What size/Speed type computer are you using?

I think it's key that your backup system be external to your computer, for two reasons. One, if you have a catastrophic event within the box, you could conceivably damage the backup disk (e.g., power supply surges) and Two, if your computer crashes, you can take your external disk to Kinko's or somewhere, rent a backup, and keep working.


to the O.P. question: iMac G5, 2GB RAM.

Jostel wrote in post #2625259
I also have an external Maxtor Hard drive on which I store my pics, cuz, obviously, this little old 256 cant hold it all!!!! specially if I try and edit ANYTHING for posting!!! Oh, does it crash hard!!!!!!

Just to clarifiy, it sounds like one of us is confusing hard drive space with RAM,. or "memory" These are two very different things.

xlr8ed wrote in post #2619370
Thanks the same motherboard that I have. I picked up the CPU/MB/Ram combo off ebay for 550 shipped.... I couldn't pass it up. Added it twin raptors in Raid 0 and all was good.

aha you mean 150gb raptors then

Its a very nice combination, cheap and fast. Asus did cripple the board a little tho, 200mhz (800mhz) fsb is obtainable by jumpers on the motherboard but you need 2.4ghz xeons as on POST the cpu will operate at full speed for a half a second, the 2.4's don't mind. (xeons allow you to lower the multiplier) I have a hacked BIOS here microcodes from the NCH-DL (800bus) injected and some PCI table rerouting, theoretically it should support the noconas, but ill wait until I get a new machine before I play with that.

If your comfortable with clocking you have a good bit of headroom on those xeons.
use DDR 400, start the fsb increase @ 150mhz and lower memory timings to the slowest settings (largest numbers), you will get 3.2ghz guaranteed, possibly board max of 3.3ghz. A fan on the northbridge heatsink would be a good plan. You will need to use the onboard promise controller not the intel ICH5, the intel controller disables clocking features due to high sensitivity.

If it's a critical production machine ignore everything I said

Also, a good clean computer is a fast computer.

- Make sure your OS is updated with the latest patches and fixes.
- Make sure you search and remove all spyware and viruses. I use Lavasoft Ad-ware and Norton Antivirus.
- Also run defragmentation on all your harddrives. If using Windows, you can use it's "Disk Defragmenter" software but some say it is not that a great of a software. I think it's fine.

Also, there are various tweaks you can do on certain OS. I found a thread in this forum but can't seem to find it but it was about tweaking Windows XP. Maybe someone can post up the link? I can't seem to find it.

Dell XPS-200 Dual Core, 1GB RAM, 250GB sata HD. 19" Dell LCD.

Dual Core is good,

I would suggest; as said before me lol- get loads of RAM! Not sure over the mac or pc- if you can afford the mac pro then go for it- can upgrade with loads of RAM- but if not don't go for the imac- go PC... As for Vista; I don't rate it that much- just watched a BBC news review on it- They've basically nicked some of the best bits of mac and tried to make it look windows... NO! lol Mac is about to release... what is it again? anyway... Macs are awesome when it comes to non-business stuff and like home personal use; thought they have few games... But Aperture! lol looks awesome- with Adobe could be a nice mix! I believe most of the 'Pros' in the photography world use Mac; don't know if that's true but sounds nice lol- good selling point for Apple.

--edit-- ^^ the Dell XPS is a good option; but come one- 24inch Screen! lol

Perhaps Alienware is an option; dell bought them so... and they are a good make with lots of power; Grunt! (sorry i watch too much Tim Allen; home Improvement lol)

Dell Dual Core 2.0 with 2GB ram runs PS plebty fast for me.

Dell XPS M1210 12"
Intel Core 2 Duo T7200
2GB Dual Shared Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667 MHz
100GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive

JCR wrote in post #2626013
aha you mean 150gb raptors then

Its a very nice combination, cheap and fast. Asus did cripple the board a little tho, 200mhz (800mhz) fsb is obtainable by jumpers on the motherboard but you need 2.4ghz xeons as on POST the cpu will operate at full speed for a half a second, the 2.4's don't mind. (xeons allow you to lower the multiplier) I have a hacked BIOS here microcodes from the NCH-DL (800bus) injected and some PCI table rerouting, theoretically it should support the noconas, but ill wait until I get a new machine before I play with that.

If your comfortable with clocking you have a good bit of headroom on those xeons.
use DDR 400, start the fsb increase @ 150mhz and lower memory timings to the slowest settings (largest numbers), you will get 3.2ghz guaranteed, possibly board max of 3.3ghz. A fan on the northbridge heatsink would be a good plan. You will need to use the onboard promise controller not the intel ICH5, the intel controller disables clocking features due to high sensitivity.

If it's a critical production machine ignore everything I said

Actually you were right the first time, they are not 15K, they're 10K raptors...It's been so long since I looked at the specs.

I'm not planning on overclocking, this thing is near silent and I have grown to like it. My next upgrade will more then likly be a Asus NCCH-DL, again from ebay...I'm not into playing the fast follower game anymore..I'll take the 12 -18 month old server stuff that smokes the "new hotness" on the market. There's nothing like encoding 2 DVD's, reading tut's of the web and working in photoshop at the same time...