I use Belarc Advisor. It gives keys for all programs that have them as well as complete system info.

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Well, I got the ball rolling.
Got it to boot from the CD, but it halted when it came time to format the new HD...
I'll have to back the OC down for the install process I suspect.
But I have to go to work shortly, so it'll have to wait until tonight.

Opened up the GTX295 and chased a few dust bunnies away in the meantime.

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"Time is simply the mechanism that keeps everything from happening all at once."

Mark...feel your pain...some intelligent person hit a pole 2 nights ago in the snow...came to work and the work pharm was down, electricity went out about 7:30 PM for 40 minutes...restarted the pharm and my Q9450 HD was making an awful racket and wouldn't boot....let it spin up and warm up (it was about 50F in the back of the shop) and it came back alive...

If it happens again I am going to paperweight it and install x64 on that rig...

Backup anything you wanna save NOW...LOL.

I need to learn about RAID setups.
How many drives do I need to retain all data if one dies?

Do they all need to be identical drives?

Can I convert a current single drive setup (as in my daily driver) to a RAID config without reloading everything?

As the Frozen Nehi's HD apparently is a brick, I'll probably try to get it going this weekend from scratch with the new spare I have....
But I should look into RAID going forward.

It's a cruncher...nothing worth saving there...

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Clk2HlpSetiCty:::PayIt4ward

Frozen Nehi at stock settings....
May have lost all my bios OC settings...

Now formatting 500Gb HD. This will take a bit.

Meow meow.

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"Time is simply the mechanism that keeps everything from happening all at once."

Just finished formatting.....now loading system files.
Only took an hour and 3/4 or so...LOL.

Hope nothing hangs at this point.

Just luv the Windows messages....

'Loading system files...this might take a few minutes.'...

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"Time is simply the mechanism that keeps everything from happening all at once."

Do you bother doing Windows updates Mark or just install the bare essentials to crunch with? If you're not going on the Net and are sitting behind a firewall then there's not a lot of mileage in installing updates is there?

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Do you bother doing Windows updates Mark or just install the bare essentials to crunch with? If you're not going on the Net and are sitting behind a firewall then there's not a lot of mileage in installing updates is there?

I will do all the updates.....
There are some things, I think, that will not install correctly unless you have the service packs installed. Probably not a lot of mileage in them, but I shall go the full boat at this point.

I have the rah rah rah Windows splash screens displaying now...


EDIT...
BTW...The Frozen Nehi is drawing about 172 watts in this stock rebuilding mode. I have slowed the condenser fan down to it's lowest setting to minimize refrigerant flooding...but it's still at -33.8c.

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"Time is simply the mechanism that keeps everything from happening all at once."

Windows loaded.
Now I remember how painful all this BS is..........
Doing the regedit to get it to auto load every time without asking for my password, getting whatever to work the way it used to......
This may or may not get completed tonight.

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"Time is simply the mechanism that keeps everything from happening all at once."

It sure is a kick in the pants, on my X64 CUDA host, the second Seagate 500GB drive fails, too. AAAAarrrrrrrggggggggggghhhhhhhhhh@#$%^&*()

Now, I going to get me a Spinpoint (Samsung) or Hitachi, but no Seagate's, for a while, at least.
Never had so much trouble, as with some of the 500GB drives. (I know there are a lot, from last years batch, that are just bad!)

Well, maybe RAID 1, too . . . Used the 'BOOT-Failing drive, from 5 month ago, for data, which still works, knock on wood . . .

Maybe it's it's a drive-flue, probably epidemic . . .LOL
Trying to save to data/WU's, sighhhhhh.

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Any stats on the most reliable HD around?
MTBF.....24/7?

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"Time is simply the mechanism that keeps everything from happening all at once."

Any stats on the most reliable HD around?
MTBF.....24/7?

If you are willing to pay a bit extra, you could skip RAID and invest in a SSD. Very high MTBF.

Otherwise,
I'd recommend Western Digital. My old 80GB WD SATA is still going 7 years strong. And my 1.5TB WD SATA is still working 1.5 months into its life.

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- Luke.

Any stats on the most reliable HD around?
MTBF.....24/7?

If you are willing to pay a bit extra, you could skip RAID and invest in a SSD. Very high MTBF.

Otherwise,
I'd recommend Western Digital. My old 80GB WD SATA is still going 7 years strong. And my 1.5TB WD SATA is still working 1.5 months into its life.

Dunno.......
I think the jury is still out on long term SSD longevity.
Solid, yes. Fast, yes. But long term read/write stats have been in question compared with a standard magnetic HD.

MTBF stats...anything outstanding that anybody knows of?

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"Time is simply the mechanism that keeps everything from happening all at once."

Any stats on the most reliable HD around?
MTBF.....24/7?

If you are willing to pay a bit extra, you could skip RAID and invest in a SSD. Very high MTBF.

Otherwise,
I'd recommend Western Digital. My old 80GB WD SATA is still going 7 years strong. And my 1.5TB WD SATA is still working 1.5 months into its life.

