMR surveillance-grade drives.
LMP
After > 6 years , I'm planning to build a new machine ANB6.
Here's the list + a few comments ; '*' denotes presently prefered item :----------^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
ANB6
[ CPU : not much difference, but comments very welcome.
I've had good luck with AMD in the past, less so with Intel ]
220208 CPU AMD : CPAMD00131 : Ryzen 7 : 5700G : 8-core 16-thread : $ 388
Socket AM4 : 3,8 / 4,6 GHz : Radeon Graphix Wreath Stealth
00055 : Ryzen 7 : 3700X : 7 nm : 8-core 16-thread : $ 400
Socket AM4 : 3,6 / 4,4 GHz
* 00110 : Ryzen 7 : 5800X : ZEN 3 : 7 nm : 8-core 16-thread : $ 460
Socket AM4 : 3,8 / 4,7 GHz boost
[ Mobo : ANB4 (previous machine, now stand-by) + ANB5 have Gigabyte ]
220219 Mobo AMD : MBASU00311 : Asus : Prime B550+ (Ryzen AM4) : $ 180
dual M.2 : PCle 4.0 : 1 GB Ethernet : SATA 6 Gbps
USB 3.2 gen 2 Types A/C : Aura Sync RGB headers support * MBGIG00145 : Gigabyte : X570 Aorus elite WIFI : $ 220
dual PCle 4.0 M.2 : Intel dual-band 802.11ac wireless
front USB Type C : RGB Fusion 2.0
[ Memory : Kingston has always performed well & 16 GB sb adequate ]
220222 Memory : MEKIT00581 : Kingston : 2 x 8 = 16 GB $ 110
DDR4 3600 MHz CL17 dual channel
[ Graphics card : this seems to be the big problem. There are cheaper
cards, but they're all "sold out" : apparently, there's a supply problem
at present ; this was the cheapest in stock in late Feb ]
[ SSD : Kingston as above : 1 TB sb adequate ]
220222 SSD : SSKIT00058 : Kingston : 512 GB $ 95
KC600 SATA3 6 GB/s 2,5" R 550 W 520 MB/s
* SSKIT00069 : Kingston : 1 TB $ 170
KC600 SATA3 6 GB/s 2,5" R 550 W 520 MB/s
SSSAS00105 : Samsung : 500 GB $ 100
870EVO SATA3 R 560 W 530 MB/s
SSSAS00106 : Samsung : 1 TB $ 140
870EVO SATA3 R 560 W 530 MB/s
SSWEE00015 : W Digital : 500 GB $ 90
3D NAND SATA R 560 W 530 MB/s
SSWEE00015 : W Digital : 1 TB $ 140
3D NAND SATA M.2 2280 R 560 W 530 MB/s
If you're planning to use the mobo's SATA ports, just make sure you know how >> many will be usable. Both an M2 board and a Graphics board nick PCIe
channels, and the mobo may disable SATA ports to free them up ...
[ HDD : for back-up + alternative OS (Mint).
ANB5 has Seagate : anyone prefer W Digital & if so, why ? ]
* 220222 HDD : HDSEA00144 : Seagate : 2 TB $ 55
SATA 3,5" 7200 RPM
HDWD002115 : W Digital : 1 TB $ 60
SATA 3,5" 6 GB/s 7200 RPM 64 MB cache
WD Black? Again, probably SMR. The BarraCuda looks cheaper, bigger, better.
[ Power : ANB5 has Thermaltake : is 700 W likely to be adequate ? ]
[ Wifi : currently, I'm using a landline for Internet,
but my new apartment has free Wifi. Is it standard on Mobos these days ? ]
[ Sound : I've never installed sound on my computers, but it wb nice.
Do all Mobos have a sound chip today ? -- I'm an utter novice here ]
[ DVD drive : I don't believe I need this anymore ]
DVD ?
Thanks for all the replies so far : they have been carefully saved.
Clearly, I need to look up component specs on the I/net
& try to get upto-date with 2020s tech after 6,5 yr absence.
I don't do gaming : SGT puzzles are enough for me.
I use the HDD strictly for back-up + storage of infrequently used data
+ a Mint partition which allows me to use my scanner (another story).
I don't want to have to rely entirely on an SSD which might fail suddenly :
Sysop: | Keyop |
---|---|
Location: | Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, UK |
Users: | 546 |
Nodes: | 16 (1 / 15) |
Uptime: | 155:23:48 |
Calls: | 10,383 |
Files: | 14,054 |
Messages: | 6,417,848 |