mumei @ mumei @lemmy.world

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14

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79

Joined

2 yr. ago

Since you already got your answer (separate cables are safer), I'm absolutely loving the fit. Gigantic GPU and coolers inside small cases are the bane of my existence. I'm also about to shove a 7900XT into a Meshify C, plus I'm sporting a Dark Rock Pro 4 haha and I really like the way it looks

Apologies for the wall of text

Not at all, rather thank you!

I researched again for parts and, whichever way I go, it's all very expensive.

The "cheaper" options are still expensive considered the lack of expandability: I can get, for example, two 3.5" 4TB drives for around 90-100 each, or, slightly better, two 2.5" 4TB drives for around 120-130 each; the 2.5" drives would allow me to get rid of the HDD cage in my PC and mount a fan in its place. Either way, 8TB (actually 4TB + mirrored backup) for 200-250, and I can't expand it further.

Slightly more expensive: a one drive Synology NAS, for around 300 (including a 4TB HDD, bought separately); again, locked with no further scaling possible.

Then, a two drives Synology NAS, for 450-500 (including two 4TB drives, bought separately), no scaling. But it's getting closer to my needs.

Finally, a four drives Synology NAS, definitely fitting for my needs, which is 500 not including drives; once I add storage, for example just two 8TB drives (to which I'd add another two down the road), I'm close to 800 (and this is by getting the cheapest 8TB drive I can find, nothing with "NAS" in the name haha).

Shucking isn't really a financially good option, it looks like, since external drives are actually more expensive in my country.

tiny case

Well, the Node 304 can hold six drives. Realistically, that should be enough for me even if I decide to have two backups (so using two drives for storage and then the other four just to back up those two) and even if I get 8TB drives (at the moment I have just shy of 3TB of data and I think i can easily add another 2TB onto it, but further than that... not sure). Worst case scenario changing only the case is pretty painless, especially if I can sell the old one to buy the larger one.

gpu

Yeah, I know I can get an APU, issue is, with that MoBo I picked only PRO APUs support ECC RAM. For what I understand, ECC RAM, while not mandatory, is highly recommended. The data I have is not vital, but if I can avoid corruption and having to download it again, I'd rather do so. To be fair, I'm currently not using ECC RAM and I haven't encountered data corruption in the past two or three years... so I'm a bit torn on this point now

your config

That's a very expensive motherboard, wow! I can't find it for less than 350! Definitely over budget for me at the moment

larger case for my current setup

This is definitely something I'll consider, at least as a stopgap until I can build a proper NAS. This way would allow me to have many drives and I could also repurpose the ones I already have.

I think I'll have to put this project on hold for now haha but thanks for the huge help, I'll definitely watch that video in the meantime!

Thanks again!

edit: looks like I can shave off another 100 from the planned build, since I can get a CPU (Ryzen 5 2600) and a 550W PSU for free. Which is actually not bad. Remove one stick of RAM, since 8GB should be enough, and I can save another 30, bringing the total to around 500. Not that bad as a start! Actually, bring that back to 600, since it would make more sense to get 8TB drives since I'm already around 3TB. Still, saved money is money saved haha

I'm sorry about your experience! I actually have an IronWolf, a small 2TB one, and it's been a year without issues. I don't write big amounts of data daily on it though, so my experience might be different.

Good luck with your replacement though!

Thanks for thd in-depth reply!

whole extra machine add to an existing desktop

It boils down to two things: inexperience (apparently 8GB of RAM might be enough? Just to name one issue wih my build haha) and I've already maxed out my main PC's expansion slots.

I have a compact case, which is already housing two HDDs (a "landing" HDD, where I store and keep all the... Linux ISOs... until they reach a satisfactory ratio of upload, which has a 2y uptime and just recently encountered its first uncorrectable sector error, and a 2TB HDD where I keep my stuff, including the aforementioned... ISOs..., my GOG games and other media. This 2TB is backed up on a 2TB external drive, and it's already full). Since this 2TB internal is full, I plan on moving some files to a different external HDD so I can stuff more things in it, but that leaves me with no backups for this stuff I want to move; this second external HDD is very small (650GB) so moving that stuff will make it full and I'll have no chance to add onto that collection.

It's a pretty unorganized situation and if I could get rid of all internal HDDs I could get rid of the HDD harness and fit a fan instead, also reduce noise.

In addition to this, I have yet to understand whether or not external drives can sustain "high" rates of writes (when I download GOG games, for example, it can easily add up to 100GB in a day) and reads (I usually seed... Linux ISOs... for tens to hundreds of GB a day). Of course these numbers arent't for everyday, some days I download nothing for example, other days I don't even turn on the PC.

powerful machine

And I even went for the cheapest parts I could get haha! Only way to make it less powerful is getting an Intel CPU, like the datahoarder wiki suggests, based on LGA 1150/1151, I can get one for like $20, but I can't find used motherboards for a decent price, all around 130. That's why I picked an AM4 platform: parts more widely available.

raspberry pi

Checked it out, unfortunately it's out of stock in all the licensed retailers in my country. It does sound like a nice starting point, though, so I will keep an eye out for it to be restocked, but since it uses external drives I'm back to the previous question: are external drives sturdy enough to sustain the amount of data I write and read daily?

no GPU

Wait, how can you turn it on and configure eveything necessary on it without graphics? Is it all done remotely via a main machine?

Sorry for the wall of text! And thanks again for the help!

