How to build fastest pc with no moving parts (except cooling fans)

[beyondcurrent]

This post is to generate ideas on building a super pc.

When computing power of that which is available on the market is not enough or just cannot be accepted, most users consider building or upgrading PCs choosing quality motherboards, CPUs, RAM, and over-clocking, etc. which should be a given. As far as OCing, I am an advocate (with proper extreme cooling of course) because I prefer to have things not being limited in their capabilites. With speed increasing everday in motherboards, CPUs, and ram, users are still being limited by the hard drive (device drives in general) that stores the operating system which is why alterantive device drives is important as well when it comes to building a SUPER PC beyond the conventional.

My main focus is on I/O's for the device drives, basically on flash memory with the best performance speed/efficiency ratio to replace the current movable-parts hard drives. Up to date there are ways to boot operaring systems from flash memory. Microsoft however is currently working with manufacturers to implement windows to be bootable from usb on a universal level without having to fiddle around. This still would not meet the criteria because of the USB technocolgy itself being limited in several ways, bandwidth, CPU overhead etc. Current hard drives on the market, even the fastest, use IDE/ATA, USB 2.0, FIREWIRE, and the under-rated SCSI. I am a fan of ULTRA SCSI. The SCSI transfer rate may not be as fast as USB 2.0 or the new FIREWIRE 800, but when dealing with a handful of devices connected into a single PC, SCSI outperforms the others with no overhead. SCSI doesn't degrade CPU performance as much as USB and FIREWIRE (which makes my wonder why Mac is thinking about abandoning SCSI). So why not use an UTRA SCSI hard drive currently available on the market?

-Well basically, the HDs available have moving parts. In my opinion current PC devices (CD/DVD ROM, SUPER FLOPPY ZIP, HDs, etc.) are prehistoric, given the fact that their technology is based on wear and tear movable parts. It's not that I am looking for a quiet, anti-shock system with increase life usage or anything (noises can be tolerated, devices can be replaced if damaged by shock or wear and tear,) but the way I see it is that even with performance improvements on these hard drives with movable parts they still are limited to the speed in which they can rotate, which is an analog mechanism downside. So no matter how fast the transfer rates are improved (by connection, increase RPM speed, etc.) the moving mechanism would be the limiting factor. This drawback can be compared to reasons why Over Clockers do their thing. It's not that (in some cases) OCers can't afford a better CPU or motherboard because when they do actually upgrade to the best ones, they still OC the new hardware even knowing that those upgrades outperform their previous hardware even if left untouched. It's just the fact that something is capable of doing more that makes them do this.

As for my project, I am developing ideas to build a super PC with only solid state used for computing, reading, writing, and transferring (which is why the cooling fan(s) is is not counted, even though non-fan cooling exists but are not good enough for OCers). I am looking to have flash replace all devices with moving parts. Of course I am still going to have DVD Rom, maybe floppy, connected to the PC because software on the market is based on those devices.

So here are my questions:
1) Why is MAC considering to abandon SCSI?
2) Would an Ultra SCSI flash memory hard drive perform faster than a USB 2.0 or Firewall 800 flash hard drive?
(I know that the tranfer rates on USB 2.0 and firewire 800 is faster, but taking in account the efficiency of SCSI's command mapping capability)

Any other insights and ideas to add? Thanks.

 

[cdogg]

First of all, this thread is becoming confusing to me. You started out with things you wanted to accomplish in regards to building the ultimate rig. However, you seem to not only be "second-guessing" the advice and opinions of others, but even doubting your own suggestion at times.

The way I see it is that if something can be modified and any negative end result can be corrected then enhancing the object is a plus.

Well, you can't argue that overclocking decreases overall lifespan, even if you pacify the heat issue by massive cooling. You are not correcting the negative; you are just providing an environment in which it can exist without an all-out failure. Running at higher temperatures with or without cooling is going to shorten lifespan, period.

