In the Market for Desktop Computer - Mostly for Storage

[Touch The Universe]

Hey guys, can anyone recommend a solid desktop computer. It's been a decade since I've been in the market for one, usually chill out with laptop's but feel it's just too limited at 2 TB.

Ideally, I'd be happy with a 20TB setup minimum.

As far as Ram and CPU, I'm not too concerned as I usually bounce everything as soon as possible. Disk space is pretty much my only concern.

[Pictus]

IF you are in UK
https://www.scan.co.uk/3xs/custom/daw-d ... ations#anc
Or ask Kaine memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=46866

IF you are in the USA
https://www.studiocat.com/
Or ask Jim Roseberry memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=67952

[Touch The Universe]

Thanks, haha, total cost was nearly 3800, yikes.

I gues price does matter. It doesn't need to be a professional audio computer. If I can somehow grab a desktop with 20TB for 1000 bucks, I'll be happy, 1500 max.

It's a good idea to build up the components from scratch so I'll look more into that method.

I forgot when it comes to desktop, building up and selecting the components are a big part of that, unlike laptops you can just grab off the shelf for the most part.

[Touch The Universe]

I wonder if I can upgrade my drive on my laptop.

[Lerian]

Get whatever computer you can, you can even get a cheap used one from 5 years ago - $200 for both CPU and mobo. All it needs is SATA/PCIe controllers so you can have your drives and a 5-10gb network card. As for the drives I was checking recently for enterprise grade HDDs and the best ones are Seagate Exos X18 series (not X16) - they have the lowest failure rates, in some data centers zero dead drives in 100. They can have 10tb to 18tb capacity (the higher the better). If you get 4 drives ($300 each), you can reach 36tb in raid, which means space, redundancy, and speed.

Install a linux distro on it and you are good to go. If you don't know how to do it, pay someone to do it for you. But you can install linux mint yourself and find tutorials online on how to enable file sharing (mint is based on ubuntu, so tutorials for ubuntu also work).

[Touch The Universe]

Thanks, that sounds like really useful advice!

I was thinking it might be better to have more drives, like 5 4TB ones, opposed to say, 2 10TB because it minimizes the risk of data failure since the drives are spread across multiple units. Do you have any thoughts on this?

Is 36TB the max you can get in the SATA/PCIe controller configuration raid? Help me understand.

Is the sata/pcie controller essentially a configuration on a board that has more slots to input drives into an integrated or consolidated unit?

[Lerian]

Usually you can have 4 sata drives on a consumer mobo. But you can add more sata lanes on PCIe slot - 4 sata lanes in each X4 slot I think. Also you need a PCIe slot for the network card, if the mobo doesn't already have one onboard. Usually they do, but it depends on the model.

36tb is the limit of the HDDs themselves (in a raid1 config) - 4 drives, 18tb each. If you don't want raid (raid 1 = mirroring), you can have 72tb (4x18tb). You can even get 4x24tb drives (exos X24), which can give you 48tb in raid 1. But the price goes up considerably, one 24tb drive is $480. Raid 1 means you will have the same copy (mirror) on 2 drives - that means double the read speed, and a backup copy in case of drive failure.

[uOpt]

I was thinking it might be better to have more drives, like 5 4TB ones, opposed to say, 2 10TB because it minimizes the risk of data failure since the drives are spread across multiple units. Do you have any thoughts on this?

Is 36TB the max you can get in the SATA/PCIe controller configuration raid? Help me understand.

Is the sata/pcie controller essentially a configuration on a board that has more slots to input drives into an integrated or consolidated unit?

RAID is generally a good idea, especially if you use an advanced filesystem such as ZFS. If you use proper RAID there isn't a limit on size, there are ZFS systems with > 256 drives.

The trick is finding a case that takes enough drives, or ideally can take a hotswap frame.

[Pictus]

Thanks, haha, total cost was nearly 3800, yikes.

I gues price does matter. It doesn't need to be a professional audio computer. If I can somehow grab a desktop with 20TB for 1000 bucks, I'll be happy, 1500 max.

It's a good idea to build up the components from scratch so I'll look more into that method.

I am glad to help, maybe a PC +- like this. (I did not include SATA drives.)
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/rCCzNz
The case can house 7 3.5 drives and the motherboard can handle 6 SATA and 5 PCIe, but
look at the specification. https://www.asrock.com/MB/AMD/X670E%20P ... cification
IF 4 SATA + 4 PCIe drives are enough, you can save money by using this motherboard
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/42hFf7 ... -lightning
https://pg.asrock.com/mb/AMD/X670E%20PG ... cification

Do not forget to first update the motherboard BIOS.
(It's not the same model, but the same process.)

Install the latest drivers, but only what is needed! The rest disable in the BIOS!!
chipset https://www.techpowerup.com/download/am ... t-drivers/
GPU https://www.techpowerup.com/download/am ... s-drivers/
LAN https://www.realtek.com/Download/ToDown ... oadid=4342
Bluetooth https://download.asrock.com/Drivers/All ... 0.251).zip
AMD RAIDXpert2 https://download.asrock.com/Drivers/AMD ... 2.255).zip
WiFi https://download.asrock.com/Drivers/All ... .0702).zip
The rest of ASRock download page is bloatware...