Dunno.......
I think the jury is still out on long term SSD longevity.
Solid, yes. Fast, yes. But long term read/write stats have been in question compared with a standard magnetic HD.

MTBF stats...anything outstanding that anybody knows of?

I'd go SSD if I had a failure like that, but it's your choice.

Don't always trust MTBF. Apparently they're greatly exagerated. There's a 2TB WD out there that has a 1.2 million hr MTBF (137 years). That's a huge example of exaggeration.

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- Luke.

Well, I've never see a Mean Time Between Failiars, of 5 month (24x7).
Too much, better too little.
On my other host's I've 2 F1 Spinpoints and Hitachi's and a few Back-Up (USB 2.0)
Western Digital, running for 3 to 4 years, in a row. With only 1 failing, probably due to constant transportation.

[ADDED]Those Solid State Drive's are still a bit (too) expensive, o.t.h. losing
(precious) data, can also be (very) expensive, at least, very annoying .
But, they are the future, anyway, since a regular drive is the only
important moving device, exept Fan's and BlueRay/DVD/CD-ROM drives.
So, IMHO, it's about time for a solid solution anyway, anyhow.
Maybe I should choose another AVATAR . . . .

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Well, I've never see a Mean Time Between Failiars, of 5 month (24x7).
Too much, better too little.
On my other host's I've 2 F1 Spinpoints and Hitachi's and a few Back-Up (USB 2.0)
Western Digital, running for 3 to 4 years, in a row. With only 1 failing, probably due to constant transportation.

Yeah......I have success stories like that too.........mostly Seagates.......that have been running for many years on end.

The question was...............

Does anybody have real data about any particular HD's that have better than averager MTBF stats?

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"Time is simply the mechanism that keeps everything from happening all at once."

Point is, you always have to rely on a company's figures, for MTBF and other important drive info.
Seems to me, it's hard to tell, whithout actually maesuring/keeping track, of such info.
And, ofcoarse, bad luck, wrong moon or stars in the 'wrong constellation', is an unmeasurable factor . . . Or trying, if it really can withstand 10G's . . .
Anyway, BOINC is going to be installed on a separate partition, this time anyway.

[ADDED]Did anyone notice, the post stats counter has stopped counting, I've a few post's, marked 1600!
Not (yet) an(other) DATABASE Drive crash, I hope . . .

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Point is, you always have to rely on a company's figures, for MTBF and other important drive info.
Seems to me, it's hard to tell, whithout actually maesuring/keeping track, of such info.
And, ofcoarse, bad luck, wrong moon or stars in the 'wrong constellation', is an unmeasurable factor . . . Or trying, if it really can withstand 10G's . . .
Anyway, BOINC is going to be installed on a separate partition, this time anyway.

[ADDED]Did anyone notice, the post stats counter has stopped counting, I've a few post's, marked 1600!
Not (yet) an(other) DATABASE Drive crash, I hope . . .

And, of course, If I were a rich man...sigh..... it wouldn't matter.
Like Solomon the wise.....

All day long I'd biddy biddy bum on Seti.....LOL.

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"Time is simply the mechanism that keeps everything from happening all at once."

There's a 2TB WD out there that has a 1.2 million hr MTBF (137 years). That's a huge example of exaggeration.

That's because MTBF is NOT the expected lifetime. Wikipedia, read specially the part "Common MTBF misconceptions".

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Solid, yes. Fast, yes. But long term read/write stats have been in question compared with a standard magnetic HD.

A lot of people read that SSDs are good for a million writes or somesuch, but they don't read how that million gets counted.

It's per-bit, and it only counts if the bit changes. Write "0" into a byte that is already "0" and it does not count.

That said, aside from avoiding Hitachi, just go get a drive and don't worry about it.

I also would not do RAID.

What I would do is get something like Acronis True Image, and make an image of the system after you finish, and periodically.

That way, if the system dies, you just restore the image.

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Solid, yes. Fast, yes. But long term read/write stats have been in question compared with a standard magnetic HD.

A lot of people read that SSDs are good for a million writes or somesuch, but they don't read how that million gets counted.

It's per-bit, and it only counts if the bit changes. Write "0" into a byte that is already "0" and it does not count.

That said, aside from avoiding Hitachi, just go get a drive and don't worry about it.

I also would not do RAID.

What I would do is get something like Acronis True Image, and make an image of the system after you finish, and periodically.

That way, if the system dies, you just restore the image.

I'm running Hitachi DeskStar P7K500s in both PCs (two in each) and although they may not be running 24/7/365, they've been running at least 12/7/365. The oldest drives have been in operation for around 18 months and completely reliable. In the past, I've seen many people 'pan' Maxtor, but, in 15 years, I never had one fail - indeed, two are still performing as they should, in a 12 year old PC that I still use (13.6 GB was huge in those days) with a DOS/Win 3.1/Win95 OS, mainly for old games. Thats not to say that I'd buy a Maxtor, these days....didn't Seagate buy them? Never bought Seagates - always thought them over-rated. For about three years, I've had main boards that would support various RAID functions, but I've always used external drives for back-ups - its just easier to do, especially with USB.

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Don't take life too seriously, as you'll never come out of it alive!