8 years since previous build

[Rob1976]

Hey guys, like the title says, it's been about 8 years since I've built a PC for myself.  I purchased a RoG laptop a few years ago so I have been content.  I have read and watched content on new PC tech, but need help with M.2 and SSD questions please.

 

I was planning on purchasing a board that will allow me to use an M.2 NMVE SSD to use as my boot drive and will have my OS, current most played game, and other essential programs on it.  I was wanting to RAID 0 two decent sized 2.5" SSDs after to house the rest of my programs.  I would like another drive to hold my music, pics, vids and the like. Finally I was wanting to get two 3.5" mechanical drives with a few TB of storage to act as a RAID 1 back up drive.  Does this sound possible or ineffective/inefficient?

 

I basically want a super fast primary drive to hold my OS, games, browser, and anti-virus.  Then another fast drive to hold programs.  Another separate drive to hold videos, music, pics and stuff, and finally one last drive to use as a separate physical drive to back everything up.

 

It's been years since I've built a machine so any advice and info will be greatly appreciated.  I know I'm sorely lacking on current tech knowledge but I'm doing my best to absorb and re-learn.

[genexis_x]

15 hours ago, Rob1976 said:

I was planning on purchasing a board that will allow me to use an M.2 NMVE SSD to use as my boot drive and will have my OS, current most played game, and other essential programs on it.  I was wanting to RAID 0 two decent sized 2.5" SSDs after to house the rest of my programs.  I would like another drive to hold my music, pics, vids and the like. Finally I was wanting to get two 3.5" mechanical drives with a few TB of storage to act as a RAID 1 back up drive.  Does this sound possible or ineffective/inefficient?

Why you want so many HDDs and SSDs? If I were you I will go for 1 NVMe SSD, 1 normal SSD and 1 large capacity HDD

[Rob1976]

Looking for 1 NMVE for operating system and Pantheon gaming.  The 2 SSDs for RAID 0 so that all my programs and other games can run on it with the speed performance of RAID 0.  The 1 conventional hard drive so that I can have 1 to store all my music, vids, and pics, ans 1 hard drive to act as a back up.  Seems logical to me but advice is greatly appreciated. I don't want to purchase more or less that what I need.

[Vulcanis]

The RAID SSD's are kind of a null idea, as the SATA speeds are almost saturated as is. Finding a board with Dual M.2 slots would be more effective, so having an EVO 960 M.2 and a more budget high capacity Intel 600P would be a better Idea in my mind, then a large HDD for storage like the Ironwolf's or BarraCuda's. Then you don't have to deal with the volatility of RAID array losses, RAID controllers onboard and probably better cost/GB. What kind of budget/theme?

[Rob1976]

I don't have a budget since I my kid is now in college completely free due to my 100% disability rating from the V.A.

My disability means I spend a ton of time in my house.  I want to build a system that will stave off boredom.

I plan on building a Ryzen rig with either a 1700 or a R5 variant if those perform better once launched.  Holding off on a GPU until Vega launches then will decide on it or a 1080ti.

So your advice is 2x NMVE then a high capacity traditional hard drive and forgo the 2.5" SSDs?  I'll have to find an AM4 board that has 2 M.2 slots that allows for 1 of the slots to be bootable.  Any recommendations? 

[brob]

Don't RAID 0 ssd. They do not have the same behavior as hdd and for the most part, other than large serial reads and writes, perform no better than a larger single ssd.

 

Having a separate RAID 1 array for storing backups makes sense. 

 

One can easily break up large storage units into smaller logical volumes it that makes things easier. So, you could have, (presuming budget allows), a 2TB M.2 drive containing a C: system and boot, D: programs, E: content; or whatever floats your boat. However, (Personally I would simply have a single large volume.)

 

If a large M.2 drive is too rich, then a 240GB unit would be fine for boot, system, and basic programs. Then consider a single large ssd. Something in the 1TB - 2TB range.

 

A number of newer motherboards include two M.2 connectors. 

 

If the principal use of the system is not content creation/design, I'm not sure a Ryzen rig is the optimal choice.

[Vulcanis]

9 hours ago, Rob1976 said:

I don't have a budget since I my kid is now in college completely free due to my 100% disability rating from the V.A.

My disability means I spend a ton of time in my house.  I want to build a system that will stave off boredom.

I plan on building a Ryzen rig with either a 1700 or a R5 variant if those perform better once launched.  Holding off on a GPU until Vega launches then will decide on it or a 1080ti.

So your advice is 2x NMVE then a high capacity traditional hard drive and forgo the 2.5" SSDs?  I'll have to find an AM4 board that has 2 M.2 slots that allows for 1 of the slots to be bootable.  Any recommendations? 

MSI X370 Gaming Pro Carbon is a good middle ground choice, and to make one bootable only instal the boot SSD when installing, then add the other two after installation and they will be separately detected drives to avoid issues. 

[Rob1976]

I'm waiting to see how Ryzen 5 CPUs will benchmark before on deciding, but I'm leaning towards Ryzen for the AM4 socket longevity.  Being able to keep the same board will be a big boon since I plan on keeping it until PCIE 4.0 boards start rolling out in a few years.  If R5s have the same performance as the 7s, then I'll most likely use a 1700 before going 1151 or 2011v3.  Don't hate Intel but would like to support AMD so that they can still hang with Big Blue.

 

Thanks for the info guys.  Your help has been greatly appreciated.  Once I finally find a horizontal mobo case I like, I'll start buying the SSDs and other hardware that isn't CPU specific.