Non GBPVR hardware upgrade questions

[Jaggy]

The wifes HDD has started developing bad sectors so I have decided that I may as well do a bit of an upgrade to some of the other hardware at the same time as I have to do a Win2k re-install anyway when I fit the new HDD(s).

I am looking at upgrading the HDD to SATA by adding a PCI SATA card that I have sitting here doing nothing. The question I have is what is the speed increase by using 2 drives & RAID0(I think it is?) stripping as opposed to 1 SATA drive. Worth the cost etc??

I am also looking at upgrading her Gforce4 Ti 4200 AGP video card & was thinking about ATI (as the drivers for ATI normally seem to be better). The main thing it has to do is work with "Zoo Tycoon 2" (the Ti 4200 doesn't properly) I can work out the progression for the "9???" range of cards (I have a 9600 Pro myself & a 9600SE sitting around doing nothing) but I am lost when it comes to the "X???" range of cards as to which is better?

I am open to recommendations (but not really to upgrade the motherboard as that also means CPU, RAM, probably PSU etc.)

[elite]

The problem with RAID0 is that it doubles your chances (or there abouts) of disk failure - good explanations of the various RAID types can be found here

[SuMo]

The question I have is what is the speed increase by using 2 drives & RAID0(I think it is?) stripping as opposed to 1 SATA drive. Worth the cost etc??

Never benchmarked 2 SATA disks striped in RAID 0 and compaired it to a single drive, but first of all; do you need it ? as Elite stated, chances of data loss will increase. Furthermore, if you are working with "large" files (as in video/high data thoughtput) you will notice a increase in speed.
If you are working with smaller files, I don't thing you will have/notice any increase in speed.
In this case you'll probably be better of with two seperatre drives with one for somesort of backup.

[Jaggy]

Thanks guys I think that has sorted out the HDD question nicely, I will put one of the SATA drives into my PC & the other into the wifes & save some money

Thinking about your replies I have decided that rather than go Raid0 for the extra drives in my MVP server (I already have 2x320Gb Raid0 for recordings but they are almost full) I will just fit the 250Gb SATA that I already have & then later when we run out of space again add another (whatever is good value at the time) SATA drive. Hmm F: haven't seen that since GB drives came out makes me think of the "good old days"

Now I just need some info on video cards with the ATI "X" series cards is an X850 less powerful than an X1550 etc?? From what I have read things don't seem to work quite that way for the later ATI cards :confused:

[gEd]

add your 250gb drive to your mvp server and use the video archive plugin to move recordings > x days old from your recordings folder over to the "archive" drive.

the graphics requirements for ZT2 are

Direct3D-compatible super VGA graphics adapter with at least 16 MB of Video RAM (VRAM).

why not just slap in that 9600se and give it a go.
the x1550 looks like a decent cheap card tho (from the quick review i read)

[Jaggy]

add your 250gb drive to your mvp server and use the video archive plugin to move recordings > x days old from your recordings folder over to the "archive" drive.

I would use VA but have tried it a couple of time on my test machine but there were a few things I didn't like (1). the extra time to load gbpvr (2). the 3 minutes to open config with my cpu sitting at 100% (3). the try to move recording just to have the whole file disappear from my computer (4). the take 15 minutes to only find about 10% of the mpg's on my machine (5). the go onto the internet every time you fire up gbpvr. I think I will just stick with "Super Simple Archiver" in the mean time :o

the graphics requirements for ZT2 are

Direct3D-compatible super VGA graphics adapter with at least 16 MB of Video RAM (VRAM).

So MS say :eek: the Ti4200 should work fine as it's way above that but it doesn't :mad:

why not just slap in that 9600se and give it a go.
the x1550 looks like a decent cheap card tho (from the quick review i read)

Yep I have thought of that but I have to setup 3 more GBPVR's for family/friends in the next few weeks & was going to use the 9600se for one of them & get the best AGP card I could for the wife (for a reasonable price) so as her machine might "cut the mustard" for a few more years

[stustunz]

i use video archive but only turn it on in config when i have run out of room
another thing i noticed you can do is just switch drives when one is full the recordings still show up
for example for one week you use say drive:d
and the next week or when the first drive is full you use drive :e
and so on
the recordings still show up as they should in recodrings etc
without having to import or do any file transfer like you do when you use video archive

[Jaggy]

Great sounds good. So all I have to do is setup a directory on my new E: drive, I assume using the same path as I have for my recording directory now but with a different drive letter & then just change the drive letter in config? I will still be able to watch/delete etc. the old recording without having to do anything else??

[stustunz]

yes as long as the old drive keeps the same drive letter and path to recordings