RE: [gentoo-user] planning a new machine : comments welcome

[Laurence Perkins]

With regard to SMR drives, note that there are three basic types:



Some completely hide the fact that they are SMR.  These suck, hands down.  Performance is unpredictable and random.

Some at least advertise that they're SMR, and expose basic counters about where they are in their maintenance cycles.  These still suck, but at least you can kind of predict when they're about to get really slow.



The best ones actually advertise what the shingled ranges are, at which point a new enough kernel and filesystem can keep the writes to those ranges as sequential as possible, and you can use the big, cheap drives with very little performance loss.



There are a couple articles explaining how to determine what you've got and optimize it.  I don't have my bookmarks to hand, but it was in a discussion on this list a few months ago.



LMP



-----Original Message-----

From: Dale <rdalek1967@×××××.com> 

Sent: Wednesday, March 2, 2022 2:01 PM

To: gentoo-user@l.g.o

Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] planning a new machine : comments welcome



Wols Lists wrote:

> On 02/03/2022 19:39, Philip Webb wrote:
>
>>
>> [ Memory : Kingston has always performed well &  16 GB  sb adequate ]
>>
>>    220222 Memory : MEKIT00581 : Kingston : 2 x 8 = 16 GB              
>> $ 110
>>                     DDR4 3600 MHz CL17 dual channel
>
> What's the largest chip a slot takes? If you can afford it, buy two of
> those. My new mobo takes 16GB, and they were only GB£50 each - £100.
> If you ever want to upgrade the ram, you won't need to "chuck and
> replace".


I agree with this because I've made this mistake, twice.  Find out the largest size that will fit in each slot and buy to enough of them to cover your needs.  When you need to expand, just plug in a extra stick, or two. 



Depending on what you do, 16GBs may be enough.  I have 32GBs on mine and quite often during updates I hit 20GBs of memory in use.  I'm not including cache or anything, actually memory in use by the system.  If you need to save on cash and upgrade later, one could likely adjust the memory used during large updates by using load options etc with emerge. I don't know why but it seems I get hit with a Firefox, libreoffice and some other large package at the same time quite often.  It takes up a lot of memory doing those.  I just thought it worth a mention but you may have a different demand than I do. 



>>
>> [ HDD : for back-up + alternative OS (Mint).
>> ANB5 has Seagate : anyone prefer W Digital & if so, why ? ]
>>
>> * 220222 HDD : HDSEA00144 : Seagate : 2 TB $  55
>>                  SATA 3,5" 7200 RPM
>
> BarraCuda? That's an SMR drive. Look at the FireCuda instead or even
> better an IronWolf. Only snag is, it'll push the price up. Umm ... the
> firecuda costs a lot more than I thought - a 4TB IronWolf is £84.


On this, good point.  I have a SMR drive, didn't know it when I bought it, and I use it for a external backup that is done weekly.  Even with that, it is a bit annoying.  Even when it is done, it isn't really done yet.  I would not use this for anything where you might have a lot of large writes.  Once it hits a certain point, varies by drive, it gets slow and can get really slow.  I've seen old IDE drives that could be faster.  If unsure, post the model and I'm sure someone can tell you if it is CMR or SMR.  CMR = good, SMR = bad in some, maybe most, circumstances.  I don't know how true this is but I've read SMR and RAID is bad, btfrs(sp?) and similar file systems can also be bad.  Research and weigh based on what will work for you.  SMR can save you some cash, sometimes. 



>>
>> [ Case : ANB5 has Deepcool, which seems a good price ]
>>
>> * 220223 Case : CSDCL00019 : Deepcool : $  55
>>                   E-Shield 120 mm Fan  Radiator Support
>>                   E-ATX/ATX/MicroATX/MiniITX
>>                  00032 : Matrexx
>> 50                                    $  60
>>                  00035 : Matrexx 55
>> MESH                               $  70
>>                   PSU Shroud
>>                  00044 : Macube 310P
>> WH                                $  80
>>                   Magnetic/CableManagement/FAN HUB Pre-install
>>
>> [ Power : ANB5 has Thermaltake : is  700 W  likely to be adequate ? ]
>
> Crumbs. For the system you're spec'ing, 250W is probably adequate.
> That said, at $60 I wouldn't skimp on a decent supply. A stressed
> supply is more likely (a) to blow, and (b) to take out components with
> it. That $60 is money well spent. My PSUs are Corsairs, for no
> particular reason.


I agree with this.  A badly designed power supply can really cost you if it goes out.  I think mine is a Thermaltake but only a few models are really good.  There is a thread on overclockers forum that lists power supplies by model and if they passed the tests they ran.  It also explains how good the protection is when the power supply goes bad.  I don't know how up to date that list is but don't skimp to much on this. I had a fan go out on one of my Thermaltakes and it ran for a bit but blew smoke and died.  Thing is, it shut down nicely and a new power supply got me running again.  You want one that has good protections in place otherwise, you could be building a new rig. 



Hope that helps. 



Dale



:-)  :-)