Hardware you would avoid for DC'ing and why

Gilthanis

Gilthanis

[H]ard|DCer of the Year - 2014
Joined
Jan 29, 2006
Messages
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I figured that we all have hardware we prefer and hardware we avoid like the plague. Use this forum to give your testimonials and experience so others can learn from them.

I for one avoid all Hitachi hard drives. Though they are cheap and many people pick them up for replacements, I find them to be junk. I have had to replace more Hitachi hard drives for customers then any other brand since I started fixing computers in 1995. I find that especially true when running WCG's CEP2 project which uses a ton of IO's. Even if the drive tests fine with main stream diagnostics, I have seen these drives error out the work units. Every time I have replaced even a functional Hitachi drive, the system no longer has erroring CEP2 work units.
 
I've never heard of a project that requires heavy Disk I/O. Does the software run much faster on SSDs than HDDs?
 
F@H has a bug on some filesystems that means SSDs make a big difference, although RAM Disks are preferred.
 
Zink, SSD's do make a difference at some projects. Especially at WCG when running CEP2. CEP2 is very heavy on the IO's so much that the project is Opt in only and by default only sends one work unit at a time. You have to manually set in your preferences to accept more then one. Some computer run just fine with multiple work units at once, but if you strain your HD too much, they could all error out on you. It is also recommended to have your BOINC data directory on a second hard drive to help eliminate the IO's. Others will also make Ramdrives to speed things up. Most projects at BOINC however will checkpoint at longer intervals to avoid thrashing drives. Some projects don't have checkpointing at all and can run several days before finishing such as RNA@home.
 
Bob_Dole said:
This this this.

I bought one for my first pc build, I'm not sure how it's managed to survive, but all my others (bought 2 more) died.
Click to expand...

these days there's only 2 hard drive manufacturers aren't there? obviously more with SSD's but I mean the spinners through various mergers.

I avoid everything OCZ simply because quality is just too hit and miss with their products. I was with them in the garage days but wow is quality all over the board. They will always rush products out and try to make a splash so until a line has proven itself they're not worth the risk

I avoid everything Abit due to too much flakiness and well apparently most people thought that way.

I avoid AMD desktop CPU's other than those cheap sub $50 ones. Server they have some uses if you can tolerate the heat/power.

in the memory area I mostly watch the voltage because its POS RAM that wants higher voltage. Brand doesn't matter too much.
 
Corsair RAM is a bit stingy on the binning. It will run spec, but there is little if any headroom for overclocking.
 
Patriot Autobahn "8GB" usb 2.0 psf8glsabusb
Advertised 8GB (7.45GiB)
Actual 7.73GB (7.2GiB)

Useless for an 8GB [H] ubuntu appliance image...
 
Agree with the Patriot Autobahn but because I got a couple of these to run on my dedicated GPU rigs instead of buying a HDD as they were cheap.... well the transfer rate must be HORRID. Took overnight to install windows, and rebooting would easily take 20 minutes ~ not even exaggerating.
 
Patriot said:
Patriot Autobahn "8GB" usb 2.0 psf8glsabusb
Advertised 8GB (7.45GiB)
Actual 7.73GB (7.2GiB)

Useless for an 8GB [H] ubuntu appliance image...
Click to expand...

I'm not a folder.. I use BAMT which fits nicely on 4gb sticks and I buy those ones that barely even stick out of the USB port. They have bigger ones too but really an 8Gb install is still rather bloated.

I am using a full blown ubuntu install though for my server which I play around with a wide variety of things so I like to have the full blown for that.
 
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