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Pastimes : Dream Machine ( Build your own PC ) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Cormac who wrote (10627)	3/6/2000 3:32:00 PM
From: wily	Respond to of 14778

>>re: RW - does RAID provide me with enough redundancy to not have to do back ups...I really don't need everything<< I'm not exactly sure what RAID is, but I'm pretty sure it's a HDD-based backup. Possibly, is it a method for receiving heavy data flows onto HDD's? HDD storage is OK if you have enough space and if you don't fool around with your drives too much. HDD's are very touchy if you do the wrong thing and it's just too easy to lose everything. So, it depends on how much you store and how much you care about your backed-up stuff. RE dual cpu's: It's true that not many (actually, hardly any) programs are written multi-threaded. But if you multi-task, it's the same thing. Haven't you noticed at busy market times that your computer kind of hangs because the cpu is totally in use? The second processor lets you keep doing other things, and possibly keeps the O/S from having fits at these times. Also, if the second processor can handle the O/S chores during heavy usage on cpu #1, it leaves #1 with a little extra capacity. Maybe one of the experts on the thread can explain this a little more accurately. I would think that you've experienced cpu saturation with the type of stuff you do... dual cpu's I'm sure would be more popular if win9x could use them, but it can't. I expect duals to be more popular as more people use win2k. wily

To: Cormac who wrote (10627)	3/6/2000 4:10:00 PM
From: Zeuspaul	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14778

re: RW - does RAID provide me with enough redundancy to not have to do back ups...I really don't need everything No. RAID protects against the failure of a harddrive in real time. RAID 1 writes files to two harddrives at the same time...it also would write a virus to both harddrives at the same time. If you only want to do small incremental backups your LS120 should do the trick..automate it with something like Second Copy? Use Drive Image to backup your entire working system to either CD, CDRW or a second harddrive. (standard disclaimer... Make sure you keep important backup files on removable media) The U2W controller and the two SCSI drives will cost you a bundle and you will probably only see a marginal increase in performance. IDE drives give you a lot more bang for the buck...naturally if money is not an issue SCSI should give an advantage in a multitasking environment. A pair of IDE drives in an NT software RAID 0 configuration would probably give you better performance than your SCSI drives especially if you went with dual CPUs. You will notice a difference with dual CPUs. You will just about always have at least a couple of tasks going at the same time. The OS is always into something in addition to the application you are running. Zeuspaul

To: Cormac who wrote (10627)	3/8/2000 7:31:00 PM
From: Dan Spangenberg	Read Replies (7) \| Respond to of 14778

FWIW I would go with the duals. 3 weeks ago I tried a setup using an Athlon 750 with 384 meg ram, good fast 7200 rpm drive and Win2000. The system was very fast, without a doubt noticeably faster than anything I have used previously. But in actual use during the day, I found the CPU utilization to peak just about as much as my old system (which was a pretty good system) This is my main trading machine. I run two intensive java apps on it for my trading. Qcharts for Level 1 quotes, charts T&S and Island display, and an order entry / Level 2 java app for my actual trading to my broker. These programs are written extremely well, but during a fast market or on a hummer of a stock (like the PALM IPO) I could max out the CPU pretty easy. When it was maxxed out I got lagged info. This is mainly due to the current Microsoft Java VM (virtual machine) software not being all that robust. So the new Athlon wasn't all that much better, so I built an ABIT BP6 with dual 550's and Win2000. It performed much better than the single CPU Athlon. I haven't been able to max out the CPU's for more than a split second. The Microsoft VM does take advantage of dual CPU's. I watched the PALM ipo with a full Level 2, 1 minute tick charts, Island display, and T&S. Both CPU's never really got over 40%. I am on DSL, so my bandwidth wasn't the limiting factor either. A Long story with the moral being: Build a dual CPU system. IMHO, dual CPU's are of great worth and are generally under-rated, mostly by those who don't use them. :-) I hope this rambling helps someone. Good Luck Dan