New PC Build for Blender. Moving from Mac to PC

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21

Yup, when it comes to RAID’s, which are really a commercial/business thing for the most part, they spend a lot of time and testing to optimise and tune the raid array and setup for the specific use case and it can get very tricky and complicated.

For the average user, within a main PC, then usually RAID just isn’t used/needed. On a personal backup NAS and the like, usually one just deploys RAID 5 or maybe RAID 6 (using normal HDD’s, since its price and storage amount that matter most) and call it a day.

Given one is backing up over a network and very few ppl have 10G networking, then it’s the data transfer that is the bottleneck, not the NAS, even with normal HDD’s.

22

I was going to point this out- NAS only really works if you can Ethernet in and out of it, and you don’t have data caps or speed throttling. Running a local RAID server on your computer (not as a NAS) is possible, but (definitely beating a dead horse), overkill, and probably just going to waste computing power and energy overtime

23

To add something actually useful, here’s my setup:

2024-01-03 11_07_39-This PC
2024-01-03 11_07_39-This PC812×184 15.8 KB

My TREESLOTH drive is an external hard drive that backs up my entire computer every night at 2AM. My HOOTOWL drive is a “high importance backup drive” that I’ve set up (Windows Task Scheduler + some simple .bat files) to create an additional backup of highly important files. That leaves 5 SSDs for “original” content, a priority backup SSD, and a backup HDD. I need offsite backup, I know, but that’s an ongoing brainstorm…

If a drive with critical files fails, I have two distinct backups. If anything else fails, I have one distinct backup. It’s good enough for now. No RAID or anything

24

I think the single question we need to ask here is what advantages will a RAID array offer over a standard single SSD for rendering and content creation? I could understand their necessity back during the platter drive days, but with NVMe drives being able to read and write at multiple GBs per second, is there any real benefit using them for anything besides multiuser server farms?

It won’t produce a noticeable difference in load times for anything, excluding loading single files that exceed 50+ gigs in size, which even in the world of 3D is fairly rare. Plus, it’s not going to boost your render times at all.

To me, it seems like it maximizes complexity for minimal gains.

25

None if we talk about current work. But it can have some advantage in mid-term data storage when you still need both capacity and transfer speeds higher than usual SATA interface.

26

But what about a 2nd NVMe used as mid-term storage or a backup failsafe? How great is the data transfer gain relative to a single drive, and is it worth the extra cost, and time spent setting up and babysitting a RAID array?

27

OK, part of my confusion is that I need a large storage set up - at least 16TB.

The NVMe drives are limited to 4TB max as far as I can see at the supplier I’m using. And there are only 2 slots for NVMe drives (again as far as I can tell from my supplier’s website).

So what would be the best set up for the large storage I need? A large external RAID array? And perhaps drag current working files onto the NVMe drives for faster access? And just use the RAID for storage of projects that are completed or parked. Seems a bit painful moving files around. My current set up with my Mac is simply pulling all my data from an external 16TB RAID 0 array of 2 HDDs.

I do a lot of Photoshop work at very large file sizes (it varies but often 20GB and bigger) and I need to read and write these quickly. So not just CGI work although that is my main area.

Quick update: there are actually 4 slots for NVMe drives. So maybe that’s the way forward.

28

You could get a PCIe NVMe (olol) card, like this. It’s blazingly fast, gives you the storage you need, but you’ll need to account for the extra space it’ll be taking up on your motherboard, and it costs the earth.

…yeah, it says Macsales, but it’ll work on a PC as well.

For more affordable setups, I’d say your main choices come down to whether you want to deal with a RAID, or if you’re willing to manually shuffle files from faster to slower drives and vice versa as you need them.

edit: I did find this 8TB M.2 drive. It’s expensive, though not quite as bad as the offering above.

https://www.amazon.com/Corsair-MP600-NVMe-PCIe-Gen4/dp/B0CJRN3LLX/ref=pd_lpo_sccl_2/145-4353014-2760535?pd_rd_w=Lgg2j&content-id=amzn1.sym.116f529c-aa4d-4763-b2b6-4d614ec7dc00&pf_rd_p=116f529c-aa4d-4763-b2b6-4d614ec7dc00&pf_rd_r=2QZ93WA1KTBXPPFG3B1K&pd_rd_wg=18wjz&pd_rd_r=a162f555-20fd-44bc-b842-c988fef8408d&pd_rd_i=B0CJRN3LLX&th=1

29

Check this build https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/cHYtN6
I have most of the parts in my system. The motherboard has 6 nvme slots. And you still have 4 sata ports for cheaper and larger storage spaces with decent speed.
I have the 14700k and I keep it cool with this AIO cooler and the only thing I did is to apply a negative offset in Vcore voltage.

30

I was going to say that theres 8tb NVMe drives out there, but the prices are large!

I also looked at this before from a shop in the UK which supports 4 NVME slots.

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/asus-hyper-m2-x16-gen4-card-pcie-40-30-4x-m2-pcie-2242-60-80-110-slots-upto-256gbps-supports-pcie-40

I used to work with LOTs of files and the best way we found for storage was:

A drive for OS.

A drive for software.

A drive for working files.

A drive for storage.

This separates everything out and each can be replaced at anyone time, it also means that you can prio size and speed where needed. Example:- the Storage drive could be 32tb drive of mass storage of video files or it could be offline storage.

31

This is still curious to me. Why do you need -at least- 16TB?

I have a small server running with all my project data, and that 6TB RAID set (yes, there’s one on the server) is just half full after many, many years.
That server is backup’d every night for safe keeping, as are the drives inside the PC containing other things as are my videodrives. All backup’d on external drives.
I also keep the ‘rule of three’, so there’s a large part of the backups that live in the cloud.

