Been a bit over three years on my current Dell desktop. With money as tight as it is, had planned on trying to eke out another year, but accountant has recommended we get it on this year's taxes. Mostly used for ETS and Knife Rights stuff.

Not all that thrilled with the service I have gotten from Dell and looking at other options. Any suggestions? HP seems to be priced reasonably, not sure about their service. Not interested in building my own or having it built locally, BTDT, wasn't a happy experience. Without exception, every desktop I've had has req'd a least one or two serious fixes during their lifetime, so good Onsite service is critical, I am not a geek and don't have time to deal with that stuff.

Doing a fair amount of video editing and expect to do much more going forward. Expect the new computer to last 3-4 years, never get more than that. Basic specs as follows:

Core 2 Quad Processor
Win7 64
4-8 GB RAM with room to add more
Mirrored HDD RAID - 1-1.5 TB
Running a pair of 24" WS monitors, so need dual DVI

Thoughts and recommendations welcome.

TIA!

Your specs are good. Pay attention to your video chipset, as you'll want something that can drive both monitors at a high resolution.

I don't like HP/Compaq (years of bad experience with hardware) Dell (great hardware, abysmal technical support and customer service), Sony (I won't do business with a company that installs spyware on their PCs or sells music CDs with malware on them), Gateway/eMachines (substandard hardware).

Acer, Lenovo, Asus, Toshiba (laptops) are good. Mostly I buy laptops (Toshiba or Asus for netbooks) and build desktops. Desktops are easy to build just the way you want them and you often can get more for your money that way. It also relieves one of the burden of calling someone else for technical support.

If you're not comfortable building your own desktop PC, find a good local computer store that builds their own and stands behind their work. You'll likely be happier with it than any of the national brands, even if you end up spending a little more. If there's a Fry's near you, you can build your components from them and pay them to build it for you. They stand behind their work too.

I think I covered that in my initial summary. BTDT, not going down that road again. Too many expensive and painful scars. Just want the damn computer to work and if it breaks, someone to come fix it pronto. It's just a tool for me, no matter that it is one of the most frustrating parts of my existence. <~>

P.S. For laptops, I'll stick with my Toughbooks. If it is going to survive me, it's got to be tough and Coke proof.

Do you really need 64 bit? My HP laptop is 64 bit (Vista, ugh) and I have almost no software, except IE explorer, which I don't use unless I have to, that runs 64 bit. My browser is firefox, which is 32 bit.

What I have found is the software and hardware that will run on DW's 32 bit Vista machine will not run on my 64 bit laptop, even though MS web site says it is compatible. (And I tried the various compatibility modes.) No one knows why. I've worked around most of the problems, but now I have a useless flatbed scanner (unless I beg time on DW's computer). MS Office 2000 would not reliably run, despite also being listed as compatible. I did not like the latest Office version due to having to learn a new man-machine interface and shell out more $$$ that are in very short supply right now. I switched to the free Openoffice.org, which runs fine, but is also 32 bit.

So, I would check carefully that your software and hardware will actually work on the new machine. Don't rely on claims. Go on the net and see if people are having problems. Upgrading the software just to make the new computer function is a cost that has to be considered.

As to HP, I found the HP installed 'freeware' to be problematic because it kept crashing, and have un-installed most of it.

I bought the HP laptop due to the death of my cherished Toshiba XP machine, the immediate need for a new laptop for work, and the super low price of this HP. IMO, it wasn't worth it.

If I had it to do over again, I would get something built locally to my spec with XP (if possible). I have no experience with Windows 7, but once burnt . . .etc. The other alternative I would consider is biting the bullet and going MAC, especially if you are doing video editing.

Price-wise be sure to compare final configurations again the Core i7 & i5 CPUs. In some cases stepping up from the Core 2 Quad may not cost much and may be a significant boost in video editing.

Skip RAID get a big NAS (2x or 4x the size of the computer storage) and Acronis TrueImage software for backups.

(RAID is not a backup scheme)

HP, Dell and the the others are just re-badging OEM junk in a lot of cases these days - it's hard to say who makes it any more. My last Dell notebook and desktop weren't made by Dell...

You need to upgrade to Win 7, that will likely solve many of your problems. Vista was a sick joke.

I need the RAM, thus the 64b OS required.

