hitman2158

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Posts posted by hitman2158

  1. Hi there,

     

    greetings from Germany.

     

    I would recommend this case,

     

    https://www.fractal-design.com/products/cases/node/node-804/black/

     

    https://www.fractal-design.com/where-to-buy/?fwp_country=united-states

     

    https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?d=Fractal+Design+Node+804&N=100007583&name=Computer+Cases 

     

    8x HDD and capable for normal ATX-PSU as well as µATX-MoBos, will save you a lot of bucks instead of searching for SFX-PSU and Mini-ITX-MoBo.

     

    Choose a µATX-MoBo and a CPU of your choice, AMD AM4 (16 with at least 6x SATA) or Intel Socket 1200 (25 with at least 6x SATA).

     

    AMD A4 Mini-ITX with at least 6x SATA only 1 MoBo, but this is in Germany almost $525 incl. VAT, Intel 1200 Mini-ITX not a single one.

     

    So good luck and have fun searching parts for your hobby.

     

    Peter

  2. Hi everyone,

     

    trying to update to latest rc, but very slow progress downloading the zipfile. Started the download of latest stable 6.7.2, also very slow with approx.. 15-20kB/sec. To verify my ISP (50 MBit) I started several downloads from Gigabyte or other servers around the world, everything fine with approx.. 6-6,5 MB/sec. Anyone with same problems? Looks like there´s a problem with amazon web service.

  3. Shouldn´t be a problem. In the past I bought several parts outside Germany, for example from english, spanish or french Amazon as well as other shops. And I also bought from US (Amazon). And it depends on your customs if you have to pay additional taxes for import.

     

    So good luck for your search.

  4. 5 hours ago, Benson said:

    Still ITX ? Ryzen 5 2600 no IGP, so need add-on GPU if you need access local display.

    AMD APU 2400G also good but just 4C8T, that really depends on what you need.

     

    For me, if IGP must then go to 2400G, otherwise will wait until Jul, 3000 series go out or price drop of 2000 series CPU.

    Nothing more to say, agreed completely.

     

    3 hours ago, testdasi said:

    Plus I don't know of any AM4 mini ITX motherboard out there with 6 SATA ports like your current mobo (presumably you are using all the ports).

    Yup, usually 4 ports only. Maybe one of the new upcoming boards for Ryzen 3000 in mini ITX.

     

    3 hours ago, testdasi said:

    If you are not changing the use case (i.e. no streaming) then why not just go on Ebay and find some cheap used RAM sticks to replace your 4GB RAM? That probably would probably be the absolute cheapest.

    Yes, this would be the cheapest solution. Search on Ebay for a better socket 1150 CPU as well as cheap RAM, the board is ready up to 32GB.

     

    If you´re not going to use it for VM´s for gaming try to find cheap CPU and RAM on Ebay.

     

    If you want to go for the future try to sell your stuff and go with new hardware. It´s up to you to go with Intel or AMD.

     

    Are you fixed on mini ITX due to your case? Because then you always have to compromise somehow.

     

    Anyway, keep us informed what´s your decision. Might be helpful for somebody in a similar situation.

  5. Depends on your purpose. Just usual stuff like office, internet, youtube, etc. or gaming?

     

    If daily use just for office, internet, youtube, etc. I would suggest a Turing GPU, starting at approx. 150€ (GTX 1650) or Radeon GCN 4 (RX 570/RX 560D) starting at 115€.

     

    If gaming the decision is somewhat difficult. It depends on games (old ones or new ones/triple A/Block Buster) and your resolution, FHD, WQHD or even 4K UHD?

     

    As an example see my signature. The GPU in my physical gaming rig is from October 2016 (price was 460€, still in warranty til October 2021). Still good enough for FHD or WQHD in max. settings with Wolfenstein 2, Far Cry 5, Battlefield 1, just to name some games. My monitor is an old BenQ XL2420T, a FHD TN-display with 120 Hz, but still okay. Usually I use dynamic screen resolution if possible, so games will be rendered internal with WQHD/4K UHD or even greater.

     

  6. Why don´t you make an order from Germany or any other country? I did this in the past for some parts, ordered in UK, USA or other countries.

     

    Here´s the link to Mindfactory (direct to the mentioned board), a german shop: 55€ incl. VAT, around £47

     

    https://www.mindfactory.de/product_info.php/Gigabyte-GA-AX370M-Gaming-3-AMD-X370-So-AM4-Dual-Channel-DDR4-mATX-Reta_1229296.html

     

    Just put it in your basket, proceed to pay and see what happens when you enter a british address.

     

    Or try the german Amazon site (direct to the mentioned board): 69€ incl. VAT, so roughly £60

     

    https://www.amazon.de/Gigabyte-GA-X370M-GAMING-Mainboard-PC4-25600U-DDR4-3200/dp/B079JTRWPC/ref=sr_1_1?__mk_de_DE=ÅMÅŽÕÑ&keywords=GA-AX370M-Gaming+3&qid=1554974084&s=gateway&sr=8-1

     

    If you have an account on Amazon, just login to www.amazon.de with your credentials, it works. I did it on the US-site as well as on the UK-site. The system will welcome you with your name.

     

    If you have any trouble with translation use Google Translator or much more better this one:

     

    https://www.deepl.com/en/translator

     

    It´s worth a try to safe you a lot of money.

