rmt902

I don't necessarily have a question. I was really just following up on some comments on the recent video. I have screenshotted those for reference below. After reading what you said, I don't think the ram usage is mainly due to currently installed programs. Yes, I could optimize and uninstall items that I don't need and disable things from running at startup. But, this issue has been prevalent ever since I bought the machine. I really just want to know if the high usage is something I can control or if it is due to the DELL OS image/bloatware installation package that came with the computer (which is out of my control). Ryan

Hello! Instead of continuing a string of comments on the recent video "Final Verdict - $1500 Gaming PC Secret Shopper pt4", I decided that it would be best to continue our Dell RAM issue conversation here. I figured that this would be much easier to navigate than YouTube comment strings. First off, I (along with others in the comments) have the same high RAM usage on my Dell prebuilt. It is the Dell IPS 8920. I have an i7-7700k, GTX 1060 6GB, 32GB RAM, 256 GB boot SSD, and a 2TB storage drive. On a (and every, really) normal boot cycle, my machine will use 4 to 5.2 (ish) GB of RAM on startup. I have attached images below showing RAM usage after two boot cycles. Cycle 1: Cycle 2: So, with that being said, someone in the comments recommended trying out RamMap, which is apart of the Sysinternals Suite (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/, https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/rammap). I ran that after a third and fourth boot, and received similar results. I have posted the results from the fourth boot cycle below. Without knowing what many of the categories meant on the home screen, somethings did pop out to me. Most importantly, the directory of "C:\Windows\System32\config\software" was using a suspiciously high amount of RAM. After navigating to that path, I found that that directory leads to a 133 MB file that is nothing that I can look farther into. It could not be opened by anything software that I currently have. There is another screenshot below showing the path. At this point, I don't know where or how to continue. I would greatly appreciate it others could give their insight and hopefully get this Dell RAM issue resolved. I appreciate anything you may have to say. Thank you! Ryan

Thank you so much! I will do some research on some older desktops... And possibly another OS.

Do I need five drives do get RAID z2 to work?

Okay. I could find some older system, possibly on Craigslist, with SATA 3 Gb/s (And yes, I only have 1 GB/s Ethernet)... I know FreeNAS likes to have 8gb of RAM, this might be an issue with other systems, most only having 4 GB. Is that a problem? And FreeNAS RAID z2 is equivalent to RAID 6? And I don't need a RAID Controller card for that, correct?

PI as in RasberryPi? If I went the old system route, if there a possibility of the older mobo not having the newest 6 Gb/s SATA connections? Basically, would that become a bottleneck?

Do you have a friend or someone that can lend you another GPU to test things out? That's what I would do. If you don't know anybody, try a local school or sometimes there are local businesses that can help you out. Just be nice and see what happens... You never know until you ask. Best of luck, Ryan.

Hello, So, I'm wanting to create my own NAS for my home, except while doing some research, I'm running into so questions/issues. Just as some background, I am a home photographer and media creator. I am also a bit of a digital packrat with my hobbies. Anyways, my main thing is that I need to build this project on a tight budget. I am just a High School Student and have a very limited income. If I could keep this under $200, I would be a happy man. The max I am willing to spend is around $300 (Unless there are some convincing people out there ). Is this even possible with what I am looking to get out of this project? (I'll explain what those things are in a second) Budget aside, my 675GB internal HDD on my laptop is getting full, and my 1TB external HDD is getting there as well. I'm wanting to address this issue before it becomes too late. In this project, I was looking at possibly adding a NAS of maybe 4 to 6 TB or so. To keep cost down, I found some Refurbished 3TB Enterprise Grade HDDs from Seagate on Newegg. (LINK TO NEWEGG PAGE) Because they are refurbished, I would like to put them in a redundant array. First off, is it smart to buy refurbished drives and them put them into a redundant array to save some money? I was thinking of buying four of these and then putting them into RAID 10. Secondly, do you have any thoughts on my idea? The main issue with doing this is that I would be spending $200 of my 300$ budget on storage... Is that enough money to build the rest of the system? Next off, I am not a very good part picker/finder. I have found some articles explaining some good, low-cost systems, but they are all outdated. I can't find a single one created in the last 6 months or so. This is the best ones I found are (links to PCPartPicker)... THIS or THIS. Once again, those part lists push my budget too high. I really need some help here, ANY would be appreciated. As a cost saving measure, I do have some wood laying around... I could just not buy a case and just mount everything onto wood... Finally, for an OS. I've heard FreeNAS is a great option. However, I have no idea (yet) how to use it. I'm sure I could figure it out. The only thing here is does FreeNAS support RAID 10 without a RAID Controller Card? All in all, I kinda am in a bind here. I'm not very experienced in NAS Systems or RAID. If you have any suggestions, large or minor, they would be greatly appreciated. If ANYONE has recently built a home NAS system inside (or around) my budget, I would love to hear about it. Even if you think a NAS system is not right for me, please tell me so and lead me down a different path. One more thing, I also found a 2TB version of the original 3TB HDD on sale right now at Newegg, it's an option. LINK Thank you so much!! -Ryan

I had a laptop with a very similar error. I only had the machine for a few months. In my case, the SATA connection came loose and just needed to be unplugged and plugged back in. These are the steps I would take: (If one doesn't fix the problem, then I would move on to the next...) 1. Try to unplug the drive then plug it back in. 2. Pop the drive into another machine, preferably a desktop, and check if it can be accessed. (You may also want to check the drive for errors at this point) 3. If your laptop is still under warranty, or if the drive is still under warranty, see if you can send it in. 4. If all else fails, there are people and places out there that can try to recover data from a dead drive. Best of luck, Ryan.