Yes, been looking at the i& stuff just a bit earlier. Basically it means going to a Workstation config. I have had good luck with RAID 1. I backup offsite and on local HDDs. Still, twice now having RAID 1 allowed me to continue work uninterrupted that would otherwise been a disaster. Going to a NAS is a bigger investment and management issues I don't feel like dealing with. If Drobo didn't have such bad QC and horrible CS, I'd jump on that. Unfortunately, reality isn't meeting up with theory there.

I would consider a workstation from these brands:
HP
Lenovo
Alienware (has been bought by Dell though)
Boxx
Workstation Specialists
etc.

I haven´t listed all of them. Some of them might be overkill (like SGI).

Unfortunately I don´t have any experience with these manufactures, I don´t know how good their service is etc.

You could try sending each company an e-mail or calling them saying that you would like a reliable workstation with good and fast support and troubleshooting, how much performance, what parts etc. you would like it to have, what you will be using it for and what is your budget and than compare their offers.

Of course it has its caveats. For example if they say their support is top-notch you won´t know until it´s put to the test.

Just an idea. Good luck with your hunt.

You're not going to like my answer but in your situation I would likely go with a Dell Enterprise workstation and pay for their premium tier service.

Something I find interesting is that you say RAID has saved you twice. (You've probably already done this but...) I would double check environmentals at and power quality to your hardware if you've experienced hardware issues with any regularity. Environmental stability and clean power are GOOD.

Windows 7, from a technical support perspective Windows 7 is really the most annoying, actually I think that the learning curve for a Mac would be shorter if coming from Win XP. A good time perhaps to make the move. Microsoft have done a wonderful job on Win 7 hiding everything useful THEY think their clients use, which THEY think make the OS fall over. Damned irritating.

Yep, this is what I am now doing, I'm building an ultra low powered Win XP machine, using a POV Ion chipset motherboard and dual core Atom 330 processor. Even the 2 Gig of DDR2 memory only set be back about $20. The computer will be silent except for the Samsung Eco 500 Gig hard drive, although I think a 64Gig SSD will be useful as a boot drive. (which I still need to buy). I might forget the 500 Gbyte hard drive though and put my the media files/data on an external NAS as the POV MB has a 1 gig NIC. I'm trying to keep the budget under $400-500. But the PSU is being a bit of a pain to find. I want the computer to be able to run of a 60W PV solar panel. I will even put a T-class PCI audio amplifier board inside as well to run some floor standing speakers so I can watch Blu Ray media in 1080i resolution from just one box - hence the reason it has to be silent. For the power supply I might just have to build a custom PSU, with a big switch on the back to switch from a mains linear Audiophile PSU (using a big lump of toroidal transformer, bridge rectifier, capacitors and voltage regulator etc) and the solar PV/battery array via a M2-ATX - 160W Intelligent Car PSU to power the PC.



BTW if you are looking for lots of RAID Hard Drive space, a small dedicated NAS setup would probably be preferential (easy to back up using an external HD via USB, without having to turn your PC on and can be easily accessed by even your other laptops using a wireless connection (either by you wireless router or if the NAS drive is wireless capable). Also with a NAS setup, your data is not OS reliant, so even if you upgraded to a Mac, your data i.e. video/data files can be accessed and viewed/ammended etc by MS Windows based laptops, even remotely depending on how good your internet connection is.

All the power comes though a conditioning UPS. Hard drives fail, just a matter of when.

I figured I was preaching to the choir but since I hadn't heard it mentioned I thought I would touch on it. I do understand that failures are inevitable.

Some quick hints:

