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Computers?

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Category: Photography
Forum Name: Cameras, Equipment and Settings
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Topic: Computers?
Posted By: Skylar McMahon
Subject: Computers?
Date Posted: January/25/2016 at 08:31

Recently I purchase Adobe Lightroom, and as I tried to load it on my computer at home, it gave me an error that my OS is out of date and the software will not work.


After talking with others about this, I have come to the conclusion that MAC would be the next solution for processing photos and ect...


So...after looking at them, there are several to choose from, which do I opt for?




Replies:
Posted By: Rancid Coolaid
Date Posted: January/25/2016 at 09:19
First and foremost, I am no professional photographer or professional photo editor.  But I do edit photos on my computer, and have had best results with lots (and LOTS) of RAM and processor speed.

If you plan to buy a computer that will have the singular purpose of photo editing (and you are comfortable with Mac) then go that route.  If the computer will be doing multiple tasks, I'd say stick with the one that does them all well.

I hate Mac file system, I've run Windows boxes since Win3.1 and just know the way they work.  I've had a few Macs and tried to love them, I just don't.  All hardware being equal, they are faster; but all hardware isn't equal.  

If your computer is a powerhouse with an older operating system, why not just upgrade your OS?  


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Freedom is something you take.
Respect is something you earn.
Equality is something you whine about not being given.


Posted By: supertool73
Date Posted: January/25/2016 at 09:35
What OS you got Sky?

I have used lightroom just fine and Windows 7, Home Server 2011, Server 2012 and Windows 8 and 8.1.

Also when it says out of date, it could just mean you need to get current on windows updates.  If you are running 7 there is a service pack one that unless you have it, lots of software will not install. 


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Lifetime warranty and excellent customer service don't mean a thing when your gun fails during a zombie attack.

"A Liberal is a person who will give away everything they don't own."


Posted By: Skylar McMahon
Date Posted: January/25/2016 at 09:37

Sadly it is no powerhouse. Only got it years ago for regular everyday things, like email, forums, ect..

It's been a fair machine. But after getting in Photography and now toying with videos, I have learned that I am handicapped.





Posted By: Skylar McMahon
Date Posted: January/25/2016 at 09:37

It's Vista. The worst OS I have ever used.




Posted By: supertool73
Date Posted: January/25/2016 at 09:40
ohh, yeah vista sucks.  If your specs are good enough you can upgrade from vista to 8.1 and probably 10 for that matter.

What you got under the hood? 


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Lifetime warranty and excellent customer service don't mean a thing when your gun fails during a zombie attack.

"A Liberal is a person who will give away everything they don't own."


Posted By: supertool73
Date Posted: January/25/2016 at 09:43
you will spend twice the money for a Mac.  But they are great machines for photos and video.  My sister is a Macaholic and would never go back to PC.  But Lightroom works just as good on a PC. 


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Lifetime warranty and excellent customer service don't mean a thing when your gun fails during a zombie attack.

"A Liberal is a person who will give away everything they don't own."


Posted By: Skylar McMahon
Date Posted: January/25/2016 at 09:43
I may have to call you tonight and see where to look that information up. I have never done anything like that. Prior to this one, I had Windows XP, wich I really enjoyed, but then we went with a new tower that had Vista on it and I have not liked it honestly.


Posted By: supertool73
Date Posted: January/25/2016 at 09:56
Please feel free to.  Would be happy to help.

As far as looking it up, its pretty slick.  Just right click "Computer" or "My computer" (what ever it is called in vista.  Then go to properties.  It should bring up a page that has your PC name, OS version, Processor, and Memory on it. 


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Lifetime warranty and excellent customer service don't mean a thing when your gun fails during a zombie attack.

"A Liberal is a person who will give away everything they don't own."


Posted By: Skylar McMahon
Date Posted: January/25/2016 at 09:57

I will check out and PM you ST.


Rancid, thank you for your input as well.



Posted By: Rancid Coolaid
Date Posted: January/25/2016 at 11:17
You need horsepower for photo and video, and that means no on-board video, no shared memory, etc.

And computers, PC or Mac, cost more than the "do everything okay" variety.

As with optics, what is your budget?
What other uses?
What monitor you have?
"Needs" and "wants"?


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Freedom is something you take.
Respect is something you earn.
Equality is something you whine about not being given.


Posted By: Kickboxer
Date Posted: January/25/2016 at 11:36
Originally posted by Skylar McMahon Skylar McMahon wrote:

I will check out and PM you ST.


Rancid, thank you for your input as well.

Macintosh OS is what Windows, and others, poorly tries to duplicate.  The latest OS upgrade, El Capitan, (upgrade to Yosemite) significantly improves speed, especially with photo processing.  You have access to iCloud for photo storage... quite extensive. 

Get the iMac with 4GHz processor, 27 inch monitor (beautiful), and max out the internal memory.  Then, I suggest spend some time with your Mac Store learning how to use it.  I've just done the upgrades on my iMac, but have not spent the time to learn the new features.  It comes with fairly extensive photo processing tools, but, once again, I've not "hit the books" on how to use the great features, yet.  Started to, got sidetracked.  GIMP, Pixen, Pixelmator are all FREE 'add ons" to Apple Photo... which is Mac's free "Photoshop" upstart.  My opinion... Photoshop is the best out there... was initially and still is, but you can get DANG close with the free stuff from Apple and its minions.  Free can be quite useful. 

