[Dave Rice]

I’ve given up worrying about it now.

I buy USB sticks in multi packs from My Memory and give them away to customers when the opportunity presents itself.

The last ones I’m still getting through are Toshiba TransMemory U202 16GB for less than a fiver each. Only USB 2.0 but for your average workload it really doesn’t matter.

For larger workloads I have a cheap USB 3 caddy and an old 60GB SSD. Goes like stink.

[Dave Rice]

I use that PSU all the time. 450 watt is more than enough for the graphics card.

As for the AB350M Pro4 motherboard, it’s should have all you need and the B350 is the mainstream chipset. You would only want the X370 if you wanted to go totally nuts with overclocking and multiple graphics cards in SLI / Crossfire. But yes, have a look at them all and see if any have any  extra bells and whistles.

Have a look at the table here https://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/AB350M%20Pro4/index.asp#Specification  that shows what combination of type of ram chip (single or dual rank) and at what speed you can have. Make sure your plan for the 8GB then 8GB later will work. If it is a problem, as it has 4 slots you could always do 2 x 4GB now and add 2 x 4GB later.

Windows 10 licences can’t be transferred. Get one off E-Bay, I do all the time and no problems at all. Same for Office 2016.

[Dave Rice]

I really don’t think you’ll need a different one, see this article “AMD Wraith Max and Wraith Spire Coolers Review: Stock Cooling Just Got A Whole Lot Better” http://tinyurl.com/nxgac8q

Overall, the Wraith Max and Wraith Spire are perfect for someone who does not plan on overclocking. Both coolers are more than capable of providing excellent cooling capabilities…. AMD certainly deserves a round of applause for bundling their Ryzen processors with fantastic stock coolers.

EDIT – another case. I’ve used this one a few times Thermaltake Versa H15 £38 http://tinyurl.com/yak6zzlz

[Dave Rice]

This chart is from a Synology course I went on. It’s based on years of looking at NAS drives.

[Dave Rice]

Aimed at serious photographers only, Synology are touting their NAS with the BTRFS (Better File System) as it’s self healing.

It’s only available on the high end chassis i.e. a 2 bay is nearly £400 without disks. But for a professional it’s money well spent.

[Dave Rice]

If it’s raw files they will compress, if it’s jpegs they are already compressed. In any event I would go for at least 2TB to allow for multiple backups.

Maxtor portable 1TB £47

Toshiba Canvio portable  2TB £66

Toshiba Canvio Desktop 3TB £77 (portable £90)

Desktop or mobile 4TB £100

Personally I would go for the desktop 3TB.

[Dave Rice]

Your plan for the ram should work.

Now this is why I said do some research, turns out the Ryzen 1600x doesn’t come with a HSF. I assume because they think you’re going to be overclocking it. All the reviews I see use expensive liquid coolers. It looks like the same is true for the i5-7600K. I think that would be enough to push me away from the overclockable CPUs and go for the i5-7600 or the non-X Ryzen 1600. The stock coolers would be enough to see how you get on when the CPU is pushed. If it was too noisy too often you could use a much more modest air or liquid cooler. My own i5 never gets noisy.

The graphics card has 2 x DVI-D so the monitor will be OK.

Sorry, yes you can get smaller cases.

Fractal Design Core 1300 http://tinyurl.com/ycleb9rh or Fractal Design Core 1500 http://tinyurl.com/ycdgvgh6 are reasonably priced and sensibly laid out with radiator support if necessary.

[Dave Rice]

I would be looking at something like this (E-Buyer):

ASRock AMD Ryzen AB350M Pro4 AM4 mATX Motherboard 780508 £72.98
AMD Ryzen 5 1600X 6 Core AM4 CPU/Processor 784314 £209.98
Crucial Ballistix Sport LT 8 GB DDR4 2400MHz Desktop Memory BLS2C4G4D240FSC 736868 £74.99
WD Blue 250GB 2.5-inch Internal SSD 761161 £78.98
Gigabyte Nvidia GTX 1060 WindForce OC 3GB Graphics Card 756319 £198.95
Corsair VS Series 450 Watt Power Supply 726366 £38.92
Antec GX-200 USB3 Black Interior Vented Fascia Midi Gaming Case – No Window 706782 £34.40
Total £709.20

And £20 for W10 Pro and Office 2016 Pro keys from E-Bay (I buy loads of them, no problems yet).

An i5-7600K and B250M motherboard based system would cost about the same. Ryzen or i5? Take your pick ?

None of this is a recommendation, just somewhere to start researching.

