Computer Forum Chat Thread

[Alindra]

@Alindra I didn't mention tape backup because they are way too expensive for a home user in my opinion.

Funny to hear that, the first PC my parents bought had a tape backup system - I think this was in the 90s? I know, I know, it's really easy to buy a lot of storage now that makes tapes pretty unattractive for consumers, but it's still funny to hear that they're too expensive.

I stopped maintaining collections of 'media' something like 10 years ago; I stream music and I'm not a television or film person so I've never had a desire to build a collection of video. Still, I can imagine something like a photo or film library that was 100s of gigabytes, or some large files like virtual machines.

I think that's one of the thing that makes this all work well: everything is treated the same way so there's very little cognitive overhead. If I ever need more space: SSDs are cheap ($500 for 2TB) so backups don't have to take forever. at ~500mb/s over USBC you can back up about 2 terabytes an hour so I start it before making diner and it'll be ready to go when I'm done.

Gotcha. Interesting take on the idea. Thanks!

As for media collections vs streaming... I can certainly understand the appeal of streaming, but I personally like owning & controlling my data.

Why do you even have a data cap at all on your wired internet? I supposed you could get a decent ISP in major US cities.

I don't think data caps on wired connections used to be a thing, but I believe it was Comcast that started trialing it in select areas in the mid 2000s. Well, it never got slapped down and got more common after that.

Honestly, 1 TB with 150+ mbps down is probably better than 90% of the internet access in the 'states, and - from what I hear - we pay more for it, too. We can thank regional monopolies, lobbying, and the FCC being in bed with corporations. Hell, the FCC was talking about reducing the speed required for a connection to be considered broadband from 25 mbps to 10 mbps. Why? Who knows, probably just to inflate the statistics of the number of people with broadband access at all.

It's pretty fucked.

[Artorius]

It's not like 1TB is that restrictive, I don't check this kind of thing often but I'd suppose I rarely go over 500GB monthly. But it's still a limit that doesn't need to exist, specially if you're in a area that's not supposed to have connection problems due to location.

I think most "national-level" ISPs here do have retarded data caps too, but I'd like to believe you can usually get a better service with smaller regional companies. I do get limitless FTTH PON here, but I live 1 street away from the ISP's HQ and they're the best in the country according to our regulating agency (which is hilarious considering they're in a fairly insignificant state without any real technology related industry).

Also, technically speaking anything that's faster than dial-up is considered "broadband", and that's anything that's faster than 56 kbps =p

[Alindra]

It's not like 1TB is that restrictive, I don't check this kind of thing often but I'd suppose I rarely go over 500GB monthly. But it's still a limit that doesn't need to exist, specially if you're in a area that's not supposed to have connection problems due to location.

I think most "national-level" ISPs here do have retarded data caps too, but I'd like to believe you can usually get a better service with smaller regional companies. I do get limitless FTTH PON here, but I live 1 street away from the ISP's HQ and they're the best in the country according to our regulating agency (which is hilarious considering they're in a fairly insignificant state without any real technology related industry).

I agree, 1 TB isn't that restrictive (my usage is usually in the 150 - 250 GB range), but the principle of the thing. Then again, maybe their idea is to have a limit, but set it high enough only the most extreme data hogs get hit by it. That's just a guess, though.

Fiber connection, good customer service, and you have options of ISPs? I already said internet access here is fucked, way to rub salt in the wound! :P Dare I ask what kind of speeds you see, understanding that you're a bit of an outlier given your - how shall we say - extremely advantageous location?

Also, technically speaking anything that's faster than dial-up is considered "broadband", and that's anything that's faster than 56 kbps =p

Touche! Alright - technically broadband, but it's not legally.

[Remilia]

There really aren't any small ISPs in the US. There are some weirder outliers like publicly owned broadband network iirc. Forgot which state or county has it but it's there.

[Artorius]

Bitrate here is nothing impressive, they offered us the fibre service at some point when they were upgrading their infrastructure in the neighbourhood and since my dad was the one who talked to them I don't even know what was offered. The service didn't even show up in their website, but we pay half as we did before with DOCSIS which makes me believe it's the lowest possible fibre plan. It's just 100/40, though now we get 0ms latency to the ISP in a connection that never ever drops or oscillates at all.

Edit: It actually shows up in the website now, for normal consumers the highest plan is 300/120 though I can't see pricing anywhere...

