It's that time for a Summer PC cleanup...

in #computer8 years ago

You'd think that owning a Samsung 850 Pro would always have insane speed. Well, that's not the case...

After over a year of use, especially when running Ethereum and PIVX nodes continuously with rarely a shutdown to be had, it was time to start from scratch.

To store my crypto, I ended up buying an Intel NUC. This is literally the tiniest PC that I've ever seen, aside from those HDMI NUCs you can buy. It's about 4" x 4" x 2", and I can stuff as big a 2.5" HDD/SDD in there as I want. I ended up putting a WD Black 1TB in there to keep those nodes running as long as possible without having to worry about storage running out. The power this thing consumes to miniscule. Unfortunately, due to the fresh windows install, the nodes are taking some time to sync. The Ethereum node has taken almost 5 days to sync so far. ALMOST THERE THOUGH.

For my main rig, I ended up installing the Creators update of Windows 10; a fresh install. I was actually surprised on the level of improvement in terms of performance and fluidity of the interface. There are some differences that I've enjoyed so far. I didn't format my data drives (2 x 1TB WD Reds in RAID 1), so it was quick to have all my Steam games and other software load up in no time at all. I absolutely LOVE Office 365 for my productivity for work. Honestly, if you don't have a 365 subscription, you're missing out.

It's quite amazing what the nodes did to my computer. They must have fragmented the data all over the SSD and the TRIM command must have fainted and passed right out. All my programs now open lightning quick.

I have a couple questions that maybe some of you could answer:

  1. Does anyone use a NAS for storage? If yes, what box do you prefer? I'm going back and forth on buying one, but I want to have a backup location in case my internal RAID array goes wonky. Don't want to lose those wallet backups!

  2. Any neat programs that I don't know about yet? What are your top 3 that you use most?

Happy hump day!
-E