I don't do photo editing like I used to... not doing detailed government tech manuals anymore, but nothing beats Mac in the photo manipulation world.  In the not too distant past (about 10 years ago), a company in this area in competition with a Japanese consortium built the world's fastest supercomputer out of networked Mac G5's... at 20% the cost of the Japanese competitor.  Received high usage from the supercomputer user world for quite some time.  We ran a number of hyper-codes on it in record times, cutting weeks to hours, hours to mere seconds.  Of course, parallelizing code became important for those endeavors. 



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Opinion,untempered by fact,is ignorance.

There are some who do not fear death... for they are more afraid of not really living


Posted By: supertool73
Date Posted: January/25/2016 at 11:43
Modern on board video is fine for photos/lightroom, Photos are not very taxing on the graphics dept. unless you are using a 40" 4K monitor or something crazy like that, and even then your just putting one picture on the screen at a time, so its really not a big deal. 

For videos yes I agree a dedicated card would be better and is probably a must.  But 3d rendering is a whole different ball game than pictures.  And even then the modern CPUs with built in GPUs are pretty neat and can run recent games pretty well.  So unless you are a hard core video editor no need to go crazy in the video dept either 

With photos, memory is where it really matters.  That way you can have a bunch of huge resolution pictures open at the same time and not have to buffer to your hard drive. 

Lightroom 5 recommends 8 gigs.  My wifes PC has 8 gigs and she has no issues with lag so far.  I would probably get 16 gigs though.  It should only cost you $50 more for the upgrade. 

Processor wise, they are so powerful today any decent one will work.  I would suggest a intell core i5 or a similar AMD.  With AMDs you get 90%+ of the performance for often times half the cost. 

A solid state hard drive would also be a huge benefit.  You get 500% more performance out of one of those over a traditional hard drive.  For pictures or video they make a huge huge difference. 

Mostly just remember you are just editing photos.  You don't need a super computer for that.  No need to spend $2000 or more.  A decent mid priced computer that is customized for your needs will do what you are wanting just fine. 

 


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Lifetime warranty and excellent customer service don't mean a thing when your gun fails during a zombie attack.

"A Liberal is a person who will give away everything they don't own."


Posted By: Rancid Coolaid
Date Posted: January/25/2016 at 12:36
Originally posted by supertool73 supertool73 wrote:



Mostly just remember you are just editing photos.  You don't need a super computer for that.  No need to spend $2000 or more.  A decent mid priced computer that is customized for your needs will do what you are wanting just fine. 

 

I disagree: if a supercomputer can do the work 2X faster for only 5X more money, it'd be stupid not to go for it.  Go big or go home, I say.




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Freedom is something you take.
Respect is something you earn.
Equality is something you whine about not being given.


Posted By: supertool73
Date Posted: January/25/2016 at 13:12
haha.  That would be a sweet setup.

A fellow local IT guy has a 5 monitor setup in his office.  It is awesome. 


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Lifetime warranty and excellent customer service don't mean a thing when your gun fails during a zombie attack.

"A Liberal is a person who will give away everything they don't own."


Posted By: Kickboxer
Date Posted: January/25/2016 at 13:48

The most high-end configuration of the XPS One 27 costs $2,599, with 16GB of RAM and a 32GB solid-state hybrid hard-drive upgrade.

27inch iMac with Retina 5K display (Apple’s newest iMac has the best display ever on a computing device. techcrunch)

4.0GHz quad-core Intel Core i7
16GB memory | 2TB Fusion Drive
Turbo Boost up to 4.2GHz

AMD Radeon R9 M395 with 2GB of GDDR5
Apple Magic Keyboard | Magic Mouse 2

2699.00

I'll take the Mac, any day...



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Opinion,untempered by fact,is ignorance.

There are some who do not fear death... for they are more afraid of not really living


Posted By: mike650
Date Posted: January/25/2016 at 13:51
Didn't MAC (Apple) change their hardware to be more like a PC?  Wink

I have Lightroom running on both a MAC Air and multiple PC's (windows 7 and 10) and it works fine on both platforms. Get that Vista crap off your PC and upgrade to at least windows 7. Your hardware is probably dated and challenged (slow) when running certain programs, video, etc. You're better off getting a new PC or laptop if you're going to stay with Windows.

MAC graphics are hard to beat and the device itself is very easy to use, their business plan was to target kids in school and the elderly which they have with great success, years later the kids kids kids are now learning on MAC's. With that said I don't care for MAC/Apple's proprietary approach with software and cables. They're way over priced (very expensive for what I'd get) and you better decide how much RAM, etc. you want up front because you can't upgrade it later like a PC. Don't get me wrong, MAC's are very very nice.




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“A hunt based only on trophies taken falls far short of what the ultimate goal should be.” – Fred Bear


Posted By: supertool73
Date Posted: January/25/2016 at 14:11
I bet that 5k monitor is amazing. 

Other than the monitor, spec wise the Apple is no better.  Fusion drive is just a hybrid drive.  Just apples name for it.  The Radeon is not even that high end with only 2gig memory. 

If a guy done it himself he could build that same Dell with 27" 4k for $1500ish.  Computers are kind of like ARs.  Super easy to build and setup. 


-------------
Lifetime warranty and excellent customer service don't mean a thing when your gun fails during a zombie attack.

"A Liberal is a person who will give away everything they don't own."


