T5500

[STMahlberg]

I've been looking at T5500's on Ebay and I'm seeing all sorts of configurations and pricing from as low as $100 on up. My question is, what should I be looking for? Is it worth the $100 to get a 4 core system or should I be spending more to get a 12 core system and how much is too much?

[Al]

I have 3-T5500s. 24 thread with 24gb ram...48 is better. They are rock solid and built like a tank. Z600s are similar and often cheaper...and are roomier inside. I have 2-Z600s also.

[scole of TSBT]

How long will a SSD last running boinc on it, not the OS, but the BOINC folder?

[Bryan]

How long will a SSD last running boinc on it, not the OS, but the BOINC folder?

I've had 6 of them running for 3 2/3 years without a failure .... yet! They were on my 6 I7-3930K machines and I'm still using them for Windows on the upgraded machines.

Each of the machines does share part of a 1TB drive for Windows storage and Linux. The OS and BOINC are installed on the SSD on all of them and always has been.

EDIT: actually that isn't totally accurate. On 2 of the machines I upgraded 3 months ago I replaced the 120G SSDs with 1TB SSDs. So 4 have been running for 3 2/3 years and 2 only ran for 3 1/2 years (they were working fine when I took them offline). I think Sphynx is currently using one of them on his machine.

[John P. Myers]

How long will a SSD last running boinc on it, not the OS, but the BOINC folder?

I have at least 1 SSD in all of my rigs (even the Pentium 4), but the one that's seen the most use is the Samsung 840 in my 3770K rig. Like Bryan's, it's been going for over 3 years and is handling everything (BOINC, OS, etc.). Last i checked, it's only about 1/4 of the way through it's expected life cycle, based on TBW (terabytes written). No complaints at all.

I prefer to have 2 120GB SSDs in each system, 1 for BOINC and 1 for OS/drivers. Having the OS on a separate SSD allows the computer to access both drives at the same time when needed, preventing lag (this trick was also done with regular HDDs for the same reason). Boot times are also improved. Updates to the OS/drivers/anything also download faster (the network buffer is able to dump downloaded data to the drive faster) and install faster.

Having the OS on a separate SSD also means that SSD should last decades since it's rarely written to. If the BOINC SSD eventually wears out (still should take 10 years+), it's much simpler to replace it with no need of reinstalling the OS.

If you have/get a Samsung SSD, be sure to enable Rapid Mode, which reserves 1-2GB of RAM and writes to it instead of the drive. This makes the drives last even longer and increases data throughput by 120x or more, in short bursts.

[STMahlberg]

Gotta love Goodwill; I picked up (3) 15" VGA/DVI monitors and (2) Dell usb keyboards for $37.

I'm tired of having to move 1 monitor and a keyboard between 2 rigs and I need monitors for my servers that are coming.

[Al]

Gotta love Goodwill; I picked up (3) 15" VGA/DVI monitors and (2) Dell usb keyboards for $37.

I'm tired of having to move 1 monitor and a keyboard between 2 rigs and I need monitors for my servers that are coming.

How about a KVM switch? Saves on electrical outlets around here.

[STMahlberg]

How about a KVM switch? Saves on electrical outlets around here.

It's been a few years since I priced one of those... I'll have to check.

[Bryan]

I have 3 T5500s and like Al said they are totally solid. They also outperform the generation that followed E5-2670s. Scole had mentioned that and I didn't really buy it so I started watching what happened when I was running projects and sure enough the X5675 would go right on by them.

[STMahlberg]

Well, I finally took the plunge. I started looking at the Z600's and found one that I liked.

HP Z600 2 Xeon X5645 6 Core 2.40GHz 32GB RAM NO HDD, NO OS, Windows 7 Pro Key - $300 and free shipping. It has a NVIDIA Quadro NVS 450 card as well but I have a couple of GTX460's that need a home and I'm hoping those will fit.

The guy had 2 and I almost bought them both but I thought let's not go crazy. I get my first raise since being retired so I'm going to let my COLA pay for it.