New Computer Help

[Manton]

Damn. Dell says that, for now, the 410 can only do RAID 0. They have some motherboard problems they are working out before they can offer it with RAID 1. But the 710 can do RAID 1 right now. The ***** of it is, the 710 is $566 more with the same specs. Since RAID 1 is a $260 upgrade, that's $306 for the motherboard, chasis, and better fans. Looking over the specs, I can't see anything else different.

Can a motherboard, chasis and fans possibly be worth that much?

 

[GQgeek]

I'll echo what's already been said. Raid 1 is a good idea. But since it mirrors everything, corruption and viruses included, it does not excuse the need for some sort of external backup.

You can get an external hard drive and run a backup once a week or so - the frequency will depend upon how much you value your data - or you can use one of the many online backup services that are available these days.

And definitely get 2 GB of ram. The cost is marginal and Vista benefits from it.

I've dealt with Dell for business purchases and they've been great, even to the point of providing me with free upgrades worth several hundred dollars since their webpage wouldn't allow me to configure as desired, even though the hardware was capable. My sister also bought a laptop from them and said they were very responsive.

Manton, give a Dell sales rep a call. Tell them what you're trying to do and they may just discount the 710. I was basically in the same situation. I wanted 2 SATA drives on top of 4 15k SAS drives to save some money, but they couldn't config the server with sata on the webpage, and since it was their fault, they upgraded the 2 250GB Sata drives to 300GB SAS Drives.

Also, you could just order the 410 with 2 hardrives of the same size and when they fix their problems you can config the second drive as a mirror. It's typically a very straighforward process. Or, since you're not doing anything super disk intensive, you could use software raid from within MS windows. You'd never notice the difference, and you'd avoid the hassle of raid drivers if you ever have to re-install.

Just for your own clarification. RAID 1 is actually a configuration wherein you have two physical drives and the data that is written to one is simultaneously written to the other.

 

[imageWIS]

Originally Posted by Manton

OK, a strong vote for RAID. Problem is, Dell does not offer it on the XPS 410, you have to bump up to the XPS 710. Frustrating thing: the XPS 410 and 710, nearly identically configured, cost about $650 apart. But if the website is right, I have to get the 710 to get the RAID drive and a sound card. Is this a motherboard issue? Anyway, that's what the website says; I will have to call and ask.

Good to hear about the 24" monitor. That's what I have my eye on. Going bigger than that costs a lot more, and I have read that 24" makes a huge difference. I probably don't need 27", and I don't print graphics.

OK, definitely will get the 2.13 processor and the extra one gig of RAM.

Just do what I do sometimes: hook up our laptop with XP Media Edition to our 60" widescreen TV, it looks awesome!

Jon.

 

[A Y]

The other thing to remember about RAID1 is that it halves your data storage: two 500 GB drives configured for RAID1 have only 500 GB of space.

Recent research on hard drive failures (see http://storagemojo.com/?p=383 for a summary) shows that RAID may not help too much with drive failures. The questionable assumption of RAID is that it can restore a new disk replacement before the other old disk it's restoring from fails because it turns out that if one drive in an array fails, it's not unlikely for the other drives in the shared array to fail also. Some people think it's related to manufacturing variations or defects since arrays tend to have drives from the same manufacturing batches. So it's important to still have external backup.

I don't know about Vista, but configuring a RAID in XP takes a little bit of work, usually involving some driver installation because XP knows nothing about RAIDs. Hopefully Dell will do that for you if you order a computer with RAID.

--Andre

 

[ratboycom]

Norton Ghost and other Imaging soft works extremely well for backups to wich you could put on DVD or a external/secondary internal HDD

 

[GQgeek]

Originally Posted by Andre Yew

I don't know about Vista, but configuring a RAID in XP takes a little bit of work, usually involving some driver installation because XP knows nothing about RAIDs. Hopefully Dell will do that for you if you order a computer with RAID.

--Andre

Go in to computer management console. All you need is two dynamic disks of the same size and you can do mirroring from within xp. It doesn't require any special drivers, just the dynamic disks.

 

[Tokyo Slim]

Originally Posted by Brian SD

Haha, well if he wants a PC there's nothing inherently wrong with that. Manton didn't mention if he is considering a Mac, so I'm refraining from letting his thread deteriorate into another 10-page flamewar between me and TS.
You would probably slam your head in the refrigerator door LOOONG before 10 pages. Mac users are weak-willed sissies! Manton, at this point, Dell is basically nickel and dimeing you. If you don't feel like springing for a plug-in RAID card and an extra HD, and putting them in yourself (which is probably the cheapest method besides completely assembling the comp yourself - or having someone like me do it) then basically having Dell overcharge you for the upgrade is your only option. You can get a reasonable PCI SATA RAID controller for under $50.

 

[Dormouse]

Does Dell still utilize a BTX board?

 

[tiecollector]

Originally Posted by Tokyo Slim

You would probably slam your head in the refrigerator door LOOONG before 10 pages. Mac users are weak-willed sissies!

True, I use a mac. But then, try using bash inside windoze...

Can't windoze do a software RAID1? If I were to get a setup I'd probably buy a RAID1 external drive and then setup a batch job or something to do daily backups.