Posted By: Kickboxer
Date Posted: January/25/2016 at 14:36

Originally posted by mike650 mike650 wrote:

Didn't MAC (Apple) change their hardware to be more like a PC?  Wink

I have Lightroom running on both a MAC Air and multiple PC's (windows 7 and 10) and it works fine on both platforms. Get that Vista crap off your PC and upgrade to at least windows 7. Your hardware is probably dated and challenged (slow) when running certain programs, video, etc. You're better off getting a new PC or laptop if you're going to stay with Windows.

MAC graphics are hard to beat and the device itself is very easy to use, their business plan was to target kids in school and the elderly which they have with great success, years later the kids kids kids are now learning on MAC's. With that said I don't care for MAC/Apple's proprietary approach with software and cables. They're way over priced (very expensive for what I'd get) and you better decide how much RAM, etc. you want up front because you can't upgrade it later like a PC. Don't get me wrong, MAC's are very very nice.



They've for a long time pretty much used the same processor



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Opinion,untempered by fact,is ignorance.

There are some who do not fear death... for they are more afraid of not really living


Posted By: Kickboxer
Date Posted: January/25/2016 at 14:38

Originally posted by supertool73 supertool73 wrote:

I bet that 5k monitor is amazing. 

Other than the monitor, spec wise the Apple is no better.  Fusion drive is just a hybrid drive.  Just apples name for it.  The Radeon is not even that high end with only 2gig memory. 

If a guy done it himself he could build that same Dell with 27" 4k for $1500ish.  Computers are kind of like ARs.  Super easy to build and setup. 

but they have the fake OS... windows



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Opinion,untempered by fact,is ignorance.

There are some who do not fear death... for they are more afraid of not really living


Posted By: supertool73
Date Posted: January/25/2016 at 15:25
From what I am reading Radeon R9 does not support beyond 4k.  So makes one wonder if that 5k monitor is even worth the extra cost. 


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Lifetime warranty and excellent customer service don't mean a thing when your gun fails during a zombie attack.

"A Liberal is a person who will give away everything they don't own."


Posted By: Bitterroot Bulls
Date Posted: January/25/2016 at 16:30
I switched to Mac a couple years ago.  All my devices are now seamlessly Apple.  I have Lightroom and Photoshop CC.  I have no desire to go back to the Windows cave with the other Neanderthals.

Wink
Cool


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-Matt


Posted By: oldfortyfive
Date Posted: January/25/2016 at 16:48

I've been with Apple since 1981....no regrets. Just got a new 27" imac with 32g ram and 3TB drive. Now good for another 4-5 years. I live on PC's at work, but when its my money its a mac.

One thing I've learned over the years on either system is to get the highest end maxed out unit available when you pull the trigger. You'll get the most useable life out of the machine that way. I've seen so many buy a lower end machine and two months later they are doing nothing but pi$$ing and moaning about it. The machine this one replaced was 5 years old and still a very usable machine even now....just felt the desire for a new one.



Posted By: cheaptrick
Date Posted: January/25/2016 at 16:52
Yeah well, I just replaced my Iphone 6 Plus for the 3rd time in a year due to glitches. I'm getting tired of rotten Apple's. 
My old Iphone 4 was great. 


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If at first you don't secede...try..try again.


Posted By: Kickboxer
Date Posted: January/25/2016 at 16:58
The new iMac comes with the 395 processor… rated pretty high on performance.  However, it can be upgraded to the 395X with 4Gig… 
However, the Mac is not a glorified XBOX like many PC systems…. it is a useful tool that can also be used to play games.  


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Opinion,untempered by fact,is ignorance.

There are some who do not fear death... for they are more afraid of not really living


Posted By: cheaptrick
Date Posted: January/25/2016 at 17:02
Hahaha the young "genius", Carl, at the genius bar that waited on me got an earful today. The 90 day warranty from the LAST bad phone ran out 7 days ago and he said I would have to pay $329.00 to get a replacement. 
I got a hellified chest going on cold, drove 2 hours to get to an Apple store, that's located in a mall...slap full of weirdos walking around and I wasn't having it. 

"So that' where we at...Carl???" I'm 7 days over on a 90 day warranty from the last screw up....and know I'm supposed to get my billfold out??" Right, Carl?!?! 

"Let me talk to the manager", Carl says meekly. 
"You want me to talk to him...Carl"?? 
"No, Sir....I got it.", he said patting me on the back. 

New phone....let's see. 

     


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If at first you don't secede...try..try again.


Posted By: Bitterroot Bulls
Date Posted: January/25/2016 at 18:42
Originally posted by cheaptrick cheaptrick wrote:

Yeah well, I just replaced my Iphone 6 Plus for the 3rd time in a year due to glitches. I'm getting tired of rotten Apple's. 
My old Iphone 4 was great. 

Wow, bad luck there Mark.

I have been running the 6 plus since they were introduced and I haven't had a single crash.  I have the Verizon version.


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-Matt


Posted By: Kickboxer
Date Posted: January/25/2016 at 20:49
I've never had an iPhone… all my daughters do… I've stayed with Droid.  Daughters have had some problems but mostly due to their inability to hold onto a phone… even iPhones don't do well when they come into direct contact with concrete... from various heights...

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Opinion,untempered by fact,is ignorance.