Oh, that's right. Nice catch! I can probably repurpose a 256GB SSD I have, can't I? Should be enough for OS + utilities

The plan is to get more down the road, this is a starter setup! 4TB are enough for all my data at the moment, and the second drive is for backup; I will add a third drive for redundancy and that should be enough as a starter

edit: forgot to mention that I'm not USA-based, sorry! Wow, US prices are amazing. In my country that one is just a little less expensive, adjusted for capacity (the ones I picked are 4TB and 120, the Barracuda is 8TB and 205)! That's a bummer haha but thanks for the suggestion! edit: let me check the 4TB though edit2: now that's better, the 4TB is only 89 compared to 120 needed for the IronWolf

Yeah, the only thing they say is "For Ryzen Series APUs (Cezanne and Renoir), ECC is only supported with PRO CPUs.". That's why I didn't pick a Ryzen with integrated GPU (I can't find PRO models in my country). 2666 speed is supported, so those RAM I picked should work. Thanks!

Yes, those are cheaper but I also want reliability, so I prefer spending a bit more for the actual storage to get something known to be good!

The ones I picked are part # WD40EFRX, so CMR according to that image you linked. It's just that PCPP doesn't call them WD Red Plus, but they are. In the end I think I'll go with the IronWolf instead, since they're not that much more expensive, but more loved by the community! Thanks

Makes sense, unfortunately it's all a game of balance between CPU and GPU when you have a fixed budget, and a 5800X3D paired with a 7800XT won't give me 120+ FPS at 34401440 (on average, max FPS at 4k is 60, so around 100 FPS at 34401440), a 5600X with a 7900XT probably yes (on average, max FPS at 4k is 80, so around 133 FPS at 34401440). At this resolution, I feel like investing in a better GPU is the better choice, also for longevity.

Plus, I think it will be easier to upgrade CPU than to upgrade GPU, were I to need it, for example in the next six or eight months: in that time frame I can easily save for a brand new 5800X3D (which is around $300, especially if I can sell the 5600X), while saving for a 7900XT ($900) is a whole different feat, even factoring in a potential sale of the used card.

If I were in the USA I would've gotten a 5600X3D because that's basically a 5800X3D for much less, it's a shame it's a MicroCenter exclusive, guess they don't have enough of them to sell worldwide.

if you can see yourself building a new setup in the next couple of years

I surely hope not haha, I can totally see a motherboard and RAM upgrade, and at that point a CPU upgrade as well, down the line, but I hope I can keep the 7900XT for a bit longer than that! To be quite honest, the amount of newly released AAA games that I'd like to play has been decreasing in the past few years, so I've been feeling less inclined to upgrade, and with this new PC I can play 100% of my backlog and also 100% of the yet-to-be-released games I'm looking forward to (though I'll admit that's a very short list), so hopefully it will last me a while.

Thanks for the suggestions though!

I'll keep an eye out for it, thanks!

fitting the gpu

Eh, worst case scenario I can remove the front fan: case specs say 315mm + fan, which is 26mm, so without fan 341mm and it bumps to the chassis.

bogus specs

Yeah, I looked into it a bit more and a I'm now considering a different monitor... so thanks!

Simply because I have a budget that I really can't stretch further than this! Getting a 7900XT is already going to punch a huge hole into my pockets, and since I'm going to play games at 3440*1440, according to this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81kAorV30Vc) (skip to 10:05 to see the averages) the differences between 5600x and 5800X3D are definitely interesting, especially for some games, but overall, at my target resolution there is a difference between 10% (1440p) and 6% (4k).

If I were to want to close that gap and get a 5800X3D I'd have to go for a 7800XT instead (to not further raise the budget) and at that point I'd be losing much more performance than I'd be missing by getting a 5600x w/ a 7900XT, since, on average, a 7800XT gets 50-60fps at 4k, while a 7900XT gets 60-80fps at 4k. At 4k I'll get 6% less FPS with the weaker CPU, but I'd get 25%+ less FPS with a weaker GPU!

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong!

One is about to die, the older 1TB, which is about to be five years old, I got one bad sector on it a month or so ago. It's all backed up, though, so I dare using it a bit longer

Thanks for the tip, I'll keep it in mind in case I need to add/change drives!

Yep, just keeping them because they still work, and, even though they are small, I can still repurpose them for my future NAS when I'll build it

That's what I bought at the very beginning when I first built my PC. Had to go for a 256GB SATA SSD because of prices (I think I bought it more than five years ago) and since that wasn't realistically enough, I added a 1TB HDD to get by. When I fibally build my NAS I will get something like 4x4TB at least

Thanks for the reply!

storage

Must have gotten lost in the wall of text, but the storage configuration is unusual because I already have all these drives and I added onto it as I needed more.

I do have a main 1TB NVME, SATA SSD as mass storage is a bit expensive in my country, so I still prefer HDDs, which I plan to bring to a higher total amount of storage as I move towards building my own NAS; at the moment I make do with what I have!

fans

I opted for more fans than usual because it's a bit hot here! They definitely helped with keeping temps in check!

clearances

All good, already tested in current PC!

Thanks for the reply! Might have gotten lost in the wall of text, but I already have most parts, I'm just upgrading my current PC.

DR4

Good enough for me, hasn't let me down yet in these years!

GPU

As long as it fits, there shouldn't be problems, though, right? I can double check the actual space inside the case and take accurate measurements, but even if it's a very tight fit, I don't see why I can't stuff it in. Getting a shorter GPU means ditching Sapphire Nitro + (the 7800XT is just as long) and go for a dual fan model, which I'd rather avoid (noise+cooling concerns)

response time

1ms MPRT, should be enough for non-competitive gaming! If that's not it, I don't know what you're referring to!

storage

Again, might have gotten lost in the wall of text, but I already have all those drives, including a 1TB NVME. The configuration is all over the place because I kept adding onto it as my needs grew. At some point I'll clean it up haha

Data hoarding haha I know it's not ideal, and I will build a NAS at some point, but at the moment high-res, high-fps, high-details gaming is a priority!