Proposed New PC Config - Pot Shots Solicited!

[DaveMcKeen]

I READ THE STICKIES!

I plan to build a system for my digital photography studio. What's bogging me down the most is 1) getting the photos files from my CF card into my PC hard drive and 2) rotating the images 90° in ThumbsPlus. I would be happy to have a snappy system when using Photoshop. I don't do games at all.

Box only - have monitor, keyboard and mouse. Budget $2K

The compact flash card I use in my Canon 20D is a 1GB Lexar "High-Speed Compactflash" 40X with Write Assist (WA). The reader is a Lexar "USB 2.0 Multi-Card Reader" I tried a Lexar Firewire reader but could not get it to work on my system. Recommendations appreciated.

I suspect that in rotating the images most of the time is spent reading the images off of the hard drive and writing them back. Here is my proposed system. Nothing is sacred. Please throw darts:

Abit KN8 Ultra

Athlon 64 x2 4200+

2 each Crucial 1GB (1024 MB) PC3200 400MHz CL3 184-pin DDR DIMM

Antek SLK300B Super Mid Tower

Antek SP500 500W PSU

HDD Drive 0
Western Digital WD74GDRTL 74 GB Raptor 8MB 10,000RPM SATA II
O/S
Photoshop temp files

HDD Drive 1 (RAID 0 configuration)
2 ea. Seagate ST3500641AS 500GB 8MB 7200RPM SATA II
Data (mostly digital image files)
Windows paging file

HDD Drive 2
Western Digital WD2500JD 250GB Caviar SATA I (already have)
Applications
Web site files
Programs & Updates

Gigabyte GV-NX66256DP Nvidia GeForce 6600 256MB PCI Express x16 w/TV & DVI

Plextor Dual Layer PX-740ABP

MS Windows XP Professional SP2

FDD Mitsumi 1.44 Floppy

1394 Adapter - PLEASE HELP!

Mouse - already have

Keyboard - already have

Monitor Samsung SyncMaster 1100DF - already have


OK gang, fire away! I can take it.

- Dave McKeen

[blue60007]

You should get a 1 gig dual channel kit (2 512MB modules).

I'd avoid XP x64 - right now the driver support isn't too great.

[rspassey]

Agreed with Blue - hold off any X64 and stick with XP Pro 32 bit for now. Any reason why you need to get 2 500GB harddrives? Do you understand the risk that comes along with RAID 0? - If one drive fails you lose all the data on both drives.

[blue60007]

Another good point. You might look at some of the 16MB cache drives (those are fast). Won't be as large (I don't think) but you could put a couple in individually.

[DaveMcKeen]

Hey- good catch on the XP 64bit. That saves me from lots of agony.

My bad on the RAM. Should have been TWO each 1GB DIMMs. Should that work OK?

I'll edit the list of stuff to reflect the changes.

About the RAID 0 - I'm aware that if one HD fails all the data is unrecoverable. But I badly need read/write speed. I look at it like this: If I put my data on one hard drive and it fails I'd lose the data as well. I know the MTBF is worse with the data integrity spread across two disks. Life and it's risks.

During photo sessions I routinely copy the camera files to another PC each time I empty the CF card and flip the images. So as soon as possible the irreplaceable images are backed up. Then when I process the images I back that work up routinely too. In three places! What else is RAID 0 for?

Any comments about moving images off of the CF card as soon as possible?

Thanks much!

[DaveMcKeen]

When you say "dual channel kit", do you mean a matched pair? Where do they sell them kitted like that? What RAM do you recommend? I've been buying bundles from Mwave. Is somebody better?

Thanks.

Originally Posted by blue60007 You should get a 1 gig dual channel kit (2 512MB modules).

[blue60007]

Personally, I'd look at getting a couple 16MB cache drives. Those are pretty fast.

Dual channel kit:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820145440
They would be garuanteed to work in dual channel mode.

Have you thought about putting 2 gigs of RAM?

[DaveMcKeen]

Blue- yeah, I wanted 2GB. I had an error in my list. I edited it to fix.

I have not seen the drives with the 16MB cache. Who makes 'em? Where are they sold?

Thanks!

[blue60007]

2 gig kit

16MB cache hard drives

[DaveMcKeen]

Found 'em. Thanks!!

[krs]

Downloader Pro from www.breezesys.com will rotate Canon 20D images as it moves them to your HD. You can also have it change the file name, add copyright info, captions, etc as it offloads the card. It can then, optionally, wipe the card clean and soft eject it.

I use it in my digital sports event business. It slows the download a bit, but it is a lot better than trying to hand select & rotate images in the viewer of some other app.


Ken

[krs]

Assuming the 20D has a rotation sensor....
edit...
It does....

[DaveMcKeen]

Sounds promising. Problem is some programs I use don't see the 'rotate' tag in the EXIF so if I tell the camera to rotate the photo it rotates in one program and not in another. If Breeze Systems' software rotates the pixels and removes the tag from the file I'm in like Flynn. I'll check it out. Thanks.

[krs]

While you are there take a look at a companion product, BreezeBrowser Pro. It just might make you give up Thumbs Plus. It has a great Raw Converter, light box viewer, tagging and ranking, batch renaming and an extremely powerful web gallery creator.

Sorry if this off the 'build your own' topic.

[DaveMcKeen]

It really fits right in with 'build your own'. I'm in Breeze Systems help files for the products right now. I'm like a kid in a candy store. I much appreciate the info.

I am happy I found this forum. I've been in withdrawal and denial since the CompuServe forums withered and died.