Building a computer? Need advice/suggestions? Come here!

And I'll drop this in here for the sake of adding more knowledge and experience to this thread:

So I've been running a RAID-0 that most of you know of for my OS/Programs drive. In addition to that I used to be running two separate RAID-1 (mirror) arrays using a total of four WD Caviar Black 1TB drives. That gave me a total storage space of 2TB because that's how two arrays with two HDD's in each array mirroring each other works.

I recently filled that 2TB of space and needed more, so instead of running out and spending money on more HDD's I just distributed the 2TB to other computers I have access to and combined the two RAID-1's into a single RAID-5. This gives me 3TB of storage and I still have data protection if one of the drives fails for some reason.

Read statistics:
http://img535.imageshack.us/img535/5...dbenchmark.jpg

I can't get write statistics because HD Tune only allows you to do a write benchmark when there are no partitions setup on the drive in question. I was eager to get my data back onto this new RAID-5 so I never performed the write test. However I can tell you this, a software RAID-5 is not the way to go. I only get about 13MB/s sustained write speeds for large file transfers, it bursts at around 110MB/s to start with but decreases to 13MB/s within 30 seconds.

In the future I won't both running RAID-5 or RAID-6 on a software RAID solution. There's a reason actual hardware RAID cards cost upwards of $200 when the support RAID-5 and RAID-6, they have their own processor to handle all the data striping and parity calculations. As a matter of fact I'm looking into setting up a 12TB RAID-6 using eight 2TB WD Caviar Black drives in the future here. I'm going to build a cheap system and then put in a quality hardware RAID card for the eight drives.

Might as well just invest in dedicated server, then.

I have three quad-CPU Pentium III servers for this kind of shit...

Haha yeah... When I originally built this rig though I planned for everything to be internal. This was because I wanted to be able to take everything with me to LAN parties and such. However I failed to realize that HD video really adds up in the storage department.

I just realized that I may be able to save some money by getting a PCI RAID card for the 12TB RAID-6 I mentioned in my second last post. Then I can use my Pentium 4 system that I have lying around instead of spending an extra $750 on a new system just for that.

Wait no, the above is silly. I'm going to wait to buy the good RAID card and 8 2TB hard drives until after I build my water cooled system early next year with Ivy Bridge! Then I can convert my current system into the file server as well as a practically-everything-else-home-server-related server! Genius! Can also sell off one of my GTX 285's if it's just going to be a home server, will help cover some of these costs:

Water cooling components I'm thinking of grabbing from Frozen CPU when the time comes:

• 3 x 2.5 Meter (8 feet) Feser Tube Active UV Hose - Retail Packed - 1/2" ID (3/4"OD) Anti-Kink Tubing - UV Acid Green
• Black Ice GTX Xtreme 480 Radiator - Black
  
  • 2 x 1/2 x 3/4 Compression Fittings-Black
  
  
• Black Ice GTX Xtreme 240 Radiator - Black
  
  • 2 x 1/2 x 3/4 Compression Fittings-Black
  
  
• Swiftech MCB-120 Revision 2 "Radbox"
• 12 x Scythe Gentle Typhoon 120mm x 25mm Fan - 1850 RPM
• EK Supreme HF Universal CPU Liquid Cooling Block - Rev 2 - Acetal
  
  • 2 x 1/2 x 3/4 Compression Fittings-Black
  
  
• 2 x EK GeForce 590 GTX VGA Liquid Cooling Block - Nickel
• EK FC Bridge Dual Parallel - SLI Connection
  
  • 2 x EK FC Link GeForce
  • 2 x 1/2 x 3/4 Compression Fittings-Black
  
  
• Koolance 4-Fan Radiator Shroud - Black
• Swiftech MCP355 12 VDC Pump

Total: $1,158.56
(I'm probably missing a few things like extra fittings/barbs but I'll figure all that out closer to the build)

And then I guess I'll order the XSPC Dual 5.25" Bay Reservoir for Single Laing DDC from performance-pcs.com since they don't seem to have them at Frozen CPU (only the dual/split res version).

Obviously if the CPU/GPU plan changes when I'm ready to build the blocks will change as well. But the rest of the water cooling components will likely stay the same.

Dear Modacity:

I'm looking for a new dual core CPU to put in this PC in order to speed up gamecube emulation (I miss Metroid Prime since I sold my wii :saddowns:) but I only want to spend about 100 dollars. I found this one here, and it seems like exactly what I want. Thoughts, advice?

I've got a 600 watt power supply with nothing overclocked, and I don't plan to do any overclocking. Is that enough? I'm kind of a newb at this stuff.

As long as your motherboard supports it and it's better than what you have I don't see any issues with that CPU.

It's the same socket AM2+ as the other one, so it should work, right? Also, is there anything I'd need to do when installing it other than plug it in? Like, any software?

The CPU you linked to is socket AM3.

Socket AM3 CPUs can work in an AM2+ socket (with slower HT speeds), but the reverse is not true. AM3 has one less pin. Just check your motherboard to make sure it supports AM3 CPUs.