New Potential Build - Looking for any Input

[lewisvsclark]

Hey All:

 

I just made an acct. due to frequent views of Linus' videos, and I figured the community here is knowledgeable about the peripherals I am trying to implement in new build. I am familiar with building a gaming rig, but never of this magnitude. I was tasked by my Boss to build a new home machine for him, and he has purchased all of the parts, and I figured I'd list them all to see if anyone could point out any potential flaws in peripheral choices, compatibility issues, etc.

 

Case - Corsair Obsidian Series 900D Super Tower Computer Case

MotherBoard - ASUS Rampage IV Black Edition ATX X79

Processor - Intel Core i7 4960X 3.6Ghz

Graphics Cards - 2x EVGA GeForce GTX TITAN Black's

RAM - Corsair Dominator Platinum Series 64GB (8 x 8GB) DDR3 DRAM 2400MHz PC3 19300

Fans - 2x Corsair Air Series AF140 LED quiet edition high airflow fans; 2x Corsair Air Series AF120 LED quiet edition high airflow fans, 1x Corsair Air Series SP120 High Performance Edition twin Pack

Thermal Paste - Arctic Silver 5 Therman Compound 3.5 Grams

CPU Cooler - Zalman CPU Cooler for Intel Socket 2011

SLI Bridge - EVGA Pro SLI Bridge 2-Way Graphics Card

RAID - High Point RocketRaid 2720SGL 8-port PCI-Express 2.0 x8 SAS/SATA RAID Controller

CD/BluRay - I/O Magic BluRay drive

HDD - 6x Western Digital 4TB SATA 6GB/S; 4x Western Digital Velociraptor 3.5" SATA

Power Supply - Corsair AX1500i

Misc. Cables - 2x Silverstone Tek Four-In-One SATA Power Connectors with Power Stabilizing Capacitors; 2x Monoprice 0.5m 30AWG Internal Mini SAS 36pin Male w/Latch to SATA 7pin Female (x4) Forward Breakout Cable; 2x StarTech 6-Feet Shielded External eSATA Cable M/M (ESATA6)

 

The Set Up's that he has in mind are:

 

x2 1TB Velociraptors set up in RAID 1 for the Primary OS, that will run Windows 7, Games, VM's, etc.

 

x2 1TB Velociraptors set up in RAID 1 for the Secondary OS, that will run Windows 7, with no updates besides SP1, that is soley for Flight Simulators.

 

x6 4TB Drives set up in RAID 10 for File Storage, Virtual Machine Files, etc. and he wants it to be accessed by all Installed OS's.

 

As unreal and silly as this sounds, this is 100% legitimate. All parts have been ordered, and should be here soon. Does this all sound feasible?

 

 

[Jodomcfrodo]

Why did you order that piece of overkill? 

 

The 900D will look empty without watercooling and will not cool well. I would re think the case if you can...

[lewisvsclark]

Why did you order that piece of overkill? 

 

The 900D will look empty without watercooling and will not cool well. I would re think the case if you can...

 

Unfortunately I did not choose the parts, that was all up to my boss. I am in complete agreement with you. I don't believe there is any way I could sway him to buy a different case.

[Jodomcfrodo]

Unfortunately I did not choose the parts, that was all up to my boss. I am in complete agreement with you. I don't believe there is any way I could sway him to buy a different case.

He will side with you as soon as he sees it. It will be loud as hell with those Velociraptors  as well...

[Guest]

No SSD's ? 

[lewisvsclark]

He will side with you as soon as he sees it. It will be loud as hell with those Velociraptors  as well...

 

What do you recommend in terms of another case? I'm sure the answer "anything but the 900D" is what you will want to say, and I cannot disagree with you, but any particular cases you would recommend?

[lewisvsclark]

No SSD's ? 

 

No, he has claimed he has seen too many compatibility issues with them and is not 100% satisfied with them as of yet..

[Jodomcfrodo]

What do you recommend in terms of another case? I'm sure the answer "anything but the 900D" is what you will want to say, and I cannot disagree with you, but any particular cases you would recommend?