There are some who do not fear death... for they are more afraid of not really living


Posted By: Kickboxer
Date Posted: January/25/2016 at 21:04
Guys… I'm just bustin' your chops over computers… (because it's so easy…


I DO prefer Macs, I like the way they did the OS, a number of other things… but for many years they have used the same processor… 
I have three Macs… two are 8 years old, still function fine (can't update them anymore, so one is not highly used, but IS still used).  One is a fairly recent purchase and has all the bells and whistles.  It is superb.
Since I bought the two earlier Macs, I've had 4 Dell laptops and two desktops at work… they just have not held up as well.  When they are working, performance-wise there is little difference between the brands.  I also have an Acer mini laptop that I've had since 2010… it is OK, but has always been pretty slow.  
For the graphics I require, Mac is "it".  However, PhotoShop works on both types.  
I do have a lot more problems with PC-type machines than Macs, some of it imposed by DoD.  
I'll never "change" from preferring Mac, unless Apple makes a drastic change in philosophy.  There are some poor, misguided, tortured souls who prefer PC's… may they someday become enlightened...


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Opinion,untempered by fact,is ignorance.

There are some who do not fear death... for they are more afraid of not really living


Posted By: sucker76
Date Posted: January/26/2016 at 08:33
Here's my .02
To me PC and MAC are Ford and Chevy.  You will have your die hard fans on either side.  Two similar things that do similar things.  I grew up around PC and I'm comfortable with it and I don't want to learn a new OS structure etc.  My cousin is the opposite.  Apple's the answer - what's the question?

I think the original issue was a computer that won't run the new Lightroom either because of OS or hardware.  Vista does stink and I'm sorry for your misfortune.  Like suggested, try updating: Control Panel\System and Security\Windows Update\check for updates.  If that doesn't solve your problem you can upgrade your OS.  It sounds intimidating but isn't once you get started.  You have two upgrade options.  1:Clean install Windows 10 for ~$120 for home version.  2:Clean install Windows 8.1 ~$100 and upgrade to Win 10 for free.  As for hardware, the cheapest/easiest is to add RAM.  16GB of RAM  cost ~$60.  It is drop dead simple to add.  You will just have to make sure you get the RAM that will work in your computer.  You can go to manufacturers sites like Kingston and the site will help you find the right RAM.  I don't know all the specs of your computer but the processor and hard drive you have are probably just fine.  An upgrade to an SSD hard drive in the future is possible but not necessary.  The video card is probably OK too.  Rendering pictures doesn't require lots of video horsepower.  Rendering video is different. 
For around $200 you can have a heck of a machine. 
If you are set on getting a MAC, then that's your fault. Big GrinCool  I had to throw in a zinger somewhere but seriously they are just fine.  I just think they are overpriced for the hardware you get and what you are paying for is the OS and feeling that it will never die or break. 


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Stamp collecting since 2015


Posted By: RifleDude
Date Posted: January/26/2016 at 08:51
Whichever operating system you use, my advice is to get the largest external hard drive you can afford to store your photos on to keep your computer hard drive lean. Hundreds/ thousands of RAW and high res TIFF and JPEG files can quickly consume hard drive space. I got a 4TB HD that I use solely for photo storage.

As for Mac vs PC, I use both. Both have their pluses and minuses. Yes, Mac is more expensive and less upgradeable. BUT... I will say my experience has been that the Mac OS has been far more trouble-free for me. I've never had any viruses, spyware, etc, and it never crashes, seldom ever freezes up, etc. The display resolution looks nicer too. I'm no computer expert unlike a few of our OT brethren here, so take my advice for what it's worth. I just like my stuff to run hassle free. I get that with our 3 Macs, but have never had close to that with any PC I've ever had, whether at home or at work.

As for Lightroom, I've never found the program itself to be very taxing of system resources, but large file size photo storage is the issue.

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Ted


Money can't buy happiness... but it's much more comfortable to cry in a Porsche than on a bicycle.


Posted By: sucker76
Date Posted: January/26/2016 at 09:10
I was sorta misleading on the hard drive suggestion.  SSD's are too expensive for mass storage.  Regular drives are more economical.  I use a relatively small SSD (128, 256GB) OS drive.  It will boot the machine and have all the programs on it like Lightroom etc.  I have a separate server that has 4TB of storage in a RAID10. Not everyone needs a separate server computer.  Like Ted said the biggest external drive you can afford is all you need.  I'm big on securing my data that's why I have a separate computer that handles the RAID.  There are external hard drive type RAID boxes like the Drobo.  I also use Carbonite to back up my data. 


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Stamp collecting since 2015


Posted By: DCAMM94
Date Posted: January/26/2016 at 09:57
I have a 256GB Surface Pro 3 and really like it.  I also have a 1TB external hard drive I use for my personal stuff.  I understand the new Surface Pro 4s have more RAM and a better graphics processor, but the Surface Pro with Windows 10 is outstanding.  The surface pro 4s may be a good choice because the resolution on the screen is amazing (2736x1824 at 267 PPI) so it may give you some photo-editing advantages, but you'll probably have to sacrifice on the side of processing power and RAM from a true video/photo editing machine.  Good luck, Sky.

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Although personally I am quite content with existing explosives, I feel we must not stand in the path of improvement. -Winston Churchill


Posted By: supertool73
Date Posted: January/26/2016 at 12:24
In my experience, External hard drives are much more prone to failure. Partly because they often get moved around and partly because using usb seems to cause more errors on the drives. I have seen 10 times more drive failures using external usb than having an internal sata drive.

They have esata which from my use is very reliable but usb is just a problem waiting to happen. Especially if u are reading and writing alot.

Plus sata is faster and virtually all mothetboards have a few extra sata ports on them.

IMO if u are using a external usb drive to store data u better be backing it up often. Its just a matter of time til u lose it.

I am helping Sky spec one out. We are looking at a 480 gig ssd, 2 tb storage drive and a 3 tb backup drive to backup the other two.