With all this storage added together I still cannot reach 8TB in total of ‘actual’ data.

In addition to Joseph his setup, my pc is setup like this:
C:\ 2TB SSD - Windows
D:\ 1TB SSD - Windows users files / application data/settings
S:\ 2TB SSD - scratch disk for Windows swapfiles, and ALL temporary application files.
V:\ 6TB video disk (Davinci Resolve databases, video & files)
P:\ project diskfolder - link to server

Why the separation in C: and D:?
Easier for re-imaging when necessary. Because all Windows/app settings live on another drive, and a new image will not destroy any data by mistake.

32

No you don’t, unless you are working on a single corporate database that happens to be 16TB in size.

In that case reading and writing all to the same RAID array is likely to be slower then say using two independent NVMe drives, one has the file data, the other is a temp/swap file/cache drive for Photoshop, etc, combine with of course 64GB+ of RAM.

So working directly on an external RAID over networking or thunderbolt is likely the slowest way of doing things. Granted Thunderbolt should be faster then networking, but compared to a couple of NVMe drives setup like I stated above and running at 3GB’s or more, then going external/RAID is slower.

33

It’s basic math. NVMe will be faster in all cases, but with traditional RAID (HDD or normal SSD) you can set up storage that is both faster than normal SATA and bigger and cheaper than current NVMe offerings.
There is no one-size-fits-all solution here. You need to take into account how much disk space you want and what is your storage plan. For typical hobby user this is overkill. But if you plan to manage lots of data there are a lot of options to choose from. RAID is one of them, but with time and lower TB/$ NVMe’s it will become more and more niche.

34

That’s not a bad setup. The only thing I don’t like about it would be the lack of backup for the working files. I’d arrange it so that the OS and software share the same drive, the working files drive, a file history specific drive for the working files, then a big platter drive for storage.

35

I’ve learned that four drives are nowhere near enough. I can’t sleep at night with less than six. Compartmentalization of data is so, so, so important

36

I dunno. I’ve been getting by pretty well on just three. I’ve got my OS/Software drive, my working files drive, which has a split partition between storage and file history (and for extra security, I also back the first half of that drive up on cloud storage), and a long term storage drive.

I’m oldschool. I organize primarily through folders.

37

For me, lots of drives isn’t just organization, it’s failure tolerance- even having backups isn’t a guarantee that you’ll be able to get stuff back. Backups fail, files get corrupted, I’d very much rather lose 1/6 my files than 1/1 my files

38

I can understand where you’re coming from. I think the only reason I don’t do similar is because I’m both lazy, and like to live dangerously.

Oh, and cheap too.

39

Thanks so much for everyone’s feedback. I have reworked my config. I’ve dropped the rather outdated notions I had about a RAID array and am currently going for the following. I would prefer 128 GB RAM but this set up his currently only offering 96GB or 192GB for some reason. Must be a way to fix that though.

2TB NVMe drive for OS and Software.

4TB NVMe drive for live projects.

2x 8TB SSD SATA drives for long term storage for projects not currently active.

Dropbox online back up of all data.

Here is the full spec:

Case

FRACTAL DEFINE 7 XL BLACK QUIET TOWER CASE

Processor (CPU)

Intel® Core™ i9 24-Core Processor i9-13900 (Up to 5.6 GHz) 36MB Cache

Motherboard

ASUS® PROART Z790-CREATOR WIFI (LGA1700, DDR5, PCIe 5.0, Wi-Fi 6E, 1 x 10GbE)

Memory (RAM)

96GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR5 5200MHz (2 x 48GB)

Graphics Card

24GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 4090 - HDMI, DP

1 st M.2 SSD Drive

2TB SAMSUNG 980 PRO M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 7000MB/R, 5000MB/W)

1 st M.2 SSD Drive

4TB CORSAIR MP600 PRO NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD (up to 7000 MB/R, 6850 MB/W)

1 st Storage Drive

8TB Samsung 870 QVO 2.5" SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (up to 560MB/sR | 530MB/sW)

1 st Storage Drive

8TB Samsung 870 QVO 2.5" SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (up to 560MB/sR | 530MB/sW)

Memory Card Reader

USB 3.0 EXTERNAL SD/MICRO SD CARD READER

Power Supply

CORSAIR 1000W RMx SERIES™ - MODULAR 80 PLUS GOLD, ULTRA QUIET

Power Cable

1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead, 1.0mm Core)

Processor Cooling

CORSAIR iCUE H150i ELITE CAPELLIX XT RGB High Performance CPU Cooler

Thermal Paste

ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND

Sound Card

ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

Network Card

ONBOARD LAN PORT

USB/Thunderbolt Options

MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS

Operating System

Windows 11 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence

Operating System Language

United Kingdom - English Language

Windows Recovery Media

Windows 10/11 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Unlimited Downloads from Online Account

Office Software

FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)

Anti-Virus

Norton 360 For Gamers: 1 User, 3 Devices - 1 Year Subscription

Browser

Microsoft® Edge

Warranty

3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)

Delivery

48 HOUR INSURED PALLET DELIVERY TO UK (MON-FRI, INC. HIGHLANDS & ISLANDS)

Build Time

Standard Build - Approximately 5 to 7 working days

Price: £4,940.00 including VAT and Delivery

40

while i can understand your concern, having lost terabytes of data in the past (silly jumping on the ooh brand new shiny 1tb spinner! must have several! train :rofl: ) , i do the several rotating backups (with file verify), none of them stored in the same location. it’s probably still the same number of drives as you run, just more 1/1 or 1/2s, and multiple backups of each.