1. All computer manufacturer support sucks unless you buy enterprise-class systems and pay for premium support. Unfortunately, this will double your price.
2. In general, server-class hardware gets better manufacturer support, and most support XP/Vista/Win7.
3. I don't like Macs, but support and video production are two areas where they generally excel.
4. You don't have to go with 64-bit Win7 just to be able to use more memory. An old trick is to use Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition, 32-bit, with SP2 can accept up to 64GB RAM and essentially uses the XP Kernal. This eliminates the potential problem of compatibility with 32-bit applications. But some software, notably anti-virus and backup utilities, will refuse to install because the publisher wants to force you to buy the more expensive server versions of these products. Also, with Server, you can have three people working on the system at once (1 on the physical keyboard/screen and two others via Remote Desktop from another desktop/notebook/netbook locally or via the Internet).
5. RAID-1 reduces performance by requiring two operations for every write, but can slightly improve read performance. Using a hardware RAID controller with on-board memory can offset this performance loss.
6. In my experience, systems with software RAID are more likely to experience failures than systems with no RAID. I'm not sure why this is, but I believe it has something to do with bad software drivers and timing issues.
7. For video editing, RAID-0 is usually preferred because this speeds both read and write performance, at the cost of reduced reliability. RAID-10 is the best balance of reliability and performance but requires at least 4 HDD's, preferably 8, and dedicated RAID controller with memory, so this is a major expense.
8. SAS (Serial-attached-SCSI) drives will provide much better performance than IDE, but again, are expensive.
9. Avoid drives slower than 7500 RPM. Stick with 10K or 15K drives if you can afford them.
10. On-Line backup services such as Carbonite offer both data protection plus the extra protection of off-site data storage at very reasonable prices.
11. Power supplies are usually the weakest link in most desktops, and could be the cause of your other prior failures.

$$$$$$ = unable

I have paid Dell for Gold/Premium/Pro support and it has been variable from good to sucks worse than no support at all



$$$$$ = unable



$$$$$ = unwilling



Unnecessary complications. Win 7 64 works fine, not prefect for sure, but gets the job done. Just me, only me, nobody but me. <g>



Always used hardware controller. Using software RAID always seemed like me to be penny wise and pound foolish.



$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ I use RAID 1 as a means to allow me to continue working and get the job done when a HDD fails, usually at the worst possible time on deadline for something critical. Any performance hit is minimal compared to the advantages. Big RAID array would be cool. but way too much $s



Plus, for large capacity, even more expensive. 1.5TB drives are close to dirt cheap now. Images and video take up lots of space.



Again, size and $$$$ constraints. The latest tech 7200 RPM drives seem to be more than adequate for anything I need.



I use Carbonite for all the computers.



It tested within spec. <shrug>

The answer is simple based on everyones replies and your replies... You want too much from what you are willing to pay.

You will never get the stability of a true workstation by going with a consumer class desktop. Not to mention 'awesome' support. As others have suggested you need to find a reliable builder have them build you what you want using QUALITY parts, and then have them offer you a 1 year warranty, and a service after that based on an hourly rate.

I build all my own systems, and use quality hardware and my systems last me 2-3 years and then my wife another 3-5. My system is approaching 3 years, and I want to get a new one but can't justify it because it's working perfect! The system my wife is on right now has been over clocked for 5 years and we are ready to replace the primary hard drive other than that no failures, and only one OS re-install. We keep our systems clean, lean and don't download anything unless we need it. Pictures are fine, but nothing installable from 'friends'... only software that is needed nothing for 'fun', and no 'browser add-ons' that cause problems.

As I see it you have 2 options.
1. Buy enterprise level workstation system from Dell and support.
2. Buy what you want from newegg and amazon and have a local builder put it together, warranty it through the manufacturer and have them provide support.

It's up to you, but you really are never going to get workstation grade performance from ANY consumer system.

Random thoughts:

1) What are you trying to get from the mfg "support"? Hardware repair, or software support?

If the latter, you are sort of hosed. Keeping Windows happy isn't something easily done over the phone, and you aren't going to be able to afford to have them simply send out a PC guy to do the day to day stuff.

If the former, I suggest you stick with Dell and buy their 4 year extended warranty and get all your hardware through them.

If you take care of the backups, and make frequent disaster recovery backups you should be set.

Basically, they'll send someone out, replace bad parts. Don't expect them to make your software work or deal with the backups -- just leave you with working hardware. Then, you restore your disaster recovery disc, restore backups, and you are on your way.

2) If you get your hw support via a mfg warranty, get all your hw through them. As soon as you start mixing and matching hw, they basically will tell you XYZ isn't supported, and you might as well not had the warranty in the first place.

3) If you need to mix and match, avoid Dell as you lose your warranty advantage, and Dell tends to use custom cases, wiring harnesses, power supplies, etc. And they tend to not provide expansion capability in their system, including power supplies just big enough handle their supported configurations.