[Dave Rice]

IIRC on the ground floor it’s down from the ceiling and on upper floors it’s up from the skirting (allows you to have the main wiring runs in the ceiling).

Definitely get the wiring sorted before anything else.

[Dave Rice]

A larger SSD would help your system in general but won’t do much for UEBS.

UEBS looks like it’s quite a system hog. Apparently each figure has it’s own shadow rendered! I would go with the recommended specs here http://tinyurl.com/yaflnn9a which is a top end i5 or Ryzen 100X. Both are £210+ and the graphics card would be the same price. Yiu can’t do this one on the cheap.

It’s the old enemy – heat. Powerful kit produces more of it but you do see plenty of MATX and even MITX systems about now, but not slimline. The size of the graphics card would stop that anyway.

On a small volume case, like the Cooler Master Elite 110, http://tinyurl.com/kdxhooz I would use a Liquid CPU Cooler such as this http://tinyurl.com/y8p6fv7j Even modest cases can deal with radiators these days, e.g. 110 has a mount for a 120mm one at the front. For £40 the Fractal Design Core 1300 Micro ATX Case can support two and longer graphics cards. TBH an MATX case would probably be fine with some decent intake / exhaust fans and a beefed up CPU cooler.

[Dave Rice]

Have a look here https://steamcommunity.com/app/616560/discussions/0/135514507319729706/ Your old graphics card isn’t going to help either.

Things have moved on with CPUs too. An i7-2600 is about comparable to a Skylake i3, especially in games https://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/287?vs=1682

Look here http://tinyurl.com/yaflnn9a your system is at or below the minimum specs.

Increasing the page file size will only make the shortage of disk space worse.

You’ve reached the limits of Sandybridge I feel. Time for a new one.

[Dave Rice]

You’ve translated 1 ancient measurement into another ?

My kids would have a much idea of the imperial as we do of the border measurements.

[Dave Rice]

I use the Kore app on my phone to control Kodi.

[Dave Rice]

Yes I must rediscover the Linux box world before I jump, some of them had some “interesting” firmware, like the ability to read a Sky card over the internet.

That’s old hat now, the latest dodginess is around IP TV but from what I gather popular stuff clearly suffers from bandwidth issues at the server end. That didn’t happen with “shared” Sky as it still came via your dish, just the permissions to watch it came via the internet.

I’m just not interested in that game, too much potential to get locked up.

[Dave Rice]

What is the Linux box? One of the Technomates?

[Dave Rice]

Local IP addresses are no problem, I use FF to access loads of different kit in this way.

However it is driving me crazy with warning me that putting a password into a site accessed by http and not https is unsafe even when it’s on my network! The pop up gets right in the way, but luckily I’ve found out how to turn it off. I just wish that this setting was one that synced.

I’ve started using IE11 for most things like this now as WebComponents plugins just don’t work with newer versions of FF and Chrome.

[Dave Rice]

Don’t drink too little.

[Dave Rice]

This may end in tears as most recovery software uses the MFT. You could try Piriform Recuva in Deep Scan mode.

Now the inevitable question, why, if you are making a living from it, isn’t that data backed up?

I’d recommend a Synology DS216SE 2 Bay Desktop Enclosure (£121) and two 3GB Toshiba P300 drives (£140). I use this combo myself and have set up several small businesses in the same fashion. There are any number of free backup apps for Windows, I use EaseUs ToDo.

The reason I recommend a “server” solution is to defend against malware like Cryptolocker. As your PC is separated from the NAS Cryptolocker can’t get at it. An external USB drive attached to your PC would be encrypted at the same time the PC is.

Synology NAS are very easy to set up and can run an amazing range of totally free software. I’m sure your data must be worth more than £250?

[Dave Rice]

Yes, NFC doesn’t interest me but thinking of Tippon (or anyone else) you sort of expect it now. I find the whole G4 / G5 overlaps a bit annoying.

One thing I did miss from the 1+1 was panorama shots, but this year on holiday Google photos did it for me! Back at the flat I was just thinking I couldn’t remember which PC I’d installed MS ICE on (it works well) for when I got home when I got a notification asking if this is what I was trying to do.

EDIT – the line in the middle isn’t a join, it’s lens flare. This was 25th August at West Bay, Dorset (Broadchurch) at 3pm on a stinking hot day.

[Dave Rice]

Moto model numbering is confusing. That’s the not quite as good specs and 720P as opposed to 1080P screen, but it does have NFC.

Still a bloody good deal though. Asked the Mrs yesterday if she wanted one, but she’s quite happy with her 4.3″ Moto E.

It looks like the new Moto G5 is the one to go for at the £150 ish price point. Still no NFC though.

 

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