PC purchase advice sought

Bruv · Post by **Bruv** » Fri Jun 01, 2012 4:34 pm

I am contemplating a new PC.

A Barebones like the previous one, I need to choose a hard drive.

What are the preferred choices comparing Solid State and conventional High speed HD.

Are they interchangeable ?

Accountable · Post by **Accountable** » Fri Jun 01, 2012 6:48 pm

Isn't solid state tremendously faster?

Wandrin · Post by **Wandrin** » Fri Jun 01, 2012 6:55 pm

Accountable;1395233 wrote: Isn't solid state tremendously faster?

and far more expensive.

Wandrin · Post by **Wandrin** » Fri Jun 01, 2012 7:25 pm

For a desktop system, the best of both worlds would be to have a small SSD to hold the operating system and swap space and a 7200rpm conventional drive for data. That would give you fast startup and operation at a lower price than using a larger SSD. If cost is a major concern, I'd go with a 7200rpm disk drive, since it will give you far more storage capacity for less $$$.

I have an SSD in one of my laptop computers and a HDD in the other. Surprisingly, the HDD gives me longer battery life per charge, since an SSD doesn't spin down and when on is drawing power.

Post by **LarsMac** » Fri Jun 01, 2012 7:43 pm

You can find a 1 TB SATA drive for less than $100 US. For budget, that will serve you well.

And a single SSD is much faster on reads, but it can be much slower when writing data to it.

The manufacturers are building SSD array configurations that speed up the writes, but they are still very pricey.

you can almost build a whole PC for the cost of a good SSD.

Bruv · Post by **Bruv** » Sat Jun 02, 2012 4:36 am

To simplify my choice please take a look at what I have looked at....

Barebones system here

Hard drive here

Budget is a concern, but I have stumbled through the process before and was happy with the result, now is time to go for a better system.

With the addition of a DVD drive would these be compatible ? And worth the outlay ?

Accountable · Post by **Accountable** » Sat Jun 02, 2012 5:24 am

What do you plan to do with this new machine?

Bruv · Post by **Bruv** » Sat Jun 02, 2012 5:39 am

Accountable;1395277 wrote: What do you plan to do with this new machine?
General use, a personal PC with a Linux OS

Post by **spot** » Sat Jun 02, 2012 6:08 am

You need to match the barebones motherboard to the specification of the hard drive or the SATA port will be a disk bottleneck.

This might help - I pressed a button...Welcome to the Novatech Sales Livechat. Please type your query into the box below and a representative will get back to you as soon as possible.

[14:00:38] : Which is the cheapest barebones machine that has Sata3 to add OCZ-A360G to? It's not mentioned in the specs as far as I can see.

[14:00:39] : Hi, how can I help you today?

[14:02:25] : If the barebones listings have the motherboard code anywhere, I could check with that.

[14:03:57] : One moment

[14:05:09] : I'm not stuck for time, I'm happy to wait. BB-21204G would do me fine if it has a Sata3 port, that's the £179 option.

[14:05:41] : This is our cheapest system with SATA III

[14:05:42] : Novatech Barebone Bundle - Intel Core i5 3450 - 4GB DDR3 1333Mhz - Intel B75 Motherboard - 4 Bay ATX Tower Case & PSU | BB-34504A

[14:05:58] : Or this one

[14:05:58] : Novatech Barebone Bundle - AMD FX-8 8120 - 8GB DDR3 10666Mhz - AMD 970A Motherboard - Novatech Tower Case & Novatech Powerstation 750w PSU | BB-81208E

[14:06:58] : Thank you very much Kevin - Live Chat is a great sales magnet and you've helped a lot.

[14:08:25] : No problem

[14:08:32] : If ordering you can use my online Rep Code: 2142. I can then track/check your order and let you know if there is any problem with your order. Thank you.

Lars is right about adding a general mass store behind that 60GB SATA3 drive, too. Any 1TB drive will do - I bought an external 2TB this week for £80, they're distressingly cheap. If it were me I'd make the second drive a 1TB internal. http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/comp ... dl002.html is £63.

That first of Kevin's options at £275 is a great bit of kit and good value. Ask Bryn when he comes on. You might ask Novatech sales what they'd charge to make it 8GB instead of 4GB. The second sounds from the reviews as though it's very loud, the Intel runs a lot cooler.

Bruv · Post by **Bruv** » Sat Jun 02, 2012 6:53 am

Whatever I say now will sound bad. but here I go anyway.

How with the information supplied by me so far do you assume I have the understanding to ask the question....

"Which is the cheapest barebones machine that has Sata3 to add OCZ-A360G to? It's not mentioned in the specs as far as I can see." ?

I am a techno numpty

I don't do acronyms, or Technical Specs, some of my many blind spots.

While appreciating your help, you have managed to show me the way to Sales Live Chat(Thank You) and confuse me by adding a second hard drive.

I shall continue researching, and use Live chat when I come to order, just to make sure it's all compatible.

Thanks.

Post by **spot** » Sat Jun 02, 2012 7:06 am

The drive you linked to is called "OCZ Agility 3 SATA III 2.5" 60GB Solid State Hard Drive: Read Speed: 525MB/Sec, Write Speed: 475MB/Sec".

SATA is the name of the cable interface connecting the drive to the motherboard. The first SATA promised to carry at most 150MB/sec, the second 300MB/sec, the third 600MB/sec. The reason the drive you looked at offers to read and write at those speeds is that the SATA3 cable can bear it. The innards differ too but that's the basis - SATA3 is the quality connection that allows the drive to run at full speed. Connecting that drive to a SATA2 or basic SATA motherboard port will slow the drive down to a half or a quarter of its promised speed. You chose the drive because it was fast.

The drive is 60GB. There are two reasons for adding a £63 second slower drive. Firstly, it means you can keep all your photos/whatever in two places instead of one - you can be sure you'll lose them over the decades if they only exist on a single drive because drives sometimes die. Secondly it means you'll have adequate expansion space, 60GB is small for some of today's uses. If you don't store music or videos then you might get by with 60GB indefinitely, but you still need a backup for security and the internal drive is a cheap backup answer.

I can get by inside 60GB but I'm not what's called a Power User. I still need a backup box, even so.

Bruv · Post by **Bruv** » Sat Jun 02, 2012 7:40 am

I am reading and trying to get my head around it, I know you know what you are talking about.

I have just discovered my current HDD (that's right isn't it?) is 80GB so I do realise a larger capacity is best.

I am not very silly, just fail to understand specs and compatibility.

Post by **LarsMac** » Sat Jun 02, 2012 8:18 am

That bare bones system looks like a decent unit.

I would say that you would be better off just putting you money into this 500 GB drive. or the like.

For what you are doing, I don't think the response time improvements of the SSD will serve you well.

IF you want to spring for both, you can install the Operating system on the SSD, as wandrin suggested, and use the HDD for your personal data.

It would also be worth the money to spring for a Blue-Ray drive, these days.

Putting all of this together is really rather simple, as well.