Install a less bloated Windows 11.
https://schneegans.de/windows/unattend-generator/
(Do not disable UAC and do not enable WDAC policy!!!)

Do some tweaks viewtopic.php?p=8820694#p8820694
Good luck!

[vstdls]

If you want a desktop pc for your workflow, and somewhere to sit and work, build a nice desktop PC for yourself and add a nice big 12TB+ HDD.

If you are looking for STORAGE and REDUNDANCY, build a simple NAS. Just about any mobo/cpu from the last 15yrs will be fine. (If patient, can usually pickup for free) Then you can sink almost all your budget into storage media. Example of massive bang-for-buck build for a home NAS: ($USD)

Mobo/CPU combo: $90
https://www.ebay.com/itm/116413172113?m ... media=COPY

Case: $90
https://a.co/d/bporLyY

PSU: $50
https://a.co/d/cKkoo9i

Boot/OS drive: $14
https://a.co/d/4EnnUfF

Rounded up to $250, that leaves you $750 in HDD to keep it under $1K. Without adding any other pci expansion cards for more sata (which you can always do, now or later) that's 5 open SATA ports for HDDs. (That case will hold 8-10 3.5" drives)

ZFS works like RAID10 without most of the limitations of RAID, so keep in mind with all of these solutions, your usable storage will be half your total storage...but that's what keeps things safe(r).

Install HDDs. Install TrueNAS scale. Expandable, redundant, tucked away, easy web GUI, no stress. Tons of storage. Access from all your computers. Install Wireguard on it, access it securely from anywhere in the world.

If you don't have 5+GB network infrastructure in your home network (switches, etc) you don't need to stress about adding a faster network card, since you will probably be bottlenecked to 1GB somewhere on your LAN.

I'd be happy to help via pm if you went this route.

[legendCNCD]

For something that big amount of data I would seriously first check if the filesystems suggested (the linux ones) can be recovered with the data properly or not...

NTFS can be, there are multiple tools to do it. I dont know if the recovery tools are available for ZFS raids. Also the "what if" when something happens on the machine, can you fix it, are you familiar with it? Are there enough tools?

I know ZFS has redundancy etc. though. How good these work, is another thing, when the crash happens etc.

[vstdls]

For something that big amount of data I would seriously first check if the filesystems suggested (the linux ones) can be recovered with the data properly or not...

NTFS can be, there are multiple tools to do it. I dont know if the recovery tools are available for ZFS raids. Also the "what if" when something happens on the machine, can you fix it, are you familiar with it? Are there enough tools?

I know ZFS has redundancy etc. though. How good these work, is another thing, when the crash happens etc.

I can only speak to ZFS in my experience with running TrueNAS for a decade, and I'm not sure what type of Data Recovery instance you mean to recover from but here's what I know:

File corruption recovery (however that might manage to happen) is handled by the filesystem - you might get an alert something was corrected, but need to take no action. I've never had it happen.

The system is more vulnerable to total data loss based upon how few drives it has. You can only lose (fail) half of your drives simultaneously to avoid any data loss, Like RAID10.

Any failed drives must be replaced with a drive at least as big as the failed one, anything larger will only report as the size as the initial failed drive. What's nice about that is you can actually do an in-place upgrade. I replaced my 4TBs with 8TBs one by one (a day or two apart), and once all drives had been replaced, the filesystem then reported the upgraded storage across a disks.

If the CPU/Mobo/machine melts down, you simply pop your storage array into a new machine, and TrueNAS picks right up where you left off. It's alot easier if you export your config xml and pop it in your email somewhere. Super easy, made a new build a dream come true.

As with dealing with any catastrophe, backups are important, built in tools will allow you to easily cloud sync any folders you like too.

None of the headaches in dealing with some of the NTFS limitations, all for zero bucks. I am very happy with it.

[uOpt]

For something that big amount of data I would seriously first check if the filesystems suggested (the linux ones) can be recovered with the data properly or not...

NTFS can be, there are multiple tools to do it. I dont know if the recovery tools are available for ZFS raids. Also the "what if" when something happens on the machine, can you fix it, are you familiar with it? Are there enough tools?

I know ZFS has redundancy etc. though. How good these work, is another thing, when the crash happens etc.

ZFS has no tools to undelete files or recover from an accidental format. Is that what you mean?

ZFS has no fsck, but there isn't really something to fsck.

Or are you talking about the integrated RAID? It works fine for drive replacement and resilver, I did it just recently. NTFS doesn't have RAID in the first place, so I'm not sure you mean this.

Generally if you run RAID it is a good idea to actually practice drive replacement before you have to do it in combat.

[legendCNCD]

Good, thanks for the ZFS info, I am now more in the know-how