4) Instead of using a RAID card, consider a Drobo external storage device:

http://www.drobo.com/products/index.php

Meant to be easy to use and provides easy configuration and maint.

5) If you aren't doing disaster recovery backups, start.

6) Make sure you get the Windows media with your system.

7) If you aren't getting sw support from the vendor, re-install your machines from disc as soon as you get it. They install lots of random junk and it will decrease performance and possibly increase your potential for sw issues.

8) Reset your expectations. Keeping these systems working well can be a challenge for professionals, and if you are not, and are getting part time support over the phone, it isn't going to be wonderful.

9) Install the absolute minimal amount of software possible.

10) Avoid Norton and McAffee virus checkers and get something more light weight like Vipre from Sunbelt Software.

Good luck!

-john

Hardware only.




Unfortunately, it doesn't always work that way because I can assure you that the folks they contract to run the gamut from good to worse that incompetent. I won't bore you with the disaster, other than to say Dell won't win any awards from me.




Got real excited about Drobo a few months back, did my research and discovered a LOT of continuing horror stories of total data loss and zero customer service. When it works as advertised, its' great. When it doesn't you are thoroughly screwed.

Currently looking as unRAID as a possible solution. Similar concept, perhaps better implementation. Could start off by re-purposing my existing computer as an unRAID server. Just started researching it.




yep



Always



Normally my resident geek does that we we set up a new computer.



I am lucky to have some good friends who are geeks. One or the other can usually rescue me, sooner or later.




<g> Easier said than done. I do a lot of different things, many of which require somewhat specialty software. Just the nature of what I do.



Been very happy with avast! for my AV needs, plus Spybot and Adaware



Thanks!

To get a reliable system I will generally specify good quality components i.e. Asus or Gigabyte MBs with solid capacitor power designs, with a good quality high efficiency power supply such as OCZ, coolermaster etc in a Coolermaster ATCS case. This allows me to pull out the MB for inspection and cleaning directly from the case without disassembly. To keep fans clean for reliable cooling.

The processor cooler is always over rated for the heat dissipation you can expect from the processor, even if it means a very large expensive ($50) copper heat pipe cooler with a 12cm fan i.e such as the Zalman CNPS9900. I will generally always de-clock the processor in the summer and run the processor at normal speed during the winter so that the processor is generally not any warmer than I am, i.e 37 C.

If building a RAID array internally you will need a case which can cool the drives adequately or specify the slower 5400 drives such as the newer 5400 speed ecogreen drives from Samsung or Greenpower WD drives into a RAID setup. The Coolermaster case has fans directly in the front on the hard drives. They only consume a few watts each when idle and abour 5-7 watts at full tilt. They run very cool and are cost effective and have good MTBFs and performance is not radically effected. I would use a Solid State Drive as a boot drive i.e. no moving parts for your OS disk. These SSD drives have MTBFs as good as any enterprise Scuzzy Disk and consume virtually no power again keeping the system nice and cool.

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=336

Keeping the computer cool, quiet and efficient does wonders for reliability and there should be no reason why a well specified PC shouldn't run smoothly for 5+ years.

The Althon XP 2800/Asus A7N8X deluxe with Windows XP I'm using at the moment is getting on for 7 years old with its 120Gb WD Boot drive and 200GB RAID drive setup.

BTW I don't ever intend to buy any other Microsoft OS ever again, simply because Microsoft made me pay for Windows XP to fix the problems caused by Windows 98SE. I reckon Microsoft should have paid me the same amount it cost me to fix Windows 98SE for the time and expense of using Windows 98SE along with a written apology. I can't believe they actually have the cheek to ask folks to pay for Windows 7, which is essentially a stripped down Windows Vista in an attempt to make the Vista code stable and reliable. It should be given away free with a letter of apology for all the poor Vista users along with a postal order of $200 value.

First thing I would do is get rid of the MS operating system. Switching to Linux can greatly increase reliability. And it's free in most cases. There are a lot of really good reasons that most major servers aren't running an OS from MS. Security and reliability are just the tip of the iceberg.

Second, a suspect that a simple RAID 0 array would be fine. Your not talking about an uber-gamer who needs to worry about split-second response. A few extra ms on a write cycle isn't much of a burden in this case.

