Is there any reason to use RAID on a home computer?
Is there any reason to use RAID on a home computer? Redundant Array of Independent (or Inexpensive) Disks or RAID is used mostly in servers for their fault tolerance and performance.
Unless you run a home-office where the data you keep in your computer is invaluable or irreplacable, you don’t need to use RAID. But this option is becoming more popular with the consumer because of the speed increase and/or data reliability you achieve when you set one up. All you need usually is 2 or more hard disks and a RAID capable motherboard or a RAID card and you’re on your way to better speeds than individual drives can deliver. There are 3 most common levels of RAID: 0,1 and 0+1 that home pc buyers will find. RAID 0 provides data striping (spreading out blocks of each file across multiple disks) but no redundancy. This improves performance but does not deliver fault tolerance. RAID 0 is used to gain maximum speed when data reliability isn’t an issue (if you are building or buying a gaming pc) and a minimum of 2 hard disks are required. RAID 1 provides data mirrorring (a technique in which data is written to two duplicate disks simultaneously) but no performance and requires a minimum of 2 drives. Unfortunately, the transfer rate per block is equal to that of a single hard disk (great for mission-critical applications). This level is usually used where data needs to be accessible at all times. RAID 0+1 combines the data striping of RAID 0 with the data mirroring for RAID 1 allowing excellent performance with good…
Troubleshooting Memory Failures using Award BIOS Beep Codes
Title : Troubleshooting Memory Failures using Award BIOS Beep Codes
Award is the another popular BIOS developer and they use the fewest beep codes by far.
Procedures – The normal procedure is to power up the PC system, watch for error message on the monitor screen and listen to the PC beep tone. A single beep during boot-up process is normal and does not indicate a failure if the system continues to boot-up.
1 Long Beep tone – Memory Problem
1 Long Beep and 2 Short Beeps – DRAM Parity failure
1 Long Beep and 3 Short Beeps – Video error
Continous Beep tone – Memory or Video memory failures
How much information can be stored on a DVD-R?
Question : How much information can be stored on a DVD-R? More correctly would be to state that it can currently hold 4.7Billion bytes, or 4.38Gigabytes per layer, per side.Currently,
most DVD-R’s and +R’s are single sided single layered. But there are some double sided media’s on the market
My Motherboard has both Simms and Dimms Can I Use Them Both?
Title : My Motherboard has both Simms and Dimms Can I Use Them Both?
Maybe, Depends if your motherboard supports this. Look in the manual that came with your motherboard. I would recomend to use just Dimms if you can as the memory will run at a faster speed.
Does a hard drive’s cache affect its speed?
Does a hard drive’s cache affect its speed? Yes. Hard drives usually come in either 2 mb or 8 mb caches.
The drives with larger caches will perform better since they can temporarily store more and larger files in their memory for repeated access. While transfering large files, such as when editing large video files, the cache size will make almost no difference. However, for working with many smaller files, the transfer speed will be greater. It is usually worth the small increase in cost for the significant performance gain you get. If you are trying to save money and don’t care about the performance increase, your best bet is to get a 5400 RPM drive which will run quieter and cooler for cheaper.
Is DDR faster than SDRAM ?
Is DDR faster than SDRAM ? Yes. DDR transfers data twice as fast as SDRAM modules.
This doesn’t mean your system will run twice as fast, but your memory will. And the faster memory will improve your PC’s performance.
I have more than 512MB RAM. Why does Windows say I’m out of memory?
I have more than 512MB RAM. Why does Windows say I’m out of memory? If you have more than 512MB RAM and are running Windows 95, 98, 98SE, or ME, you may not have enough cache to handle all of your memory.
Solutions to this problem can be found at Microsoft’s Web site, http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q253/9/12.asp
How Much Memory Do I Need ?
How Much Memory Do I Need ? The answer really depends on how much and for what your system is used.
Upgrading is easy and cost effective. RAM is used every time you open an application, download, play a game or simply turn on your computer. Additionally if you work with or plan to work with digital audio and video more ram is a necessity.
Novice User / Administrative
If you use your computer to send and receive email, do a little word processing, and are starting to surf the Web, you can get by with 64MB. However, you would benefit from going to at least 128MB of memory.
Basic User
If you are spending more time surfing the internet, sending and receiving email, and doing word processing along with other applications, you can get by with 128MB, but would benefit from going to 256MB.
Professional / Feel the need for Speed!
If you are running multiple business applications, want to play the newer video games and/or work with graphics, you can get by with 256MB, but your computer speed would benefit greatly by having 512MB.
How do you know it’s time for a memory upgrade?
How do you know it’s time for a memory upgrade? There are several signs indicating it may be time to upgrade your memory.
If you see your mouse pointer turn into an hourglass for significant periods of time, if you hear your hard drive working, or if your computer seems to work more slowly than you expect, the reason is probably insufficient memory. When physical memory is insufficient, the system uses Hard Disk Space as memory. This is called “Virtual Memory”. Since access time of Physical memory is in tens of NanoSeconds and Access time of Hard Disk is in MilliSeconds, the system slows down considerably.
Can my system cache memory be upgraded?
Can my system cache memory be upgraded? No – In most cases your cache cannot be easily upgraded.
In order to upgrade your cache, you will probably need to upgrade your motherboard or purchase a new system.
