PC Tech Thread

I want to stick 8TB of fast storage in my computer for a project - don't want to be tied to a RAID or multiple 4TB externals for it (working with 7TB data).

I'm still using a B550D with a 3090 wd black sn850 4tb so my pcie lanes are presumably clogged-ish.

I don't need to get max max max speed from an nvme but if I were to stick this in:
https://www.awd-it.co.uk/components/solid-state-drives-ssd/gen4/corsair-mp600-pro-nh-8tb-ssd-gen-4-nvme-m-2-solid-state-drive-cssd-f8000gbmp600pnh.html

...would I be able to edit braw happily/snappily (assuming I keep the current 4TB for OS and software)? Where and how much bottleneck are we talking?

Other cheaper alternatives? I really don't want spinning drives (from listening to my on-deaths-door g-tech studio raid which makes such a racket) so maybe a SATA SSD?

Ideally something I can use easily in a future build (I'll be likely looking at threadripper once they get a decent motherboard with more than 1 USB-C/4/3/x2/TB3 blah connection).

Have looked at something like a Sonnet M2 card and sticking a bunch of nvmes in for ALL the internal speedy storage. But I've got clients not paying out the wazoo so am trying to be relatively thrifty until the invoices start getting paid.

Don’t waste your time with SATA, definitely not with spinning rust.

You don’t need expensive branded PCIe to M.2 risers. Check to see if your motherboard supports PCIe bifurcation (splitting a single physical x8/x16 slot into several x4). If so, grab a cheap Gen4 riser off AliX/Amazon/EBay/wherever and stick 2x 4TB drives in there. What’s your mobo model?

I really wouldn’t skimp on the drives themselves though; I can’t beat this drum enough. Cheap consumer drives are a waste of time for your use case: tiny amounts (or none at all) of write cache, totally hobbling write speeds after the first few gigs. Terrible write endurance ratings meaning the drive will become toast much sooner. No power loss protection, so big chance of data corruption if your machine suddenly loses power.

Prosumer/datacentre grade drives aren’t that much more expensive than consumer shite per TB.

This one:
https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/B550-VISION-D-rev-10#kf

Is that Corsair a cheap consumer drive? Doesn't feel like it at nearly a grand. But perhaps the 8TB premium inflates it.

No power loss protection, so big chance of data corruption if your machine suddenly loses power.

That's a concern - I've had a lot of crashes recently - whole computer shuts down and won't reboot unless I disconnect from power for 30 odd sec. Only happens playing PUBG. Haven't been able to diagnose. But certainly wouldn't want contents vanishing..

Sounds like you need a separate gaming PC...

I 100% would if any clients ever paid me. Have some overdue dating back to December.

That said I don't really want the extra space taken up on/under the desk.. would potentially consider a new laptop for work instead, but my experience of those is their longevity wains after a year or so for intensive tasks and they get hot, loud and slow. Haven't tested on M series though...

From a cursory glance, it looks like your mobo does support PCIe bifurcation, so my suggestion to use a cheap passive bifurcation riser card to run 2x NVME drives from one of the PCIe slots will work.

You’ll need to set the mobo to run each of the x16 slots at x8 (this won’t affect your GPU performance much), then enable ‘2x x4’ mode on the other slot to bifurcate it into 2.

I use Samsung PM9A3 datacentre drives in our storage servers; good bang for buck (3.84TB for £400). Make sure you use U.2 formfactor drives instead of M.2 though: better performance and cooling.

Thanks for all this. Presume this is going to be a bios bit of fiddling. I'll read up on it now I know the big words at least.

Prosumer/datacentre grade drives aren’t that much more expensive than consumer shite per TB.

I wonder if power loss was what killed my m.2?

"I use Samsung PM9A3 datacentre drives in our storage servers; good bang for buck (3.84TB for £400). Make sure you use U.2 formfactor drives instead of M.2 though: better performance and cooling."

Something to bear in mind when I replace/rebuild the desktop PC I guess...

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/192tb-samsung-pm9a3-25-enterprise-ssd-25-ssd-pcie-40x4-u2-6800mb-s-read-4000mb-s-write-1000k-180k-io

Sudden power loss is a solved problem*. Cheap too.

For desktops it's as cheap as £50: https://www.scan.co.uk/shop/computer-hardware/ups/all

I have both my desktops and my NUC running off an ancient UPS. It wouldn't handle anything more than 20 minutes of power loss but that has pretty much never happened at my house in the last 15 years. But power blips under a few seconds in length are more common that you can imagine. A good UPS also ensures there is really clean power free of surges/buzz/etc.

Laptops shouldn't ever suffer because of the built in battery.

* OS crashes are a different kettle of badgers.

I'll be looking to upgrade to a 2U rackmountable UPS as I attempt to get all of my stuff into a nice 20U homelab rack.

When you upgrade, get an ‘online’ type UPS, preferably with a pure-sine wave inverter.