Third, while there is a tendency to go to huge HDs if they aren't needed, in part because the site is held on a central server, your just wasting money. Unless you tend to store an extensive picture collection, or a somewhat less extensive video collection, most people can get along fine with a 250GB drive. Adjust up or down as seems reasonable. With the money saved you can buy a DVD writer and use them for backup. Make two copies and store one off site.

Smaller drives also promote replacing them every few years. Which gives you a lot of advantages. The cost per GB has fallen drastically and looks like it will continue to do so. When I started 250MB, not GB, was a weeks wage. Half a terabyte, 2000 times as much space, is now a similar price. Replacement and copying to a new drive is a good time to review contents and cull out the dead wood. It also means you get better reliability because you replace them before they can fail or fill. And replacing them every few years means you can take advantage of new technology, speed, reliability as they become available.

This thread may get more opinionated than which knife is best, but I shall throw in my $0.02...

Video editing = Mac.

I was always a "PC" until two years ago, and work is still PC. I have an HP Laptop that has been totally reliable. I can rely on it to fail at the worst possible moment in the field. As such, I bought a Toughbook CF-30, and have never had a dime of problems since. Well, at least until I went to work for someone else, and they issued me a Dell seven weeks ago. It has now had THREE HDD in said seven weeks. I now backup to both an external HDD and the Toughbook daily and the HP weekly, plus the company server whenever I see the office (darn rare, that).

Since you want MS Windows also (some things are windows only), get a Mac for Video editing and just run VM Ware and load MS Windows on also. The great thing about Mac is Apple Care and The Genius Bar. Online or in person help available everywhere there is an Apple store.

Failing that, make the PC purchase at Best Buy, and buy the protection plan. Most, but not all, of the Geek Squad folks are very helpful.

Frankly, given you already have a Toughbook, I would invest the $$$$$ in a good monitor, docking station, and keyboard/mouse. Coke proof, portable, and a big screen for around the office.

disclaimer: My day job is in a government IT group that supports about 200 mixed servers (Unix, Linux, Microsoft) and about 4000 desktops and laptops (Windows). I used to spec the Microsoft servers. My opinions are my own.

background: We used to use Dell servers, 2400 series, and switched after the 2500 series was introduced because their RAID system was unreliable in our experience. The Dell 240 desktops were much more reliable, and we used them as servers where we didn't need raid. I built a Citrix farm out of them, about 25-30 servers. The Dell reps were surprised to see this, to say the least. On our next run of servers we purchased HP DL360's and 380's, which have been great for us. Dell support is uniformly lousy, IMO.

opinion: For all the vendors, product life cycles are very short, so testing time is short. There are models of computers by any manufacturer that have problems. For Dell 380's, it's bad DVD/CD drives. For a newly released model, nobody, included the manufacturer, knows how reliable it's going to be. Service at the consumer level sucks. It probably has to suck, because too many consumers have no clue of how to operate a computer, and the manufacturers are stuck fielding thousands of calls that have nothing to do with a problem in the hardware. The better their support is, the more calls they would get (conjecture).

suggestion 1: Buy a name brand pc with the most memory and slowest Intel processor you can find in their entry level line. The faster the processor, the more the heat, the more heat the more stress and reduced lifetime on everything. You won't notice a 50% improvement in CPU speed unless you're playing intense video games or doing multi-hour calculations. Every version of Windows ever written needs large amounts of memory.

suggestion 2: Buy a refurbished name brand business computer. Dell Optiplex's are what we use, and they've been very reliable for us. The parts in these business machines, IMO, aren't any better than those in a consumer PC. The benefit for the business is remote management and diagnostics, and theoretically faster repair because of modular design. A probable benefit is that they have a longer product cycle, and are more reliable because of that.

Best of luck with whatever you choose.

Nor will anyone. There are a number of factors, but the reality is PCs aren't really built for reliability nor reasonable failure diagnosis.

I'm not saying you didn't have a poor experience with Dell, I'm sure you did. But my point here is the whole affair is going to be rather hit or miss, regardless of who you buy from.

Note, the Best Buy idea noted above is probably OK as well.



While I get what you are saying, make sure you don't COUNT on your RAID-type device to always work. You should always be in a situation where you can get a replacement device and restore backups.