  7. Hi there,

     

    have a look on my sig. I´m really satisfied with my Gaming-Rig based on the mentioned Gigabyte.

     

    If you´re not in a hurry I would wait for the upcoming Ryzen 3000 and see which existing boards will support these new CPU´s. As for sure I read that B450 and X470 willget BIOS updates to run the new Ryzen. I don´t know if B350 and X370 will get these updates too.

     

    If you don´t want to wait you can go with following:

     

    https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-AX370M-Gaming-3-rev-1x#kf

     

    It´s the cheapest one here in Germany selected by 

    23 hours ago, TomAsh said:

    micro-ATX with 4 dimm slots

    what you mentioned. It also comes with 6 SATA ports and of course M.2, supporting SATA and PCIe.

     

    Price here in Germany incl. VAT is 55€. Next more expensive boards are at least in a 10-15€ higher price range. Will go up to 130€. 

  8. 55 minutes ago, chris_netsmart said:

    purchase a 8TB drive for my parity and re-use my current parity drive as my fifth

    That´s what I would do.

     

    The advantage is (thinking ahead) the ability to replace your 4TB drives with bigger ones in the future.

  9. Depends on you purpose. 

     

    My PlexMediaServer is running via Docker as well as other apps like Krusader (filemanager via webgui). Docker and VM´s are on my cache SSD. 

     

    The prices for SATA SSD´s are decreasing, here some examples (incl. VAT) from the cheapest ones in Germany:

    120GB for approx. 20 USD

    240GB for 30 USD

    480GB for 57 USD

    1TB for 110 USD

    2TB for 260 USD

     

    So you can get a lot bang for the buck. And you have the full speed of your GBit-network while copying big data to the storage, for example copy a few movies like you mentioned in a single slide (100, 200, 300 or more GB). I would spent a few bucks for a cache SSD, especially with a view to expansion in the future.

     

    See my sig, 480GB Cache SSD on main rig, 120GB on backup.

  10. 17 hours ago, ashman70 said:

    Kodi on Nvidia Shield's

    That´s a very good advice. KODI is one of my future tinker projects.

     

    I don´t have an audio setup like this, just a soundbar below TV. I use Plex on my Shield (bought mine in 2015) and I´m still very satisfied with it. Runs flawless and the support from Nvidia is really good. Look at the release notes (model 2015):

     

    https://shield.nvidia.com/support/nvidia-android-tv/release-notes/1

     

    Starting with Android 5 we are now on Android 8. They added more and more apps over the time.

  11. I´m not really sure, but I would go the safe way:

     

    1) Start your VM, remove HDxx, shutdown VM

    2) Shutdown server and replace GPU, startup server

    3) Edit XML and pass new GPU to VM

    4) Start VM, Windows will detect the new GPU, install driver

     

    For safety reasons, hold a backup of the old config

  12. Hi there in ZA,

     

    Germany speaking, no problems here, our power grid is rock stable. We have a lot of energy providers, private companys as well as companys in the hands of cities or communities. We also have a lot of resellers of energy, so this market is very competitive.

     

    In 2014 I was on a business trip in ZA, Midrand. We were fighting for an order for the new powerstations Medupi and Kusile. So I know your problems with loadshedding very well. We had several ones within 3 months. But the most sentence about this I heard was: "That´s Africa"

     

    So I can feel with you.

    • Like 1
  13. Parity rebuild done, duration roughly 13 hours at approx. 130 MB/s. Former parity check with the failed Toshiba was around 7-8 hours with roughly 140-150 MB/s.

     

    Short smart test of recertified HGST passed without errors, extended smart test started this morning, expected finish is today night at 01:00.

     

    Meanwhile I´m rechecking the failed Toshiba in my main system. Preclear is running. 

  14. 29 minutes ago, jonathanm said:

    Anecdotally, I've very seldom seen a drive fail while running, mostly they fail to come up after a power event

    Yeah, agreed.

     

    Many years ago I had a terrible expirience with a failing disk at work. We made software for electric checkout for our customers in the automotive industry. So, I was sent out to one of our customer to update the software. The used PC (they are running usually 24/7) was a small industrial brick, something with a 386-CPU, a few megs of RAM and so on. The harddisk was something around 20 megs or so. OS was FlexOS, nowerdays a discontinued RTOS. So I updated the software including drivers and finally had to reboot the tiny box.  Bad surprise, no MBR found. The disk was dead. The customer was not amused and kicked me off his factory, no permission for the next 6 months. It was not my fault, it was just bad luck.

     

    But you will a power event after updating/upgrading OS when you have to reboot the server. Both servers in my flat will spin down the disks after 15 minutes or so and will go to sleep after additional 15-30 minutes. If I need them I wake them up via Wakeonlan, it´s just a few seconds.

  15. Hi guys,

     

    as announced here´s my expirience with the recertified HDD. Started preclear on saturday , finished (1 cycle) yesterday. 

     

    Starting speed 188 MB/s

    Pre-read and post-read average speed 146 MB/s duration (each approx. 11 hours and 20-25 minutes)

    Zeroing 142 MB/s duration around 11 hours and 30-45 minutes

     

    Today after work I will replace the failed parity disk. This will lead to more work for the HGST building the parity. When finished I will do an extended smart test on the disk to be sure everything is okay. This should be done within 17-18 hours (info in smart showed the duration between 1000-1100 minutes).

     

    So, I will keep you informed about that process.