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Lifetime warranty and excellent customer service don't mean a thing when your gun fails during a zombie attack.

"A Liberal is a person who will give away everything they don't own."


Posted By: sucker76
Date Posted: January/26/2016 at 12:41
I have had Dells and Compaqs that were a pain to upgrade just because there wasn't much room left in the case or ports on the motherboard.  Best of luck to you. 

Skylar if your computer case can fit one SSD (OS) and two 3.5" drives (storage), I highly recommend running the two drives in RAID1.  This will help with data retention just in case a drive fails.  The RAID can be run by the motherboard itself. 


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Stamp collecting since 2015


Posted By: Skylar McMahon
Date Posted: January/26/2016 at 12:43

Originally posted by sucker76 sucker76 wrote:



Skylar if your computer case can fit one SSD (OS) and two 3.5" drives (storage), I highly recommend running the two drives in RAID1.  This will help with data retention just in case a drive fails.  The RAID can be run by the motherboard itself. 


Two disk drives?

The one I have now, has one available and there is a dummy door for a second, but I have never installed one.


So I should have two of these?



Posted By: oldfortyfive
Date Posted: January/26/2016 at 13:34

Hard drives, its not if they will fail, but WHEN.....

I keep one external hooked up all the time doing regular backups. I usually get about 3 years from them. Mostly use Western Digital. Avoid Seagate drives...

I also keep 3-4 drives in rotation and run a clone to one of them every other month or so. I keep one offsite  at a friends house just in case. A few years ago I had a bad month, lost three drives. One in the machine and two backups. You can't have too many backups.



Posted By: sucker76
Date Posted: January/26/2016 at 14:03
Originally posted by Skylar McMahon Skylar McMahon wrote:

Originally posted by sucker76 sucker76 wrote:



Skylar if your computer case can fit one SSD (OS) and two 3.5" drives (storage), I highly recommend running the two drives in RAID1.  This will help with data retention just in case a drive fails.  The RAID can be run by the motherboard itself. 


Two disk drives?

The one I have now, has one available and there is a dummy door for a second, but I have never installed one.


So I should have two of these?



ST said you two were looking at 3 total hard drives.  I assumed 2 internal and 1 external.  Reading your comment says I was wrong and you will have on internal and two external drives.  I may have over-complicated the simple.


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Stamp collecting since 2015


Posted By: Skylar McMahon
Date Posted: January/26/2016 at 14:08

Phil you started to get be backwards there. I was confused.




Posted By: sucker76
Date Posted: January/26/2016 at 14:19
My fault.  I didn't have all the info needed.  I assumed - you know what they say...Cencored


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Stamp collecting since 2015


Posted By: supertool73
Date Posted: January/26/2016 at 17:15
Problem with Raid1 on desktop computers is often time the built in Raid controller is not reliable.  One of the hard drives will drop off and most of them don't have a way to rebuilt the array easily.  Can be a real pain in the rear.  Also depending upon Raid as a backup is a mistake.  It is a redundancy not a backup.  The point of Raid is so that if you loose a drive you machine can keep working til you can fix it so your users don't go offline.  I have seen whole arrays just fail completely with total data loss. 

Using storage spaces in Windows 8.1 and 10 is a really neat tool that is very reliable and much easier than setting up a raid array in the bios.  For home PCs and home servers it is an great reliable and inexpensive way to set up redundancy.  For enterprise use, I would spend the money for a enterprise raid controller. 

I have two Server 2012 boxes at home that I am using Storage spaces on.  One of them has a mirroring array with 10 hard drive that is 20 tbs.  the other is a single parity array with 20 tbs.  Both of them have been running for over 1.5 years 24/7 and I have not had a single problem yet.  Every single desktop motherboard array I have built has dropped a hard drive at some point and I have not been able to get it working again, even though the HD tests fine.  And I have probably done 20+ of them.  I have built a dozen or so enterpise arrays and when a drive drops out it can easily be replaces and the array will rebuilt itself


On the subject of Seagate drives suck, that is not really accurate.  I have literally used 100s of both Seagate and western digital drives.  Truth be told I have seen a higher failure rate with WDs than Seagates, and in my experience the Seagate perform a little better overall.  We had a server that ran 24/7 for 7 years with two 10,000 seagates in a raid 1.  They were still working fine when we took it out of service.  I have 18 seagate 3 and 4 tb drives in my two servers running for over 1.5 years and have not had one of them fail yet.  And they are just desktop drives.  I keep expecting it to happen anytime, but so far so good. 

They are all going to fail.  But both brands make great drives.  Now I use Seagates pretty much exclusively and have no regrets.  

Back to external drive.  It is just not the best way to go, if you can put the drives in your case you will be much better off both performance wise and reliability wise.  But the comment about Dells and other proprietary systems not allowing expansion is true.  That is why you woudl be better off buying from a local computer shop that can build you a PC that is expandable and customizable. 


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Lifetime warranty and excellent customer service don't mean a thing when your gun fails during a zombie attack.

"A Liberal is a person who will give away everything they don't own."


Posted By: oldfortyfive
Date Posted: January/26/2016 at 19:19
http://https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-reliability-q3-2015/ - http://https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-reliability-q3-2015/

With an average failure rate around 5% one must plan accordingly.


Posted By: supertool73
Date Posted: January/26/2016 at 20:22
Originally posted by oldfortyfive oldfortyfive wrote:

http://https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-reliability-q3-2015/ - http://https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-reliability-q3-2015/

With an average failure rate around 5% one must plan accordingly.