Air 540 or pretty much anything else besides the 900D. 

 

HOLY SHIT NO SSD? $5000 BUILD!

[lewisvsclark]

Air 540 or pretty much anything else besides the 900D. 

 

HOLY SHIT NO SSD? $5000 BUILD!

Yeah.....I know.....

 

and thanks for the recommendation. I will certainly see what I can do.

[brob]

@mikewidel,

 

Is the Zalman cooler a liquid cooler?

 

The storage plan is utterly OTL. As a start it makes no sense to have so much storage residing in a machine being used for anything other than storage services.

 

RAID is not backup. Depending on RAID 1 or 10 to keep data safe is likely going to lead to disappointment.

 

As has been mentioned, Velociraptors are noisy beasts that run hot. Try to get the user to buy a NAS for the large arrays.

 

I hope the 4TB WD are Reds.

 

It is just so sad to see what could be a real performer shackled by not using proven storage tech.

 

(If you are interested, techreport.com has been running an ssd endurance experiment for most of the year. They have a number of articles covering the various milestones. The most recent reports on the achievement of over 1 PB written to each of 3 surviving drives. All drives survived beyond 700TB writes.)

 

Presuming no NAS:

 

I suspect cooling is going to be the tricky part. Not so much the cpu or gpu but the hdd and motherboard. Which is why I think the 900D is not a bad choice. With 10 hdd, four of them being 10K rpm, you will want to make sure that there are fans pushing air over the drives. With that many drive bays occupied you will also need to worry about getting enough air to the rest of the box.

 

I didn't notice a 3.5" to 5.25" adapter but I believe it will be needed as one hdd will have to be mounted in an external bay.

[lewisvsclark]

@mikewidel,

 

Is the Zalman cooler a liquid cooler?

 

The storage plan is utterly OTL. As a start it makes no sense to have so much storage residing in a machine being used for anything other than storage services.

 

RAID is not backup. Depending on RAID 1 or 10 to keep data safe is likely going to lead to disappointment.

 

As has been mentioned, Velociraptors are noisy beasts that run hot. Try to get the user to buy a NAS for the large arrays.

 

I hope the 4TB WD are Reds.

 

It is just so sad to see what could be a real performer shackled by not using proven storage tech.

 

(If you are interested, techreport.com has been running an ssd endurance experiment for most of the year. They have a number of articles covering the various milestones. The most recent reports on the achievement of over 1 PB written to each of 3 surviving drives. All drives survived beyond 700TB writes.)

 

Presuming no NAS:

 

I suspect cooling is going to be the tricky part. Not so much the cpu or gpu but the hdd and motherboard. Which is why I think the 900D is not a bad choice. With 10 hdd, four of them being 10K rpm, you will want to make sure that there are fans pushing air over the drives. With that many drive bays occupied you will also need to worry about getting enough air to the rest of the box.

 

I didn't notice a 3.5" to 5.25" adapter but I believe it will be needed as one hdd will have to be mounted in an external bay.

Zalman cooler is just a straight fan cooler, no liquid cooling. The 4TB's are indeed Reds. 2 of the 4 are going to be converted to externals from what he has told me.....he bought chassis for them....idk. But yeah, I completely agree with you.

[brob]

Zalman cooler is just a straight fan cooler, no liquid cooling. The 4TB's are indeed Reds. 2 of the 4 are going to be converted to externals from what he has told me.....he bought chassis for them....idk. But yeah, I completely agree with you, unfrotuantely it is a lose/lose for me. I can't convince him to buy new/different parts at this point, and I also can't justify the problems that are to come due to him buying the parts. I have been drafted for career suicide.

 

Asus recommends liquid cpu coolers on X79, especially if more than low overclocking is done. Their reasoning is that air coolers tend to prevent proper cooling of the heavier duty power distribution components of X79 along the top of the motherboard. You may well find that you have to also cool the back of that section of the motherboard.