[Darsithis]

A bit OT, but just a bit of an etiquette question: I know I'm not always the most punctual with replies (I only ever really have time to post after I get home from work) and sometimes I want to reply to multiple posts at once, but it feels like I'm not only slapping the thread with a wall of text, but also making replies to posts on topics that have sort of fallen out of scope.

Should I avoid making replies to posts that haven't been touched in X days?
Should I avoid replying to multiple posts at once? If so, how many would you recommend?

I'm probably overthinking this, but it has come up more than once where I've debated whether I should reply or not that I figured I should at least ask.

Doesn't really matter, overall, you can reply to people at your own speed. If someone gets mad, eh, that's their problem

[DeltrusDisc]

Why do you even have a data cap at all on your wired internet? I supposed you could get a decent ISP in major US cities.

Xfinity is the best.

We could pay more for unlimited, but I am pretty sure we use less than 100GB per month...

Also, I ran that userbenchmark suite.

UserBenchmarks: Game 139%, Desk 122%, Work 111%
CPU: Intel Core i7-5820K - 96.8%
GPU: Nvidia GTX 1080-Ti - 179.4%
SSD: Crucial MX100 512GB - 77.1%
SSD: Crucial M500 240GB - 83.2%
SSD: Samsung 950 NVMe PCIe M.2 256GB - 207.2%
HDD: WD Blue 1TB (2012) - 68.8%
HDD: WD Black 1TB (2013) - 86.5%
HDD: WD Black 5TB (2015) - 79.6%
RAM: Unknown CT8G4DFD8213.C16FAR Micron 16ATF1G64AZ-2G1A1 CT8G4DFD8213.C16FAR Micron 16ATF1G64AZ-2G1A1 32GB - 104.8%
MBD: Asus X99-DELUXE

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I want to know why my Black 5TB keeps performing so terribly.

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Also, GOOD NEWS EVERYONE:

I finally installed the Crucial MX500 1TB SSD I bought like 2-3 weeks ago! Hooray!

I'm reinstalling Windows 10 Pro onto my Samsung 950 Pro NVMe drive, as I'm just not really ready to buy a 970 Evo, as much as I want to. The 950 Pro is an incredibly fast drive already, anyways. Also, I need to replace the m.2 SATA drive in my old 2015~ HP Omen laptop, I wonder if that slot will take and use an NVMe drive. >_>

[Alindra]

Bitrate here is nothing impressive, they offered us the fibre service at some point when they were upgrading their infrastructure in the neighbourhood and since my dad was the one who talked to them I don't even know what was offered. The service didn't even show up in their website, but we pay half as we did before with DOCSIS which makes me believe it's the lowest possible fibre plan. It's just 100/40, though now we get 0ms latency to the ISP in a connection that never ever drops or oscillates at all.

Edit: It actually shows up in the website now, for normal consumers the highest plan is 300/120 though I can't see pricing anywhere...

Fair enough. I'm actually a little surprised, I just assumed it would be faster as fibre (all the fibre plans I've ever heard of were faster than cable internet). Of course, if you do any significant amount of uploading, then it might balance out.

Ah, the 'ole "contact us for pricing" shtick, huh? That sounds expensive. :P

Doesn't really matter, overall, you can reply to people at your own speed. If someone gets mad, eh, that's their problem

That's kind of what I was planning on if I didn't get a response, but I wanted to be neighborly and see if anyone had strong opinions.

Xfinity is the best.

My experience with the speeds have been great and uptime have been great so far, but I wouldn't say I'm Xfinity is the "best." I've heard too many horror stories about Comcast (not to mention their anti-net neutrality lobbying) to say anything positive about them as a company.

Also, I ran that userbenchmark suite.

...

I want to know why my Black 5TB keeps performing so terribly.

Nice! I haven't done any sort of benchmarking in years, so I didn't even recognize the site you used. It's interesting that it gave you statistics for people with the same hardware as you. I would've thought that'd be a pretty small sample size.

As for your WD Black, could it be a dud / the opposite of winning the silicon lottery? Is that even a thing for hdds?

[Darsithis]

Xfinity is the best.

Depends on where you live. In Chicago, Xfinity has a bad reputation compared to AT&T, that's why we stuck with AT&T when we switched to fiber.