Thats an awesome article. Thanks for posting it.

-------------
Lifetime warranty and excellent customer service don't mean a thing when your gun fails during a zombie attack.

"A Liberal is a person who will give away everything they don't own."


Posted By: oldfortyfive
Date Posted: February/02/2016 at 08:01
http://www.macnn.com/articles/16/02/01/class.action.suit.launched.today.law.firm.seeks.information.from.owners.132264/ - http://www.macnn.com/articles/16/02/01/class.action.suit.launched.today.law.firm.seeks.information.from.owners.132264/


Posted By: supertool73
Date Posted: February/02/2016 at 09:44
Hmm, I may have to change my opinion of them.  I must have been fortunate, as I have used hundreds of them over the last 10 years and not had very many issues.  I have 8 of the 3 tb ones in a couple surveillance computers right now.  They are 3 or so years old, having data written to them 24/7.  They are probably a different model though, as they are the surveillance designed drives. 

Thanks for the info.  

This kind of stuff is why I backup my important stuff 5 and 6 times.  You just cannot rely upon 1 or 2 backups to be good enough. 


-------------
Lifetime warranty and excellent customer service don't mean a thing when your gun fails during a zombie attack.

"A Liberal is a person who will give away everything they don't own."


Posted By: oldfortyfive
Date Posted: February/02/2016 at 11:05
And don't keep all your backups in one place. The farther apart the better.


Posted By: sucker76
Date Posted: February/02/2016 at 11:09
I'M a big fan of Carbonite for a remote backup.  This isn't my only one but it's definately far from my house.


-------------
Stamp collecting since 2015


Posted By: supertool73
Date Posted: February/02/2016 at 11:51
I am always leary of online backups. They get hacked often and u really have no idea whats happening with your data. But thats just me.

I have a raid 10 2012 server and mirrored NAS in my house. Then I buried a cat 5e wire out to my shed 50 yards from my house where my backup 2012 server is in raid 5. Then i have a wireless bridge to my folks house a few blocks away where i have a mirrored NAS. I am a data protection nut.

-------------
Lifetime warranty and excellent customer service don't mean a thing when your gun fails during a zombie attack.

"A Liberal is a person who will give away everything they don't own."


Posted By: Marine24
Date Posted: February/02/2016 at 12:25
And here I thought I was high speed with my 3 1/2" floppies.  That is quite the setup.  You are obviously running more than a home PC with that setup.


Posted By: supertool73
Date Posted: February/02/2016 at 12:53
I was able to get a bunch of free copies of server 2012 from microsoft from server classes i took. So i built a couple servers for home. I use windows 7 as a dvr for tv shows and we store movies on them and my wife has near a terbyte of pictures. We have computers hooked up to our tvs so we can watch our movie library and tv shows from our 3 tvs.

We dont store data locally on the computers everything in on the server. Plus it gives me a place to practice and train for work.

-------------
Lifetime warranty and excellent customer service don't mean a thing when your gun fails during a zombie attack.

"A Liberal is a person who will give away everything they don't own."


Posted By: supertool73
Date Posted: February/04/2016 at 16:16
Originally posted by oldfortyfive oldfortyfive wrote:

http://www.macnn.com/articles/16/02/01/class.action.suit.launched.today.law.firm.seeks.information.from.owners.132264/ - http://www.macnn.com/articles/16/02/01/class.action.suit.launched.today.law.firm.seeks.information.from.owners.132264/


I was just looking at my backup server.  I have 4 of those exact seagate 3 tb drives in it.  Model ST3000DM001-1CH1  So far they are all working just fine.  Been in that server for 1.5 years and they were in another server before this for about 2 years before that.

Then I have 4 of ST4000DM000-1F21 4 tb drives that have been in use the same amount of time also in that same backup server.

That server is used as a backup server for Hyper V replicate.  So it is being written two by 3 virtual servers every 30 seconds.  Plus it hosts my secondary virtual domain controller.  So it is being written and read to often by that server as well.

Strange mine have been so reliable and are used heavily and others are having such a crap time with them.  I honestly wonder if it is not that those backup drives are USB connected.  As I posted earlier, I have seen tons of failures of usb attached drives over the years.  Mine are all connected through a 8 port LSI SAS/Sata controller card.   Or maybe as I posted, I am just very fortunate.

I just got a couple Western Digital Red NAS drive for a Synology NAS device for my boss.  Guess we will see how they work.  


-------------
Lifetime warranty and excellent customer service don't mean a thing when your gun fails during a zombie attack.

"A Liberal is a person who will give away everything they don't own."


Posted By: Peddler
Date Posted: February/04/2016 at 16:27
What did ST say?

Holy c--t!

-------------
When you are dead, you don't know you are dead.It is difficult only for others.

It is the same when you are stupid.


Posted By: Kickboxer
Date Posted: February/04/2016 at 16:36
Originally posted by supertool73 supertool73 wrote:

Originally posted by oldfortyfive oldfortyfive wrote:

http://www.macnn.com/articles/16/02/01/class.action.suit.launched.today.law.firm.seeks.information.from.owners.132264/ - http://www.macnn.com/articles/16/02/01/class.action.suit.launched.today.law.firm.seeks.information.from.owners.132264/


I was just looking at my backup server.  I have 4 of those exact seagate 3 tb drives in it.  Model ST3000DM001-1CH1  So far they are all working just fine.  Been in that server for 1.5 years and they were in another server before this for about 2 years before that.