 

[Luc-Emmanuel]

Manton,

My best bet would be to buy an external hard drive and backup weekly to this drive.
No need to bother with RAID, you will likely make matter worse if you are not a computer professionnal: boot problems, xp installation problems, rebuild time...etc.
2 gigs and 2.16 corde duo sounds overkill for what you are doing, but if it's the standard now, it makes sense.

!luc

 

[Manton]

Keep in mind, folks, that this would all come pre-configured and installed. So presumably I would not have to worry about doing any of this myself, which -- given what has been posted here -- I doubt I am savvy enough to do. Certainly, I can install a PCI card and then install the drivers, if it's just a matter of putting the software CD in and going through the little dialouge boxes. But if I have to do a bunch of sophisticated software things (in the DOS window) beyond that, I fear something will go wrong.

I phoned Dell and asked why the 410 could not be configured with RAID. The first person I talked to (a tech support guy) said that it could. He also said, BTW, that the integrated 7.1 sound on that machine was so good that only a hard-core audiophile would want to spend $100 extra to get a PCI Soundblaster card. Since I am using only three channels (two on the desk, one woofer) and don't intend to upgrade, he told me it would be a waste of money to get the card. Agree?

Anyway, this tech person said that the 410 could be configured for RAID 1. For various reasons, Dell does not unlock every configuration option on the website. But the phone salesmen have access to more options.

So I called back and got a salesman. He said, yes, theoretically, the 410 could do RAID 1. But they have had some problems making it work, and are not offering it at this time. At this time, the most they offer on the 410 chasis/motherboard is RAID 0. Now, I understand that RAID 0 offers very fast access times, but no mirroring. To get RAID 1 from Dell right now, you have to get the 710 chasis/motherboard. He did say that Dell expected to have the problem fixed "soon" but could not say when "soon" would be.

So I am back on the fence about RAID 1. It seems that whatever my computer can do, not making the effort to backup at least once a week to a totally separate external drive is a serious mistake. If that is so, then what is the real advantage to RAID 1?

 

[Manton]

Andre: according to Dell, their RAID 1 setup can be configured at 320 GB or 500 GB. Either way, you are getting two drives of that size.

 

[GQgeek]

Originally Posted by Manton

Keep in mind, folks, that this would all come pre-configured and installed. So presumably I would not have to worry about doing any of this myself, which -- given what has been posted here -- I doubt I am savvy enough to do. Certainly, I can install a PCI card and then install the drivers, if it's just a matter of putting the software CD in and going through the little dialouge boxes. But if I have to do a bunch of sophisticated software things (in the DOS window) beyond that, I fear something will go wrong.

I phoned Dell and asked why the 410 could not be configured with RAID. The first person I talked to (a tech support guy) said that it could. He also said, BTW, that the integrated 7.1 sound on that machine was so good that only a hard-core audiophile would want to spend $100 extra to get a PCI Soundblaster card. Since I am using only three channels (two on the desk, one woofer) and don't intend to upgrade, he told me it would be a waste of money to get the card. Agree?

Anyway, this tech person said that the 410 could be configured for RAID 1. For various reasons, Dell does not unlock every configuration option on the website. But the phone salesmen have access to more options.

So I called back and got a salesman. He said, yes, theoretically, the 410 could do RAID 1. But they have had some problems making it work, and are not offering at this time. At this time, the most they offer on the 410 chasis/motherboard is RAID 0. Now, I understand that RAID 0 offers very fast access times, but no mirroring. To get RAID 1 from Dell right now, you have to get the 710 chasis/motherboard. He did say that Dell expected to have the problem fixed "soon" but could not say when "soon" would be.

So I am back on the fence about RAID 1. It seems that whatever my computer can do, not making the effort to backup at least once a week to a totally separate external drive is a serious mistake. If that is so, then what is the real advantage to RAID 1?

There isn't really one for someone in your situation. The real advantage of raid is in a business environment. If one of the drives in your raid array fails, you don't suffer any downtime, which can be very expensive for a business. For someone like you, as long as you're religious about your backups (and remember to detach the external drive), that should be sufficient. The time lost going out and buying another drive and re-installing windows won't be huge. You would lose changes to your data since your last backup though.

I'm still going to maintain that Raid 1 is very easy to configure, but I wouldn't bother with it if Dell is having problems. You absolutely do not want to do raid 0, since if one drive fails, you lose all the data on both disks. It's for a completely different purpose.

Lastly, you can get programs that monitor the SMART status of your hard drives. These are a bunch of internal indicators the hard drive keeps of itself. They can tip you off to a drive that's about to fail. If you go the one hard drive + external drive route in combo with one of these programs, you can replace the drive before it fails, but just in case, you'll still have your backups.

 

[GQgeek]

Originally Posted by Manton

Andre: according to Dell, their RAID 1 setup can be configured at 320 GB or 500 GB. Either way, you are getting two drives of that size.

That doesn't make any sense to me. They can do it with those two drives but no others?

 

[Manton]

Originally Posted by GQgeek

That doesn't make any sense to me. They can do it with those two drives but no others?
Maybe they can do it with others, but that appears to be all they offer. Then again, I didn't press them to see if they would offer other sizes.