Need Purchasing Advice

[sephroth777]

Hello:

I need some advice concerning my following system.
Currently I have a
PII 350 with 224 RAM
9.6 GB Bigfoot HD
16x Pioneer DVD
4x HP CDRW
Antec SX1030b with Antec 300w PSU

I am building a new system over the summer most likely as follows.
Abit AT7, AMD 2400XP when it is out, 512 Corsair RAM, GF4

This week I am looking to make a purchase consisting of:

Western Digital 1200JB and a Plextor 40x CDRW
I figure I would purchase another WD1200JB over the summer and have a RAID 0 on the ABIT.

or

Should I scratch the above and build a SCSI system by getting a
Adaptec 39160 or 29160 SCSI card
and a SCSI HD

Just wondering what eveyone's opinions are and what would be a better upgrade for my system at this moment.

Thanks!!!

 

[renorocks]

Sounds like you are on the right track. A few outside suggestions never hurts, but too many and analysis paralysis sets in. I own a high end custom computer business out of Reno, Nv. and have built countless high performance systems (a few even with liquid cooling.)

1) bang for the buck, I would stick with IDE hard drives compared to scsi. IDE hard drive speed has come a verrry long way, granted the IDE drives are not quite as fast as scsi, but close eneough that spending the extra money on an expensive scsi controller and drives makes IDE an attractive choice.

2) if you have the bucks for a scsi system, you may want to consider re-directing some cash at building a dual cpu system (amd athlon xp) with a super stable Tyan 2640 power workstation motherboard.

3) I have had great success with the highpoint IDE ata 133 raid controller (Rocket Raid) with Maxtor or Western Digital ata 133 drives (4 of them raid 0)

4) Since you will save all that cash by going IDE as opposed to scsi you can afford 1gb of registered ddr ram

5) If you are going with a 40x cdrw, check out the Mitsumi 40x as opposed to Plextor. The Mitsumi is $50 to $100 cheaper and the performance is verrry close to plextor.

Anyway.....that's my 2 cents worth. Good luck with your new project. Whichever way you decide to go, it's an improvement over what you have now.

 

[madthumbs]

I'd also recommend sticking with IDE. Unless there is an architectural difference in cpu's, I wouldn't get the fastest one available since you end up paying way more than you should for it. There is a negligible difference between fastest/ second fastest/ third right now anyway. A few months down the road, you could buy the current fastest much cheaper. I'd recommend going with a LiteOn cdrw and considering a 24x instead (if it's significantly cheaper). The actual burn times aren't gonna be too far off.

 

[sephroth777]

Basically I am looking to spend about 400-500 dollars at this time and is WD1200JB and a good CDRW a good investment for a high performance system?

I am just worried about the reports re: data loss with RAID 0 setups.

Would SCSI be a good investment such as a card and good HD since I really do not need a large HD.

THANKS!!!