Then I have 4 of ST4000DM000-1F21 4 tb drives that have been in use the same amount of time also in that same backup server.

That server is used as a backup server for Hyper V replicate.  So it is being written two by 3 virtual servers every 30 seconds.  Plus it hosts my secondary virtual domain controller.  So it is being written and read to often by that server as well.

Strange mine have been so reliable and are used heavily and others are having such a crap time with them.  I honestly wonder if it is not that those backup drives are USB connected.  As I posted earlier, I have seen tons of failures of usb attached drives over the years.  Mine are all connected through a 8 port LSI SAS/Sata controller card.   Or maybe as I posted, I am just very fortunate.

I just got a couple Western Digital Red NAS drive for a Synology NAS device for my boss.  Guess we will see how they work.  

Where I work, we don't get to use USB devices… it is agaiknst regulation… reasons are 1) ease of infiltration, 2) high failure rates.  We cannot attach to any external storage device unless it is periodically chacked and approved by our Cybersecurity personnel.  Not worth the trouble.  Simulation labs use them quite a bit.


-------------
Opinion,untempered by fact,is ignorance.

There are some who do not fear death... for they are more afraid of not really living


Posted By: 3_tens
Date Posted: February/04/2016 at 17:21
I have 4 of the ST 3200542AB 2 TB drives mounted it my Blackarmor server. all 4 of the original drives have failed and 2 have failed twice in the last 5 years. 2 failed in the first 3 months. It would be hard for me to use Seagate drives again.


-------------
Folks ain't got a sense of humor no more. They don't laugh they just get sore.

Need to follow the rules. Just hard to determine which set of rules to follow
Now the rules have changed again.


Posted By: cheaptrick
Date Posted: February/04/2016 at 17:24
Damn Lile...I didn't know you spoke that gobbledy-gook too. 

Y'all lost me at hard drives. Bucky


-------------
If at first you don't secede...try..try again.


Posted By: Peddler
Date Posted: February/04/2016 at 17:30
I need help turning my iPad pro on!!!

My pic is old but not older than its owner.😎

-------------
When you are dead, you don't know you are dead.It is difficult only for others.

It is the same when you are stupid.


Posted By: supertool73
Date Posted: February/04/2016 at 17:35
Originally posted by 3_tens 3_tens wrote:

I have 4 of the ST 3200542AB 2 TB drives mounted it my Blackarmor server. all 4 of the original drives have failed and 2 have failed twice in the last 5 years. 2 failed in the first 3 months. It would be hard for me to use Seagate drives again.


Well dang, its crazy I am hearing all this.  I have never really looked up failures just always went based on my own usage.

I have 3 Synology brand 2 bay NAS devices on my network.  Two of them are using ST2000VN000-1H3164 2tb seagates, the other has ST1000NC001-1DY1, 1 tb seagate drives in it.  They have all be running 24/7 for nearly 3 years no issues with them either. 


-------------
Lifetime warranty and excellent customer service don't mean a thing when your gun fails during a zombie attack.

"A Liberal is a person who will give away everything they don't own."


Posted By: Peddler
Date Posted: February/04/2016 at 17:37
Wow!!!

I really wish I understood even a particle of that.

Sorry it shows my age and aversion to electronics that have passed me by.

-------------
When you are dead, you don't know you are dead.It is difficult only for others.

It is the same when you are stupid.


Posted By: supertool73
Date Posted: February/04/2016 at 17:55
NAS is network attached storage device.  You can put 2 physical hard drives in them.  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822108189&cm_re=synology-_-22-108-189-_-Product - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822108189&cm_re=synology-_-22-108-189-_-Product

You plug them into your network router or switch with an Ethernet cable just like you do your computer.  Then they are just used as data storage devices.  You can virtually attach them to your computers so they appear to be a hard drive in the "my computer" or "this PC" window on your computer.  Like your C drive, but you would give it a different letter like G or something. That way you can just drag and drop files to them just like they are on your computer, then you can search or veiw those files in file explorer.  Or you can backup your whole computer to them.

Typically they are set up so the 1 drive mirrors the other in real time.  So there is a constant backup running all the time.  They also have apps for the iphone and androids so you can back your pictures and documents from your phones up to them as well over your wifi connection at your house. 

ALso they can be your own private cloud.  If you set them up correctly you can access your pictures, videos, music, documents etc from anywhere as long as you have an internet connection.  My sister lives in Switzerland.  One of the Synology devices is hers.  She backs up her pictures and her iphone pictures all the way from there to the device in my house every day.  Every times her computer or phone gets on a wifi connection it starts backing up anything new.  

Your can buy NAS devices that hold more hard drives as well.  Synology has some that holds 20 drives.  So you can create some pretty huge and amazing data storage devices. 

The big numbers I keep posting are just the part numbers for the Seagate hard drives. 

Up above where I was talking about servers.  They are just like regular computers (but typically much more powereful) that have a server operating system on them called Windows Server 2012.  They are similar to Windows 8.1 but allow you to install many tasks and roles that are specifically for business use and managing large networks, for data storage, data sharing, printer sharing, backups, and hundreds of other uses.  I have a large number of hard drives in them, they have the hard drives chained together in a sense so it makes a giant hard drive.  Then half of them backup the other half in real time. 

Hope that makes a bit more sense.


-------------
Lifetime warranty and excellent customer service don't mean a thing when your gun fails during a zombie attack.

"A Liberal is a person who will give away everything they don't own."