Best bang for buck are the Riello Sentinel range; I use them in all our touring racks full of sensitive servers and video processing kit, never skipped a beat even when using dodgy generator power.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Logitech-Wireless-Keyboard-Advanced-Qwerty/dp/B0797JRLQC

So I managed to get the m.2 ssd out from the PC without pulling the cooler out completely (although now one of the screws won't do up, just spins, stupid idea).

SSD went into caddy, made little noise when plugged into laptop but no drive appeared.

Tried installing Win10 from a repair USB I made for someone a few years ago...

Looks like it wants a driver or some shit, presumably for the SSD that's still in the PC.

FFS Windows you prick, what fucking driver?

I guess maybe a repair USB isn't all the gubbins and I'll need to find a proper installer or some shit on USB.

I'm tempted to fuck this PC into the sea and buy another laptop.

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If I'm going to say bye bye to the desktop, what's a good quality SSD caddy to stick the data drive into? Or can I somehow plug the PC into my laptop without any networking or an OS?

While I'm at it, how are people destroying their drives? Drillium and then normal bin or are there proper e-waste places in London that'd be better?

"It's fair to say the drive appears to have failed.

If the system, is doing all you need in a timely manner then I would simply add a cheap M.2 drive and re-install Windows.

The SolidIGM M.2 drives (formerly Intel) are both faster than the current drive and no doubt much cheaper these days.

Once you are up and running, you can then decide if upgrading further is worth it.

You can't re-use the Nofan cooler these days but the PSU, case, sound card, 2.5" SSD, Wi-Fi card and even the RAM can all be re-used. You would however need a new DDR motherboard, processor and a suitable CPU cooler (though in that case, I suspect it would need to be fanned)."

Do I bother replacing the m.2 or go for one of those bigger format Samsung Enterprise drives instead and ignore m.2?

I don't think I've got install media for Win10 and clearly my current win10 USB stick doesn't work - presume I can try and build another USB installer that will work with either Win10 (do they still free upgrade to 11)?

Thought I'd stick in a spare m.2 from an old laptop. After 10mins of trying to get that cunt in, the fucking CPU cooler won't tighten. The cunting shafts that keep it in place have loosened off the back of the mobo, which means I'm kinda fucked unless I want to pull the whole mobo out because some fuckwit didn't design the UMX3 with back panel access so the riser rod things just spin in the fucking air. I fucking hate computers.

So, Windows installed on old m.2 and machine boots but now it doesn't see the second drive, the data drive, even though that was visible using the recovery USB command prompt stuff. Can't see it in the BIOS. WTF is going on with this shitbox?

Have you tried removing the 'busted' M.2 drive and sticking it in an external USB caddy?

The dead m.2 is in a caddy and seems fully dead. So I'm not pursuing that further. Anyone need an m.2 caddy?

The old, working 128GB m.2 out of my partner's laptop is now installed and booting Win10 on the PC, but now the data drive has disappeared. I can't see it in the BIOS. I wonder if I bumped a cable or if the mobo is fucked.

Is the non-detected M.2 in a slot that's routed via the chipset? It could be down to dynamic PCIe lane allocation, and correct chipset drivers being required to re-allocate lanes and enable the slot...

There are two drives in the machine:
m.2 slotted into the mobo directly
"normal" form factor SSD that's plugged in via SATA cables

The "new" m.2 is loading Windows now as a newly formatted boot drive and the data drive, that was accessible via USB Windows Repair media is now gone. I'm jiggling cables now and going to try again before I set fire to everything.

Is the 'new' M.2 form factor drive a SATA or NVME interface? Both are possible with the same form factor. Some motherboards dynamically re-allocate PCIe lanes and enable/disable ports when you plug stuff in; sounds like this is happening.

Have you checked the SATA port settings in the BIOS to make sure they're all enabled? Have you manually installed the correct chipset drivers in Windows?

I wonder if the install of Windows onto the m.2 has fucked with the drive allocation, you know like made what was D: something else?

I booted from the USB recovery stick again and what was formerly the data drive is just a partition of the new boot drive. Tried some other letters but no luck seeing the "data".

Just looking at this again slightly more seriously - is there a reason to get 2 x 4TB rather than 1 x 8TB other than cost?

Would this actually work (albeit with some but not a life changing hit on performance) if I plugged it in and made some bios changes to the mobo? Feels like getting a single thing is less to go wrong than having 2 things plugged into another thing...
https://www.awd-it.co.uk/components/solid-state-drives-ssd/gen4/corsair-mp600-pro-nh-8tb-ssd-gen-4-nvme-m-2-solid-state-drive-cssd-f8000gbmp600pnh.html?

Klarna and just getting it tomorrow is highly appealing.

Yes, that drive will work, although a 7.68TB Samsung PM9A3 datacentre drive is £200 cheaper, which seems like a no-brainer to me...