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What hardware are you going to buy in 2010?

veK

By veK
in Technical Issues, News, & Reviews

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veK

veK

Posted
Posted

New year is coming soon, let's start the topic for everybody who isn't going to buy anything in 2009 but already has plans about how to spend some xmas money maybe.

I don't know about 2010 yet, but I guess we'll have to buy a lot of stuff for work. Don't have any plans on private hardware investments though (basically because I don't know when and how much money I might spend for personal things).

Khan

Khan

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I'm thinking of getting a new graphics card but to be honest I don't know if I could fit an up to date one in my current tower. And I can't be bothered with upgrading tower/mobo etc..

  • 4 weeks later...
Andrew

Andrew

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I'm pretty sure I'm going to buy

VANTEC NST-360SU-BK 3.5" eSATA + USB2.0 External Enclosure - Retail $42 free shipping

And hard drive released this week:

Western Digital Caviar Green WD10EARS 1TB 5400 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Retail $95+ $11shipping

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136490

Has new 4096 byte sector instead of 512.

Was discussed at slashdot today: HDD Manufacturers Moving To 4096-Byte Sectors

I was thinking of 1tb WD 7200rpm caviar black. But the newly released hard drive is newer for similar price. I guess speed isn't as important as benefits of low heat/noise/watts, since I got SSD. 64mb cache might make up for slower rotations.

Needing something bigger than my old 320gb hard drive for storage which needs to be formatted sometime, and backing up to another hard drive would be easier than DVD.

Khan

Khan

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I was looking at that Caviar Green after reading about it on Digg but I wasn't sure how the slower speed would affect performance. Think I'll wait for some more reviews.

veK

veK

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They are fine if you use them for your data or as backup discs in external cases. Just don't use them for your system. The SSD for OS and Caviar Green for data combination is good though.

Mahdi

Mahdi

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I need a new DVD drive (see my earlier post in the tech issue forums).  Ordered a new wireless keyboard/mouse from Best Buy as it was a $100 set on sale for $50 and my work will pay for it.

Mahdi

Mahdi

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newegg list

External DVD drive $50 free shipping.

According to shopbot, one of lowest prices offered. Probably cheapest because other locations would charge for shipping.

I'm not getting an external DVD drive.  I got a laptop instead of a PC for a reason  :P

  • 3 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...
veK

veK

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I'm trying to sell my 32" LCD-TV for a satisfying price shortly and will be buying a new 42" then to enjoy the upcoming game of the year (god of war 3) even more. I also recently bought the XCM Cross Battle Adapter 2.0 so I can use my X360 controller on my PS3 and remap buttons to my liking.

Andrew

Andrew

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Only going from 32->42? Why not 52" :P. My 19" CRT tv sucks, but does what's needed. Waiting for old CRT tvs to die to replace them.

Regular LCD or newer LED backlight?

I bought:

Western Digital Caviar Green WD10EARS 1TB 5400 RPM 64MB Cache - On sale for $80 $4 shipping.

VANTEC NST-360SU-BK 3.5" eSATA + USB2.0 Aluminum External Enclosure - $42 free shipping

Should arrive mid week. external enclosure has esata which should help with speeds.

My 320gb hard drive is 90% full. Don't want to deal with burning DVD for backup/archive.

New 1tb is supposed to be 30% faster than my current one according to various benchmarks. Gonna put 1tb in external enclosure for new as I don't wanna deal with winxp transfer.

Does anyone leave external enclosures on all day long? With maybe constant data going to/from it? Or should I really put inside computer?

I'm also trying to figure out what filesystem and partitions to use. Only reason to use ntfs is so that it works in windows. Otherwise I'd use ext4. So whether to have small ntfs partition for windows, and rest ext4, I dunno. Stupid windows not supporting opensource filesystems.

veK

veK

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Because the 42" a friend of mine boought 3 months ago has a nice price/performance ratio and anything bigger would be overkill right now in this appartment. also the main reason for the switch is that the current 32" has some features to enhance picture quality that you can't shut off and while they are nice (but not really necessary) for movies, this technology sucks pretty hard when it comes to games and I use it mostly for that I guess.

As for the external enclosure: I have one running all day long and data is is going from and to it. it's a 2,5" though. My other enclosure with 2x3,5" hdds is only being used every once in a while to backup some files or to get something I need.

gryphon

gryphon

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Does anyone leave external enclosures on all day long? With maybe constant data going to/from it? Or should I really put inside computer?

I have one that is usually powered on all day. Still works but I don't trust it anymore. (it's a WD that has been carried around to much before I made it stationary).

Currently I am using a small WD Passport that I carry around. It replaced the WD that's currently my desktop model. If you don't shake them to much they should be fine :-)

Andrew

Andrew

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Uh oh. via slashdot

Linux Not Fully Prepared for 4096-Byte Sector Hard Drives

slashdot article has some solutions.

Gonna be fun to make sure mine works properly. I'd hate to have misaligned and slower speeds.

EDIT:

Got my 1tb and enclosure today. Set them up. Got them working. Took a while to figure out how to properly align it in ubuntu. Then had to figure out how to give myself permission to write data to ext4 partition. For whatever reason couldn't make ntfs. Although I got 25gb unformatted, and think I figured out how to make ntfs, so I'll probably make that small partition ntfs.

Gruntlord6

Gruntlord6

Posted
Posted

Uh oh. via slashdot

Linux Not Fully Prepared for 4096-Byte Sector Hard Drives

slashdot article has some solutions.

Gonna be fun to make sure mine works properly. I'd hate to have misaligned and slower speeds.

EDIT:

Got my 1tb and enclosure today. Set them up. Got them working. Took a while to figure out how to properly align it in ubuntu. Then had to figure out how to give myself permission to write data to ext4 partition. For whatever reason couldn't make ntfs. Although I got 25gb unformatted, and think I figured out how to make ntfs, so I'll probably make that small partition ntfs.

Im thinking of getting one, but im staying away from "Green" editions.

veK

veK

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New TV arrived today. Looks good so far but I only tested some PS3-Games. I don't watch TV though so I don't care about that. Have to check with DVD and Bluray though later.

Mahdi

Mahdi

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New TV arrived today. Looks good so far but I only tested some PS3-Games. I don't watch TV though so I don't care about that. Have to check with DVD and Bluray though later.

I was thinking about buying a new TV this year but have since decided it wasn't worth the expense.  A friend bought a 50" plasma last week.  It is impressive playing PS3/Blue Rays.  The price on these things just keeps on dropping.  You can already find 50" LCD's or plasma's for $1000 on sale.  Next year they'll be the same price as 42 - 46" inch TV's were this past holiday season.  I wonder if the new 3D and OLED TV's coming out in the next 5 years will drop them to next to nothing. 

gryphon

gryphon

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I always thought fiber was a clear color.

The only thing recognizable on the image is the jacket that holds the fiber itself. :)

If you would hold the cable in your hand the center will look milk white.

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