Hard Drive Configuration for Sign Making/Car Wrap Computer

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marley1

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Hey all, one of my clients run a sign printing company (vinyl for car, real estate signs, signs, etc) and wants to start getting into full car wrap.

One company www.thewrapdaddy.com wants to sell us the http://signburst.com/inferno.html

But I am network IT guy and Raid 0 scares the piss out of me.

Originally I was thinking a Dell Precision with a single sas 15k drive for os and scratch and then do some kind of raid for storage in the box.

What do you guys think would be good idea for this machine.

People are saying having a scratch drive is a good idea, and I could possible offload storage to an external NAS or other.

Thanks,
Dan
 
Hmm... what makes those systems so special? Do they come with special software or are they just regular builds?
 
I did not see where is says RAID 0. I don't see why the OS drive would need to be any sort of RAID array. I can understand the scratch disk being RAID 0, but not the OS. If the OS really needs to be that fast, I'd go 15k SAS or SSD, but I would think a single WD Black would be fine for the OS drive.
 
I talked to thewrapdaddy.com guy yesterday they are raid 0 for both array.

from what I gathered by some quick searching online a single 15k drive should be faster then raid 0 7200rpm sata

software not included with them, just regular builds but in some of these sign design magazines.

why I am doing the fast system drives is his current machine a 5-6 year old build that I did a long time ago was a Barton or XP 1800 with 2gb memory and had an 80gb drive in it. he started having problems with rip/print speeds, we noticed that when he printed it would go to low disk space warning on C drive (uses system drive as temp for printing/ripping). we cloned the drive to a bigger one and it worked much better.

so he is concerned with those print speeds and I figured a 300GB SAS for OS and one for Scratch would be perfect. Scratch only comes into play with Photoshop and stuff right? Its like a temp drive for rendering?

I was looking at the Precision pictures and it has 4 drive bay and I was thinking I could possible add 2 SATA drives in it for Raid1 for data so he has everything in 1 box.
 
marley1 said:
I talked to thewrapdaddy.com guy yesterday they are raid 0 for both array.

from what I gathered by some quick searching online a single 15k drive should be faster then raid 0 7200rpm sata

software not included with them, just regular builds but in some of these sign design magazines.

why I am doing the fast system drives is his current machine a 5-6 year old build that I did a long time ago was a Barton or XP 1800 with 2gb memory and had an 80gb drive in it. he started having problems with rip/print speeds, we noticed that when he printed it would go to low disk space warning on C drive (uses system drive as temp for printing/ripping). we cloned the drive to a bigger one and it worked much better.

so he is concerned with those print speeds and I figured a 300GB SAS for OS and one for Scratch would be perfect. Scratch only comes into play with Photoshop and stuff right? Its like a temp drive for rendering?

I was looking at the Precision pictures and it has 4 drive bay and I was thinking I could possible add 2 SATA drives in it for Raid1 for data so he has everything in 1 box.
Click to expand...

I would not pay that premium for "sign design" machines when they are in fact, just normal computers.
 
^ agreed just build yourself something with a lot of RAM and a quad core processor (i7?) then be happy no need for that

if you want a quick hard drive get a ssd for working on and a 1tb to store the stuff you are not working on
 
i plan to not by the custom machine, im a dell guy.

all i want to know is how to configure the hard drive, if going to SAS is worth it or what? one for OS one for Scratch, and then SATA for storage if the machine cna handle
 
marley1 said:
i plan to not by the custom machine, im a dell guy.

all i want to know is how to configure the hard drive, if going to SAS is worth it or what? one for OS one for Scratch, and then SATA for storage if the machine cna handle
Click to expand...

Just get one configured through dell then. They can configure your drives to your desire.
 
Ockie i plan to do that, I am looking at a Precision 3500, however you can't do SAS and SATA from Dell directly.

I just talked to my Rep, and he is saying if you add in the SAS card you have onboard SATA to run the drives also.

So I plan to configure that T3500 with 2 SAS 300GB and then buy 2 SATA 1TB drives and put them in Raid1.

The only thing I was asking about here is if it is worth it to go with the SAS drives but it seems like it is.
 
Id just get a Dell with a Quadcore and a bunch of ram.
Even a modern 7200rpm HDD will outperform what he had, and will be a HUGE improvement. So I would just get two and run separate drives.
15k SAS prolly not worth it for this IMO....I mean if he wants it to be fast, and everything just get an SSD as the access times are even lower. And then a 1tb to store stuff.
 
^ Agree with Nitro.
Or save yourself the money and build one. Quad core/8GB RAM/SSD for OS/VRaptors for data if you need kick-ass speed.
 
coo-coo-clocker said:
^ Agree with Nitro.
Or save yourself the money and build one. Quad core/8GB RAM/SSD for OS/VRaptors for data if you need kick-ass speed.
Click to expand...

If you build it yourself, then support is entirely on you. That'll be fine if it's your own computer, but you'll probably want to stick with Dell for your clients.
 
Do realize that RAID1 (or RAID of any type) is not backup. It is a good idea, but it still isn't backup. If he needs to backup his files, do get a backup system for him.
 
Hooboy. Where to begin, where to begin?

How about the fact that their "RIP Inferno" is not even remotely a true RIP system. A true RIP system has a proprietary PCI or PCI-X card which is tied to the actual printer. Second, absolutely NOBODY uses RAID0 for the OS array. Scratch? Yes. Scratch is scratch, you don't give a crap if data gets lost on the scratch array in this situation. (NLE is totally different; scratch is only raster output for the printer and temp files for editing software, in this situation.) ALL of their offerings are nothing more than a bad joke.

Get a reputable vendor, add some fast smaller disks on an external eSATA (not expander!) in RAID0 (DO NOT USE A NAS) for scratch, and preferably use a pair of 15k SAS in RAID1 for the OS. Also, more cores are not in the least bit helpful to you; go for a faster clock with less cores. RIP work still does not use multiple cores worth a damn, unless you're doing multiple runs to multiple printers all at the same time.
 
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