[Artorius]

Fair enough. I'm actually a little surprised, I just assumed it would be faster as fibre (all the fibre plans I've ever heard of were faster than cable internet). Of course, if you do any significant amount of uploading, then it might balance out.

Here it's 15 USD for 100Mbps/40Mbps, the 300/120 shouldn't be that expensive. I might actually contact them later just to find out how much it would cost, sounds tempting. I think they don't have pricing in their website because they can't offer it everywhere yet.

They have a plan that does look expensive, 1Gbps/1Gbps but comes with a bunch of other things like 24/7 in site technician support which is obviously aimed at companies =p

[DeltrusDisc]

Depends on where you live. In Chicago, Xfinity has a bad reputation compared to AT&T, that's why we stuck with AT&T when we switched to fiber.

Up here in the Northern suburbs AT&T doesn't seem interested in providing any real connections. If I'm getting fiber I want real fiber, not the joke they've pandered. Comcast has almost had a 100% uptime over the past decade+ for us and has upgraded our speed several times in the last couple years.

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My experience with the speeds have been great and uptime have been great so far, but I wouldn't say I'm Xfinity is the "best." I've heard too many horror stories about Comcast (not to mention their anti-net neutrality lobbying) to say anything positive about them as a company.



Nice! I haven't done any sort of benchmarking in years, so I didn't even recognize the site you used. It's interesting that it gave you statistics for people with the same hardware as you. I would've thought that'd be a pretty small sample size.

As for your WD Black, could it be a dud / the opposite of winning the silicon lottery? Is that even a thing for hdds?

I just meant around here it's the best option I've seen.

Yeah this benchmarking site is fine, I won't use it for my CPU/GPU benchmarking threads, though.

The HDD has been in my computer for like 3 years, it never seems slow when I use it, so idk what's going on. Maybe I should defrag it. Course Windows might be automatically doing that.

[Alindra]

Here it's 15 USD for 100Mbps/40Mbps, the 300/120 shouldn't be that expensive. I might actually contact them later just to find out how much it would cost, sounds tempting. I think they don't have pricing in their website because they can't offer it everywhere yet.

They have a plan that does look expensive, 1Gbps/1Gbps but comes with a bunch of other things like 24/7 in site technician support which is obviously aimed at companies =p

100 / 40 for $15
vs
180 / 10 for $75 with a very slight (~$5) promo (actually, I think the speed I pay for is less than 180, but that's the top end speed that I'll actually see when, say, downloading a game from Steam)

Yep, I'm getting bent over on price. If the 300 / 120 is more expensive than mine, I'll be surprised.

I just meant around here it's the best option I've seen.

Gotcha!

The HDD has been in my computer for like 3 years, it never seems slow when I use it, so idk what's going on. Maybe I should defrag it. Course Windows might be automatically doing that.

Well, if you're not noticing it, is it really a big problem? (Granted, 8th percentile is pretty bad. :P)

[DeltrusDisc]

Well, I don't write to it very often. It's buffered by a 12thread, 32GB DDR4 system running on an NVMe 950 Pro and 3 SATA SSDs. lol

[Artorius]

What's wrong with AT&T's fibre service to make you not consider it "real"? If it's because it's HFC with coaxial in the last few metres then yeah that'd be a meme since every single worthwhile client-side DOCSIS service is done through fibre in the primary network.

I'm inclined to believe it's an implementation of PON, just like any fibre service I know of. Companies sometimes change the modulation scheme, the multiple-access method or the protocols, but in the end it's still a flavour of PON =p

[DeltrusDisc]

From what I know, around where I live, AT&T mostly only has satellite, but even if they do have wired, again, Comcast has had incredible up-time for my house for over a decade, has increased our speeds several times at no additional charge, and thus I really have no reason to suggest to my dad we move to AT&T.

[apepi]

Hey, I haven't talked to guys in a while. Just wanted to tell you guys I love you. Right now I am having some rough times(My mother has cancer and it seems terminal). Just wanted to tell you guys I appreciated talking to you guys. <3

[Alindra]

That's terrible, @apepi! You have my condolences; I can't imagine what you must be going though right now.

Whenever you're feeling up to posting, we'll be around (or lurking) to welcome you back.

[Remilia]

Condolences and hope everything goes well.

[Artorius]

I hope it goes well

[Remilia]

Hm, Lenovo A485 is released in Japan... can't order it here yet. I'd order the JP one but it doesn't let me use foreign cards to pay. >.>