Enough has been said about overclocking at this point. It's off topic, and a lot of your first response to my post was restating the point.

If there were flash devices that are as fast as solid-state drives then things would be simpler.

That is just a hypothetical question. What's the point? Flash is not the same as SDRAM solid-state drives, and will not likely ever be as fast.

~cdogg
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[jurgen36]

Well reading all the submissions I like to give my two bits worth as well. At my university we actually had an 80 GB solid state drive for testing and evaluation. It could read and write in normal mode with more then 800 Mbytes a second transfer speed, it also could operate in burst mode with more then 1.6 Gbyte a second. It did not go through the PCI channels, the adaptor fitted in one DDR memory slot. This would explain the very high speeds. The CPU use was less then 1.5 %. However the dark side of the coin was that the price was astronomical. Let's say if you bought a ferrari sports car you would pay less. We are talking about millions of dollars. Probably the price would come down in mass production, but most likely not in the near future. Nevertheless the solid state drives are available, for a price and special applications in space and cruise missiles.
Regards

Jurgen

 

[orypecos]

The best way to increase speed is not use Windows for a operating system, use multiple processors, and put in the max amount of RAM that your mother boards will allow.

 

[cdogg]

beyondcurrent,

What is it that you are asking at this point? You seem to have all the answers you need...


Think you want a SDRAM or DDR-SDRAM solid-state drive that bad? Try this price on for size:

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?sku=A0293264&cs=04&c=us&l=en

That's a bit on the extreme side, but it's comes will all the fail-safes. Without a complete package, other companies typically sell them at around $2 a megabyte. So you can see why a small 4GB solution could easily run you close to $7000 if not more...

Some links from a company that sells them:

http://www.superssd.com/products/ramsan-320/index.htm

http://www.superssd.com/products/ramsan-320/indexb.htm

http://www.superssd.com/whatisassd.htm

And from what I can tell, they are much too fast to use any of your motherboard's existing connections. They would require a fibre channel connection of some sort, typically used in networking with a server for streaming data.

~cdogg
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[beyondcurrent]

Running at higher temperatures with or without cooling is going to shorten lifespan, period."

"Running at higher temperatures" That statement is true.
To be clear on what I meant was that OCed hardware doesn't necessarily have to have higher temperatures. The end result of OCing does not always have to be excess heat if the tweaked hardware is never given a chance to reaches temperatures above its normal manufacturer setting. I was wrong about mentioning OCing having a negative of excess heat (if one were to take it like "OCing will always make things hotter"). One of OCing's drawnback of excess heat is only in an instance where there was heat accumulating. If modified so that the tweaked hardware never even reaches temperatures above its normal manufacturer setting then excess heating would never be present to begin with. To be clear, "whether OCing would have a negative of excess heat or not depends on if the tweaked hardware were allowed to reach extemities". There are ways to sustain a desired temperature.

 

[beyondcurrent]

Thanks Jurgen36. Good to know.

 

[beyondcurrent]

And from what I can tell, they are much too fast to use any of your motherboard's existing connections. They would require a fibre channel connection of some sort, typically used in networking with a server for streaming data."

Thanks for the links Cdogg. Exactly the ideas I'm trying to get. Something available, but would probably not work on retail market motherboard. I'll just have to find the right board. "Fibre channel" another technology I had already been looking into. I am a fan of that solid-state drive from Texas Memory because of the file backup feature without degrading CPU. Basically all the solid- state drives I had previously looked at were truelly fast but weren't on the top of my list because they needed constant power to keep data saved, ie: a battery when unit power was turned off. That's why I looked into flash, to find a way that would work at super speeds.

 

[cdogg]

Well, at least that's a start for you then. Flash may not be the answer as the main hard drive due to speed limitations, restrictive flash controller algorithms, and poor data retention over time. However, it is a cheaper option as opposed to using DRAM nevertheless.

Good luck in whatever you decide...

~cdogg
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884