Also note there are hardware failures, but there are also data corruption failures which a RAID-type device won't help with.

Backups are the watch word.

On the topic of backups, note that you should not back up to a single external hard drive. If you have a failure of your primary storage device, all of a sudden, you are one drive failure away from losing everything.

Likewise, don't trust your only backups to the cloud.

Oh, and VERIFY your backups.



Cool, I'll have to take a look at that.



If some of this software is simply for test or review purposes, consider getting another copy of Windows (perhaps you already have a now unused copy of XP lying around) and installing it in Virtualbox (it's free, and it's good):

http://www.virtualbox.org/

Get it updated and set up, then take a snapshot. You can then install your software, and roll back to the pre-installed state.

-john

Am_Fear_Liath_Mor,

Note while in theory you should be correct about the possible MTBF advantage of SSDs, I've seen a disproportionate number have early mortality issues. And this is with Intel drives. Who knows what you get with the off-brands. Also note another little gotcha with the Intel drives. They are re-seller only, so you can't RMA them directly to Intel -- you have to go through whomever you purchased them from. PITA.



Sorry Mark, don't mean to pick on you, but this raises an issue I want to point out:

RAID-1 need not perform any worse than a single drive. Drives can be synchronized and write to both drives concurrently.

Which leads me to my point. RAID implementations vary HIGHLY with each implementation. Some are pretty good, most medium poor, and some downright horrible.



I haven't observed this, however this does remind me that there is another interesting characteristic people forget about when using RAID:

If you are using a hardware RAID solution, if that controller goes bad, you need to replace it with the same model if you intend to keep using your disks. This can be a factor if you want to run out to a store and pick a replacement so you can get back online that evening.

Software RAID, does tie you to the OS, but you can go get whatever random controller or hard drive that happens to be available.

On the other hand, I don't think too highly of Window's software RAID. *shrug* Tradeoffs.



Keep in mind that SATA transfer speeds outstrip the data rate a typical hard drive can supply. Since SATA, unlike PATA uses one controller per drive, typically there is no *performance* advantage over SAS.



FWIW, you typically pay a significant premium for 10K/15K drives, which can typically be made up by using multiples of the 7.5K RPM disks. And usually more spindles is better.

When purchasing hard drives, note warranty length, and if the drive is intended for constant use (enterprise drives) -- it seems to be a trend drive mfgs now assume you will NOT use your HDD 7x24. Also, try to pick drives that support NCQ (native command queuing).

That said, drives are pretty hit or miss in terms of reliability these days. There is just too much consumer pressure to provide a $100 7.5K RPM 1TB HDD.

We get what we pay for, I guess.

-john

Note that while NAS would probably increase the supportability and as a result, probably the reliability of the system, most NAS systems (SMB/CIFS) are going to be considerably slower than locally attached storage (network file system vs. local file system).

Normally, I would say this isn't a big deal, but if he is doing video editing, I'd venture it probably wouldn't be a good move.

In fact, as others have pointed out, for video, probably want to stick with RAID 0 or 1+0 (stripe of mirrors), or have a dedicated scratch space for in progress work which could be a single drive, or RAID 1.

-john

He wants to do video editing!!!

A 50% slower CPU or a single core instead of a dual or dual instead of a quad is night and day difference in video editing!!!

I have over 15 years experience building, repairing and maintaining custom systems. I can tell you w/out a doubt home built with quality parts out last any consumer level system. Go with amazon or newegg and any warranty on components is super easy.

Enterprise level and high-end workstation systems will last longer than home consumer system but you will pay $$.


I like internal RAID + external backup so you can take your external when you leave to make sure yo have a copy always with you! And if you have broadband you can even backup to your webserver or use a backup service too.

With all due respect, video editing on a PC platform was pretty tough in the early to mid 90's. These days it shouldn't be a big deal. You want fast drives, a good video card, and plenty of memory. CPU shouldn't be a big deal. The people pushing for the greatest and fastest are the people making a living designing, building, and selling PC's and processors, and writing about the same, or those writing really lousy software.

PC's are a commodity, and a disposable one at that. They're just a tool.

Gee, all my kids had to do was load the software....

MAC

Thanks for everyone's suggestions. I think the horse is dead, so I'll close this thread.