Posted By: 3_tens
Date Posted: February/04/2016 at 18:18
Originally posted by supertool73 supertool73 wrote:

Originally posted by 3_tens 3_tens wrote:

I have 4 of the ST 3200542AB 2 TB drives mounted it my Blackarmor server. all 4 of the original drives have failed and 2 have failed twice in the last 5 years. 2 failed in the first 3 months. It would be hard for me to use Seagate drives again.


Well dang, its crazy I am hearing all this.  I have never really looked up failures just always went based on my own usage.

I have 3 Synology brand 2 bay NAS devices on my network.  Two of them are using ST2000VN000-1H3164 2tb seagates, the other has ST1000NC001-1DY1, 1 tb seagate drives in it.  They have all be running 24/7 for nearly 3 years no issues with them either. 

My NAS SATA is set up so that drives 1 & 2 are access drives and drives 3 & 4 are just backups of the first two. It will automatically rebuild a replaced damaged drive as long as I don't have 2 failures simultaneously. I wish I never had to learn this stuff. I still have a hard time getting  the server to recognize a  new computer and granting password access to the system.


-------------
Folks ain't got a sense of humor no more. They don't laugh they just get sore.

Need to follow the rules. Just hard to determine which set of rules to follow
Now the rules have changed again.


Posted By: supertool73
Date Posted: February/04/2016 at 18:24
That would be called a raid 10. Your get the speed of two drives operating together and the redundancy of them being mirrored. Great choice. I just ordered a 4 bay synology today. Going to put 4, 6 terabyte hard drives in it in a raid 10 config

-------------
Lifetime warranty and excellent customer service don't mean a thing when your gun fails during a zombie attack.

"A Liberal is a person who will give away everything they don't own."


Posted By: supertool73
Date Posted: February/05/2016 at 09:07
I did some counting last night.  I have 31 Seagate hard drives in use on my home network.  All of them have been in use for over 3 years.  Three of them for 5ish and two of them for 7ish.   But I did have 3 failures of some 2 tb drives about 4ish years back and one 1.5 tb 5 years back. 

Also did some reading last night and the western digital red drives have the head parking issue that the WD green drives have.  That is disappointing.  I have had a very high failure rate with the WD green drives in home server use.  (obviously not their intended use but...)

Lile, does your Seagate NAS have the actual NAS version drives in it or just desktop drives?  Just curious. 


-------------
Lifetime warranty and excellent customer service don't mean a thing when your gun fails during a zombie attack.

"A Liberal is a person who will give away everything they don't own."


Posted By: budperm
Date Posted: February/05/2016 at 11:58
Originally posted by Peddler Peddler wrote:

Wow!!!

I really wish I understood even a particle of that.

Sorry it shows my age and aversion to electronics that have passed me by.
 

BASICALLY he's saying he bought a fancy puter and it still works....


-------------
"Peace is that brief glorious moment in history when everybody stands around reloading".
--Thomas Jefferson





Posted By: cheaptrick
Date Posted: February/05/2016 at 16:42
Y'all smart ass's think you can help me with my DVR?? Big Grin

-------------
If at first you don't secede...try..try again.


Posted By: sucker76
Date Posted: February/06/2016 at 02:39
Originally posted by supertool73 supertool73 wrote:

That would be called a raid 10. Your get the speed of two drives operating together and the redundancy of them being mirrored. Great choice. I just ordered a 4 bay synology today. Going to put 4, 6 terabyte hard drives in it in a raid 10 config



RAID10 is my RAID level of choice.  I used 4 seagate 2TB drives to give me 4TB total.  I've had great luck with them so far.  I back up on USB type external drives and to carbonite.  I have envy of your setup you said earlier.  That's impressive.  I haven't gotten into the stand alone RAID boxes yet. 


-------------
Stamp collecting since 2015


Posted By: WaterCam
Date Posted: February/06/2016 at 11:57
Originally posted by Kickboxer Kickboxer wrote:

S, a number of other things… but for many years they have used the same processor… 
I have three Macs… two are 8 years old, still function fine (can't update them anymore, so one is not highly used, but IS still used).  One is a fairly recent purchase and has all the bells and whistles.  It is superb.
Since I bought the two earlier Macs, I've had 4 Dell laptops and two desktops at work… they just have not held up as well.  When they are working, performance-wise there is little difference between the brands.  I also have an Acer mini laptop that I've had since 2010… it is OK, but has always been pretty slow.  
For the graphics I require, Mac is "it".  However, PhotoShop works on both types.  
I do have a lot more problems with PC-type machines than Macs, some of it imposed by DoD.  
I'll never "change" from preferring Mac, unless Apple makes a drastic change in philosophy.  There are some poor, misguided, tortured souls who prefer PC's… may they someday become enlightened...


Yeah great post Kickboxer, if you got the money then a Mac is a great investment, I would take an old pre-owned Mac even an 8 year old over a Windows operating system almost any day. Use a Mac just dedicated to imagery or maybe music or film whatever work arty work you do, you can still keep your old Windows to browse the net but if you are serious about images the Mac is a smarter way


Posted By: sucker76
Date Posted: February/06/2016 at 14:24
Having an older maybe used computer for dedicated photo/video work may be cost effective.  I have one question though about updates on the MAC.  My cousin has an old MAC book that he says is too old to update.  I think he's talking about the OS as a whole.  How long before you can't update the computer software?  Wouldn't you want a fairly recent OS/software to run the latest photoshop and lightroom programs?


-------------
Stamp collecting since 2015



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